PC - Abruptly shutting down after about 5 - 7 minutes

[rohitgangal80]

I have a very old desktop pc (Ideally it should find its place in e-waste by now) AMD Athlon 1800 Socket A PC with M7NCG motherboard, 1GB DDR1!. Occasionally I would just switch it on for may be half an hour or so and shut it down.

Now a days within 5 minutes of switching it on, it just abruptly shuts down. Then it does not start for at least another 15 – 20 minutes. Later it starts and again shuts down within 5 minutes or so.
It has Windows XP but now I am just running it on BIOS screen, HDD is disconnected, same behavior.

I have run PSU (It's about 300 W) in isolation (paperclip test) and PSU ran well for over 30 minutes.

I have physically looked at the board and I think I do not see any bulging capacitor.

What might trigger this behavior? Could it be some bad component on the motherboard or within the PSU that may result into this behavior? Temperature does not shoot beyond 35 Deg C (95 F) when on BIOS screen. All Voltages CPU Core, +5, +12 look ok on the 'Show PC health' screen in BIOS.

Something certainly is not holding itself after about 5 minutes of usage. What could be such a component?

 

[jay.wooster]

Can you download HWInfo64 (free) or Core Temp and run the sensors as soon as you download it and monitor all the temps when windows is running, sounds like there may be a cooling problem....

 

[passivecool]

I would also suggest thermal troubleshooting. Remount the cpu cooler with new thermal paste. Check the clips and ensure an even, snug fitting. Strap it down with cable binders if necessary. Transfer all data to backup drives´immediately! Begin your farewell or donate to your local technical museum. Destroy the HDD before disposal.