[SOLVED] Older PC power cycling randomly

tasmanianwolfe

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AMD A10-5800K
ASUS F2A85-M Pro
MSI R9 390
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand TPG-1200M
Windows 10 x64
Cooler Master Seidon 240M

I have an older pc that's recently started power cycling randomly. I'm not getting any information from windows besides the computer shut down unexpectedly, I've checked the drives for errors, I've checked the memory, the temperatures are well under control so I don't know what else to check. I'm hoping it's either the apu or mobo that's causing the problems because they're the oldest and I just managed to get my hands on a barely used fx8350 and M5A97 R2 but I haven't put them in yet. Any ideas on what could be causing this? I'm not getting BSOD and the only message I'm getting after reboot is "default radeon wattman settings have been restored due to unexpected system failure". Thanks for any help!
 
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I don't know if I'd go THAT far, but I've definitely SEEN a lot of patterns and patterns tend to hold true. The patterns I'VE seen tend to indicate that power supplies and motherboards USUALLY cause these kinds of issue, with an occasional oddball short thrown in and of course shorts can be anything including graphics card, standoff to the back of the motherboard, storage device, cables, front panel mini board I/O, fans, other expansion cards, memory, etc.

There is never any accounting for shorts, but USUALLY they become pretty obvious in rather short (ahem) order.

Given your situation I think I'd just swap out the motherboard and CPU, pop a fresh CR 2032 battery in the new motherboard and see if you still have the same problem. If...
That PSU is likely about 8 years old. I'd be very surprised if it was not the source of your problems. In ANY case, that is where I would start.

I'd look for a high quality PSU of 650w or higher and I'd take a look at my model recommendations at the following link to assist with selecting a unit.

 
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tasmanianwolfe

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That PSU is likely about 8 years old. I'd be very surprised if it was not the source of your problems. In ANY case, that is where I would start.

I'd look for a high quality PSU of 650w or higher and I'd take a look at my model recommendations at the following link to assist with selecting a unit.

The PSU is only about 4 years old, it's 1200w and it's 80 Plus Gold Certified, it's actually still under warranty. The APU and mobo are both about 8 years old though
 
Given the age of that system I wouldn't be surprised to see a dead CMOS battery which could affect just about everything.

What, exactly, do you mean by "power cycle" because a lot of people have different meanings or definitions for that. Is it doing it when you boot up, and going through a boot loop. Trying to boot over and over again? If so, then there's a good chance it could be the CMOS battery. If the BIOS won't hold it's settings, it will keep booting and training the memory, then boot and train, boot and train, and never actually POST.
 
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Karadjgne

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There's a battery on the mobo that keeps CMOS settings, and consequently bios settings active. Part of bios is time/date. If those are being reset back to the time/date bios was last/originally installed then running programs can run into timestamp conflicts, which will reset the pc.

Unlike a Windows shutdown which stores any CMOS/ram data on storage drive waiting on a reboot, a reset wipes out cmos, ram data and forcibly boots from the bios, loading from scratch. Which includes the bad date setting.

That battery is 8 years old at least unless you've replaced it recently. A non-current time/date after a reset is a dead give-away of a dead battery.
 
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tasmanianwolfe

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Given the age of that system I wouldn't be surprised to see a dead CMOS battery which could affect just about everything.

What, exactly, do you mean by "power cycle" because a lot of people have different meanings or definitions for that. Is it doing it when you boot up, and going through a boot loop. Trying to boot over and over again? If so, then there's a good chance it could be the CMOS battery. If the BIOS won't hold it's settings, it will keep booting and training the memory, then boot and train, boot and train, and never actually POST.
It boots up fine, but then at some point, it could be 10 minutes, it could be a few hours later it will shut off, reboot completely, immediately shut off again, reboot and continue that cycle until I do a hard shutdown.
 
CMOS battery will not make the system just "shut off". At least, I've never seen that happen. I would STILL replace the CMOS battery though, because you never know. It COULD potentially cause that to happen if it is not able to properly train and retain the memory configuration settings in the BIOS because the CMOS battery is weak or dead. Plus, it probably needs to be replaced anyhow AND those batteries only run about two or three bucks at any Walmart or other stores that sell a fair selection of batteries. CR 2032 is the model for most all CMOS batteries in desktop motherboards.

As far as just shutting off, if that ISN'T the problem, then I'd be looking directly at the power supply. Power supply and motherboard are about the only things that can commonly just make the system restart with no bluescreen or other errors.

Did you make ANY hardware changes recently, at all?

That FX 8350 and that A10 5800k were released the same year, so they are likely about the same age, although the FX-8350 is somewhat more powerful than the A10 unit. Might not be the worst idea to swap those out anyhow, but don't be TOO surprised if you need to replace the CMOS battery in THAT motherboard as well because it's likely just as old. Both were released in 2012.
 
