Question Help troubleshoot potential power button problem

[michaeld_83]

My computer keeps shutting down and I am wondering if anyone has any advice.

It started yesterday. My daughter admitted to spilling some juice on my desk (mostly on keyboard) with a few drops falling on the front/top of the pc case near power button and usb.

She said it was just a drop and she carried on using the pc normally for half an hour and switched it off herself all seeming normal. A few hours later she turned it on and it started to quickly shut down after switching on. It was shutting down immediately, like when you hold down button.

I opened front of case and saw a couple of tiny bits of sludge at the top of an unused optical drive where a small amount of water had mixed with a lot of dust. I could not see any sign of moisture near wiring up near buttons/usb but it is conceivable a drop or two could have gone down buttons.

Thinking of alternatives I remember getting graphic driver errors in the days leading up so I turn it on later and upgraded to latest adrenaline update. Then I turned off my pc and switched off at back and left it for about 22 hours to dry any potentially lingering moisture down button.

This evening I switched it on and it worked fine for an hour, I updated programs, ran virus/spyware check and daughter watched youtube. After an hour it shut down (showing "shutting down" screen and not straight off). We turned it back on immediately and it worked fine for half an hour (cpu temps in 40s) then it shut down again. We restarted and it shut down after 5 mins.

When it shut down that time it then restarted itself by itself after being off for about 30 seconds and then shut itself off again (straight off) quickly before doing it again. Only switching it off at back seemed to stop it.

My guess is the power button is the cause here. Does that seem likely? Where do I go from here?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

My guess is the power button is the cause here. Does that seem likely? Where do I go from here?

without actual images to view or the ability to inspect; i would first consider it an issue with the motherboard's power & restart pins.

try disconnecting all of the case power cables' connectors to the motherboard,
power down Windows,
then try shorting the power pins to start-up the system.

if crashes and/or random shutting down continues then it is likely that the motherboard itself sustained some damage.

 

[michaeld_83]

Thanks for quick reply.

There is no chance at all the motherboard got any moisture on it itself, could a rogue drop down the button really affect it? The amount of liquid that fell on the front was so small.

Is the fact it was able to work normally for a good amount of time a good sign?

Will try this tomorrow, sorry what do you mean by shorting?

 

[michaeld_83]

That was great advice, I shorted the power switch and the pc has been working fine for 5.5 hours now with no problems. Not a definitive amount of time but considering what was happening the last two days hopefully not a coincidence.

It will be a massive relief if the motherboard is fine, only issue is I have a fractal design r3 case and the power button is really large and the whole front does not look as set for a swap out as the newer ones. Any alternate buttons will surely be too small, if attaching a new one is even possible.