My PC randomly turns off [Solved!]

[Ziggy]

Sound like a malfunctioning power supply unit to me.

It always seems like the PSU, but rarely is (unless you have a cheap PSU - such as the type found in most brand name computers).

It turns off, and if I turn it on inmediatedly it doesn't last long. If I wait, it will probably work. Sometimes it lasts forever, other times it doesn't last an hour. The CPU is not to blame, there's no CPU overheat message.

Definitely sounds like an overheating issue. What do you have that would give you an error message for an overheating CPU? The BIOS? And also, overheating isn't limited to the CPU. I had a computer shut off constantly, took forever to find out what it was. Turned out to be an overheating north bridge.

Does the computer turn off suddenly, like the power went out? Or does Windows shut down and then shut off?

[Hobie-wan]

It turns off, and if I turn it on inmediatedly it doesn't last long. If I wait, it will probably work. Sometimes it lasts forever, other times it doesn't last an hour. The CPU is not to blame, there's no CPU overheat message.

Definitely sounds like an overheating issue. What do you have that would give you an error message for an overheating CPU? The BIOS? And also, overheating isn't limited to the CPU. I had a computer shut off constantly, took forever to find out what it was. Turned out to be an overheating north bridge.

Does the computer turn off suddenly, like the power went out? Or does Windows shut down and then shut off?

Indeed. If the machine is only gradually overheating, then you might get a warning. But if the overheat warnings aren't set (or are too high) in BIOS or if the PC is overheating quickly because you just started up a 3D game where everything is working hard, you'd likely have a sudden shutdown. Even if you went immediately into BIOS or ran a temperature program after starting back up, it might have cooled off enough to look normal again.

You might peek inside and look for dust anyway and run a temp monitoring program that you can keep an eye on while running some synthetic benchmark programs that will tax the system to double check. Also take a look in Control Panel > Admin Tools > Events and see what warnings or errors have happened recently in the System section. It's very likely you're going to see some "Windows has recovered from a serious error" messages which might give you more clues.

[Ack]

You might peek inside and look for dust anyway and run a temp monitoring program that you can keep an eye on while running some synthetic benchmark programs that will tax the system to double check. Also take a look in Control Panel > Admin Tools > Events and see what warnings or errors have happened recently in the System section. It's very likely you're going to see some "Windows has recovered from a serious error" messages which might give you more clues.

My first suspicion was that you're overheating. Cleaning out your computer is the easiest and cheapest possibility, so hopefully it's just that too much dust has built up. Go buy a cheap can of compressed air and spend some time blowing it out.

If that doesn't help, then start checking everything else. But it's best to start with the simplest fix and work up from there.

[Hobie-wan]

Go buy a cheap can of compressed air and spend some time blowing it out.

Just remember, hold fans still with a pen or something that keeps your fingers out of the way and short bursts work better then a long blast. The sound of the fan whirring sounds cool but it kills fan bearings that aren't meant to go that fast.

[thelolotov]

Just my $0.02, check and make sure all your fans are working, I had this happen to me for the longest time, overheating north bridge because the fan was on its way out.

I'd say check all of your fans, clean it out, run it with the side off (But be careful while doing that, do NOT touch anything while it is running, and wear an anti-static strap if you can)

Also, try and boot some sort of linux live cd as well as run Memtest 86, if it still turns off, it is definitely overheating.

If you have done all of the above, and it is still turning off, boot into windows and run speedfan, and see if anything is getting too hot.

[Ivo]

It also seems like an overheating issue to me.

The other thing I thought was a power supply issue if the PSU lost some capacity to provide enough juice to everything, and when some component tries to draw more power it goes over its capacity to deliver and shuts down.

If it was the PSU though I do not see why there would be a correlation of having more shutdowns after starting it back after one though, which fits much more with a overheating problem.

Ivo.

[VGMStudios]

I was going to suggest to check the RAM. Glad someone already suggested that.

VGM out...

[Erik_Twice]

I also think it's an overheat issue given it's random nature. Probably the PSU is overheating and turns everything off.

I will try to clean my computer well tomorrow.

[Erik_Twice]

Bump!

Cleaned my computer, there was barely any dust so I don't think it was the cause.

So yeah, I will need to test another PSU or something =/

[Hatta]

I wouldn't bother until you've booted a live CD to eliminate software problems.