[Help] PC shuts off randomly?

[SickDisturbence]

Greetings!

Bear with me, this story is a little long. I purchased some parts off of Newegg for my son's PC that i built him. I have been building computers for over 15 years and I know my way around hardware compatibility and installation. I assembled the computer and it ran great for around a week. Then it would randomly turn off, as if the power plug had been pulled. I was able to restart the computer but only after physically pulling the power plug and re-inserting it. I could not get it to start up by just pressing the power button after a shutoff. I thought maybe the brand new power supply I had gotten was bad, so I went and put in one of my spares. That didn't solve the problem. Below are the computer specs and a continuation of the story.

8GB DDR3 G.Skill Ripjaws X RAM
AMD FX-4300 Vishera Quad-Core 3.8GHZ CPU
MSI R7770-PMD1GD5 1GB DDR5 Video Card
BIOSTAR TA970 AM3+ Motherboard

I began to notice that after I experienced these shutoffs that the power led was still lit, but yet everything else was off. No fans, no lights, nothing would work until I unplugged the power. So my next thought was that it was overheating. I moved the case to a more ventilated area, installed 3 new fans on it, actively monitored the temperatures at all times and they never went outside of recommended specification but I was still getting the shutoffs. So I contacted BIOSTAR to see if their tech support had any answers. He said it sounds like it could be an overheating issue but then I gave him the temperatures I was seeing and he confirmed that I was still around 10C below the danger of overheating (I had even disabled 2 of the CPU cores and turned off all smart-fan settings and set them to max setting). He suggested I RMA the MB, which I did. I got a new MB back yesterday, hooked everything up and it worked just fine for around 6 hours until I powered it off for the night. But this morning I went to start the PC, it probably barely got into windows (I had walked away) and when I came back, it was off. This time the power led isn't lit in the front though, but i still have to unplug the power and plug it back in to be able to reboot it. Does anybody have any suggestions on what it could be? Its a pretty fresh install of Win 7 with not much on it. Everything is up to date, including drivers.

Oh I almost forgot, I ran some memory tests on the memory and I didnt see any issues, I even only put in one at a time.Thanks for any help you are able to provide me, i'm stumped 🙁

 

[itsVance]

If your computer is sitting at 10c below maximum threshold at desktop there's definitely a problem.

I would question whether or not your son properly applied thermal compound during installation, or if he touched the top of the CPU during installation, but at this point you have already moved over to a new motherboard.

When you removed the CPU to put it into the replacement motherboard, did you also have to remove the Heatsink from the CPU? If so, did you properly clean the heatsink and CPU of the old thermal compound before properly reapplying it?

 

[FMatos]

Excluding the possibility of cpu overheating (wich in fact is a bit high), have you tried to connect it on other sockets? i know this sounds stupid, but it may be related to socket voltage, you can try to use a socket extension and see if the problem continues.

Also, where have you been monitoring the temps? have you already seen it on BIOS software?

 

[SickDisturbence]

If your computer is sitting at 10c below maximum threshold at desktop there's definitely a problem.

I would question whether or not your son properly applied thermal compound during installation, or if he touched the top of the CPU during installation, but at this point you have already moved over to a new motherboard.

When you removed the CPU to put it into the replacement motherboard, did you also have to remove the Heatsink from the CPU? If so, did you properly clean the heatsink and CPU of the old thermal compound before properly reapplying it?

There's a problem if the CPU is 10c below the maximum temperature limit? I didn't know a CPU could be too cool. I did have to separate the heat sink and the CPU, I used a thermal compound cleaning and preparing solution on both surfaces and re-applied the thermal compound as per the recommended instructions.

 

[SickDisturbence]

Excluding the possibility of cpu overheating (wich in fact is a bit high), have you tried to connect it on other sockets? i know this sounds stupid, but it may be related to socket voltage, you can try to use a socket extension and see if the problem continues.

Also, where have you been monitoring the temps? have you already seen it on BIOS software?

I have not tried other sockets, and I have been monitoring the temperature in both the BIOS and with SpeedFan.

 

[itsVance]

If your computer is sitting at 10c below maximum threshold at desktop there's definitely a problem.

I would question whether or not your son properly applied thermal compound during installation, or if he touched the top of the CPU during installation, but at this point you have already moved over to a new motherboard.

When you removed the CPU to put it into the replacement motherboard, did you also have to remove the Heatsink from the CPU? If so, did you properly clean the heatsink and CPU of the old thermal compound before properly reapplying it?

There's a problem if the CPU is 10c below the maximum temperature limit? I didn't know a CPU could be too cool. I did have to separate the heat sink and the CPU, I used a thermal compound cleaning and preparing solution on both surfaces and re-applied the thermal compound as per the recommended instructions.

Yes. If your CPU is sitting at 10c below max under normal circumstances, it will shut off as soon as it spikes up to protect itself from damage. Your CPU should be sitting 40-60% below maximum tolerance at desktop.

 

[SickDisturbence]

If your computer is sitting at 10c below maximum threshold at desktop there's definitely a problem.

I would question whether or not your son properly applied thermal compound during installation, or if he touched the top of the CPU during installation, but at this point you have already moved over to a new motherboard.

When you removed the CPU to put it into the replacement motherboard, did you also have to remove the Heatsink from the CPU? If so, did you properly clean the heatsink and CPU of the old thermal compound before properly reapplying it?

There's a problem if the CPU is 10c below the maximum temperature limit? I didn't know a CPU could be too cool. I did have to separate the heat sink and the CPU, I used a thermal compound cleaning and preparing solution on both surfaces and re-applied the thermal compound as per the recommended instructions.

Yes. If your CPU is sitting at 10c below max under normal circumstances, it will shut off as soon as it spikes up to protect itself from damage. Your CPU should be sitting 40-60% below maximum tolerance at desktop.

Ah, I missed the "at desktop" part. Under a good load i'm at 84% max tolerance. At desktop i am usually around 55ish%. My apologies for misunderstanding at first.

 

[itsVance]

This might seem like a silly question, but have you tried a different electrical outlet or PSU power cable?

 

[SickDisturbence]

This might seem like a silly question, but have you tried a different electrical outlet or PSU power cable?

Umm. Not extensively. I guess I can give that a shot. When i was working on it, i tested it on a table in a different room before setting it back up again. I used a different cable then also and didn't see it shut down. Of course I don't think that was too conclusive of a test, but for now i'll try both a different outlet and a different power cable.

 

[itsVance]

Great! Id like to think since you have 15 years of experience, it could probably be something not so obvious like that us smart guys would tend to overthink. =) But as your a hardware expert and do not know why its happening, it could also be something software related.

I have found this site with some tips:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000689.htm

They also suggest a virus could cause the problem.

 

[SickDisturbence]

Great! Id like to think since you have 15 years of experience, it could probably be something not so obvious like that us smart guys would tend to overthink. =) But as your a hardware expert and do not know why its happening, it could also be something software related.

I have found this site with some tips:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000689.htm

They also suggest a virus could cause the problem.

Cool, thanks for your help itsVance, I'll report back with any results or answers.