Question Help!!! my 7 year olds pc is killing me(random shut downs)

[OrionsBLT]

Hi my 7 year old has a dell xps 8700 that he uses for gaming and its starting to shut down randomly the last few weeks. Ive tried re-applying thermal paste to pcu and gpu(which were xried solid) and it worked for a day or two. The thermal inductors next to the pcu get hot enough to where i can hardly touch them and the time on windows changes. PSU? CMOS battery? Im driven to insanity with this pc and cant afford another one please help lol.

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original, new, refurbished, used)?

Disk drives: make, model, capacity, how full?

Is the Dell XPS 8700 clean of dust and debris?

Are all connectors, cards, RAM, and jumpers fully and firmly in place.

Any errors being captured in Reliability History and Event Viewer?

If the time (and likely date) on Windows is changing then install a new CMOS battery.

 

[OrionsBLT]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original, new, refurbished, used)?

Disk drives: make, model, capacity, how full?

Is the Dell XPS 8700 clean of dust and debris?

Are all connectors, cards, RAM, and jumpers fully and firmly in place.

Any errors being captured in Reliability History and Event Viewer?

If the time (and likely date) on Windows is changing then install a new CMOS battery.

Dell xps8700
WD 2tb hard drive 75% full
I cleaned dust from every possible fan and heastsink a month ago. I re-installed the ram and tried each stick individually so they all check out fine. I re-plugged every sata cable and power connector.
The PSU is a used one i had in the basement for a few years. The oem blew just before halloween. its 400w and has been working fine untill now.The oem was 430 watts.
The time only got reset once but the date was always right.
There were no errors ever.
The 3 coils next to the cpu are crazy hot. I applied thermal paste to the cpu, The paste was from my neighbor and may be some aliexpress stuff, so i don't know what to think. I am heartbroken as I can't afford another pc right now.

 

[rcald2000]

Duracell - 2032 3V Lithium Coin Battery - with Bitter Coating - 1 Count
$1.73
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GN8ZYZR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[OrionsBLT]

Duracell - 2032 3V Lithium Coin Battery - with Bitter Coating - 1 Count
$1.73
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GN8ZYZR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I hope you guys are right and this is all thats wrong. Is it normal for inductor coils to be super hot?

 

[rcald2000]

To be clear, I'm not stating that a dead CMOS battery is absolutely the cause of your problem. But since you mentioned that Windows time changes, replacing the battery is part of the normal course of troubleshooting. Just to be clear, your son's computer is shutting down, permanently sleeping or restarting? If shutting down, what specific symptom tells you that? If only black screen, have you confirmed that no fans are turning inside system? Could it possibly be not waking up from sleep mode? Does this problem happen only while gaming? standby? hibernation? Which Windows OS are you running? Any details about the OEM previously blowing out that you think are relevant?

Addendum: What's the manufacturer and full model name of the replacement power supply?

 

[OrionsBLT]

All fans are working fine.It shuts off and always restarts(sometimes multiple attempts
), It usully happens when there is a load on it like gaming or using blender or unreal engine or even just firefox sometimes,and when it happens it will happen over and over after the initial sh Im running windows 8.1.
The oem psu blew randomly one day, probably because we run it alot. My kid games alot and i use it to develop games at night. The psu i replaced it with is 30w below spec but i never had trouble untill now.

 

[Ralston18]

Key words: "until now"....

Make and model replacement PSU?

Unfortunately an under powered PSU may last for "awhile" but if continually operating at the high end of its' rated wattage then the PSU is going degrade faster.

Playing games and developing games likely a double whammy...

Especially so with many products with designed in EOLs (End of Life).

Do you have a multi-meter and know how to use it? Or know someone who does?

You can do some testing but it is not a full test because the PSU is not under load.

Any voltages out of tolerance are an indication that problems are developing.

FYI:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-manually-test-a-power-supply-with-a-multimeter-2626158

 

[Tac 25]

this looks like a dying PSU problem. The symptoms are similar to when my backup pc would random shutdown during games. A problem solved by replacing the PSU.

getting a brand new PSU might be needed.

 

[rcald2000]

OrionsBLT Any update?

 

[rcald2000]

SKisha Any update?