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Actually it doesn't always reboot all the way, but it normally does, it seems like an overheating problem but the temperatures aren't even going past 50c

Aside from PSU, this could COMMONLY be a bad capacitor on the motherboard. Take a visual inspection of the board and see if there are any bulging or leaking capacitors at all. There doesn't have to be for there to be a problem, but if there ARE, then it's a pretty telltale sign.





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tasmanianwolfe

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CMOS battery will not make the system just "shut off". At least, I've never seen that happen. I would STILL replace the CMOS battery though, because you never know. It COULD potentially cause that to happen if it is not able to properly train and retain the memory configuration settings in the BIOS because the CMOS battery is weak or dead. Plus, it probably needs to be replaced anyhow AND those batteries only run about two or three bucks at any Walmart or other stores that sell a fair selection of batteries. CR 2032 is the model for most all CMOS batteries in desktop motherboards.

As far as just shutting off, if that ISN'T the problem, then I'd be looking directly at the power supply. Power supply and motherboard are about the only things that can commonly just make the system restart with no bluescreen or other errors.

Did you make ANY hardware changes recently, at all?

That FX 8350 and that A10 5800k were released the same year, so they are likely about the same age, although the FX-8350 is somewhat more powerful than the A10 unit. Might not be the worst idea to swap those out anyhow, but don't be TOO surprised if you need to replace the CMOS battery in THAT motherboard as well because it's likely just as old. Both were released in 2012.
I'll definitely check the capacitors, I haven't actually looked close at any of the hardware. I haven't made any hardware changes since 4 years ago when I replaced everything except the apu and mobo, and I also kept 2 memory sticks and added 2 more. As I said in the original post though I'm going to replace the apu with an almost new 8350 and mobo to keep the pc running for a while. I have another new gen pc I use, I just wanted to keep this one running as long as possible.
 

Karadjgne

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Well DB, you've been fortunate. I have had timestamp issues shutdown my daughter's pc, it was an old Athlon64 3200+. The only thing running was XP SP2, since I had run into the SP3 bug which killed clock speeds. Did the exact same boot recycle gig as Op described. I chalked it up to an AMD peculiarity since my Intels didn't do that, even after time/date resets on boot.
 
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tasmanianwolfe

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Well DB, you've been fortunate. I have had timestamp issues shutdown my daughter's pc, it was an old Athlon64 3200+. The only thing running was XP SP2, since I had run into the SP3 bug which killed clock speeds. Did the exact same boot recycle gig as Op described. I chalked it up to an AMD peculiarity since my Intels didn't do that, even after time/date resets on boot.
Were you able to fix it?
 

Karadjgne

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Yep. Cost me $2 at the Dollar General down the street for a new battery.

But Darkbreeze suggestion to inspect the mobo is solid advice, it is an 8 year old board, so very easily could have a popped capacitor or 3.

The TT Toughpower Grands are the best that TT puts its name on, by a decent margin, but even at only 4 years old, could still be suffering from that same capacitor leakage, which will definitely shut a pc down at odd moments. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened.

DB and I have a love-hate relationship. I love to argue with him, he hates the lengths he has to go to to set me straight. But even with that, when it comes to diagnosing stuff like this, he's one of the sharpest tacks in the box. I discount nothing he says is a possibility until I can Prove otherwise. If he says the psu is a good possibility, regardless of other considerations like age or size or usage, it's a possibility or even a probability until You can Prove otherwise. 😉

Beyond a shadow of doubt.
 
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I don't know if I'd go THAT far, but I've definitely SEEN a lot of patterns and patterns tend to hold true. The patterns I'VE seen tend to indicate that power supplies and motherboards USUALLY cause these kinds of issue, with an occasional oddball short thrown in and of course shorts can be anything including graphics card, standoff to the back of the motherboard, storage device, cables, front panel mini board I/O, fans, other expansion cards, memory, etc.

There is never any accounting for shorts, but USUALLY they become pretty obvious in rather short (ahem) order.

Given your situation I think I'd just swap out the motherboard and CPU, pop a fresh CR 2032 battery in the new motherboard and see if you still have the same problem. If you do, replace the power supply. That is how I'd tackle it, but however you move forward, I'd for sure replace the CMOS battery like both I and Kardjgne have suggested.

There aren't many three dollar fixes out there when it comes to computers and even if it isn't the problem, given the age of these boards it is a very good idea to start with a fresh battery regardless.
 
Solution
Actually, I'd go to the AMD website and get them. For me, I like to get all chipset drivers from Intel or AMD directly, when available (And they are NOT always available, as seen by the Z390 chipset drivers which are no where to be found on the Intel website and must be sourced by board model from Intel or from the motherboard manufacturer). They tend to offer much newer updated versions of the chipset drivers especially once board manufacturers lose interest in older models.
 
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