View Full Version : PC Shutting Down Prob
Hey fella's wondering if you can help me with my PC problemo!
For the last few months my PC had been freezing (requiring hard reset) every now and then when running games like PR and CoH. It wasn't frequent enough to get too worried about but the other day it happened about 10 times so i opened up my case and noticed that the CPU grill under the fan was clogged with dust. Without unscrewing it I cleared out most the dust using a paperclip as the fan was in the way!
From that point the freezing in game has completely stopped which is good, however, now my PC sometimes shuts down completely when playing. This occurs in PR maybe once a day, and every single time i try to run Brothers in Arms when loading up.
Now, I took the fan off the CPU to reveal the heatsink etc but not sure how that should look and whether it needs more gel on it. I'm pretty sure its not the RAM or the power supply, but hey, what do i know! :D
Any ideas? I can get pictures if needs be!
Well if the "gel", as you call it, have been dried out more or less and have become dark and somewhat burned looking. Then it might be the CPU cooler(By not being strong enough/not taking enough rps(dusty?)) or the paste.
But as the sounds of it, either some cable or device is not plugged properly, PSU not being strong enough( By happening when playing games that require some?). But to give a little better picture. could you tell us the computer specs.?
nk
Sir.Fingers
16-10-08, 19:48
Agreed we need more specs here
If you have removed your heat sink .the chances are the thermal paste will want replacing . It is an easy thing to do . keeping your PC clean inside the case is always helpful to keep it cool . You can buy air in a can that will remove it ( I use my garden leaf blower ) shutting down when your PC is under stress is usually a sign of overheating . but it could be a number of other things
Power.. what is your PSU rated at?
commando-101
16-10-08, 20:24
If there was that much shit in ya CPU fan m8, all the heatsinks/fans will need a good blast with an air can - especially the graphics card!
Operating System http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) Windows XP
Motherboard http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) Gigabyte K8NNF4 SLI ATX
Processor http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) AMD Athlon 64 FX57 2.8Ghz
Memory: http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) 2Gigabyte of CORSAIR Branded PC 3200 DDR RAM
Video Card http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) XFX branded "Extreme Edition" 256Mb DDRIII 7800GT (x2)
Sound Card http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) Realtek AC97
Hard Drive(s) http://www.realitymod.com/forum/images/misc/userfield_edit.gif (http://www.realitymod.com/forum/members/rico.html#) Maxtor Diamond Plus 10 300Gb Serial ATA
As far as I know im using a 600w PSU. The PC is about 3 years old now so if it is the PSU then it may be due to age, not its specs, as everything worked fine for years when i got it.
I clean out the inside of the PC quite regularly and my air can just ran out which is a pain. The heat sink paste did seem very dry and mainly around the edges, if i didnt know any better i'd say it was that (though i have zero to compare it against!). I can grab a picture at the weekend and you lot can take a gander if you like. I've also checked as many connections as i can see, im no pc expert so just check what i can see is seated properly.
and waht comm said.. so need to clean your whole rig out.
indeed, take it apart and clean it. Remove the old thermal paste witha cotton bud and white spirit or nail polish remover - WARNING DO NOT OVER DO IT. just light strokes will remove the old crap, then let it dry and reapply.
Pull your fans apart and hoover the buggers, hoover all the dust ouyt your case and cards. Be careful though.
commando-101
16-10-08, 21:02
You can get proper CPU paste removing liquid from your local puter shop (not that expensive) - cleans up like new & ready for some new arctic paste!
Random crashes are either heat or graphics related for the most part imo.
Of course the possible explanation is that the previous high temps have damaged a component - not much you can do if it has.
Cheers fella's. Will prob give the paste jobby a go this weekend.
Just had a blue screen crash after loading a new PR map which i havent had previously!
Sadist_Cain
16-10-08, 23:11
2 main things that will cause shut downs and blue screens Power (lack thereof) and overheating, (RAM's a possiblity but I'd rule that out for now)
Power would be the first thing I'd look at, get a good power calculator from t'internets and overestimate your Rig and see exactly how much it's sucking, easiest to do
Most likely I'm thinknig is heat, as the guys have said give it a thorough blasting with an air can, however where you were clogged with dust so much before 2 things may have happened
1. Permenant hardware damage, youd usually see artifacts and crazy stuff happening on screen all the time, then it'll fail.
2. Most likely from my point of view you've fried the Thermal Past holding everything together, get a good quality Thermal paste and re do all the heatsinks on to their appropriate chips, you'll know if this is the problem because the heatsinks will very easily come apart from the chips
check your PSU and Ram - I bought a new graphics card thinking that was my problem, and it turned out to be RAM.
What baffles me the most is why it crashes EVERY time i run BiA... but randomly when playing PR. Damn PC's :S
SargeBanner
17-10-08, 19:05
I know how you feel Rico ! I can play Colin Mcrae DiRT & only crash after a good few hours of gameplay, yet if i run ProStreet/Project Reality, I'll crash every 10 minutes ...
Methinks a RAM issue if your thermal pasting doesnt work out ?
Sarge.
What baffles me the most is why it crashes EVERY time i run BiA... but randomly when playing PR. Damn PC's :S
I had the same problem with CoH - crashed every time a cutscene played and randomly on skirmish - I'd bought a new gfx card and never got to the bottom of the problem other than to think the PSU was not powerful enough for new card
Thats the thing though.. this is a new problem, its never shut down by itself before :(
Okay so i fixed the problem of BiA shutting my comp down by reinstalling and various utilities sorting out the registry etc. Now still getting the problem of the game freezing after a few minutes and having to do hard restart.
Anyone know if PC world do heatsink paste? And where can i get pure alchol from to clean the old stuff up?
pure alcohol from boots, pc world do thermal paste
Ta very muchly... will give it a go tomorrow, so if i disappear you have ruined me! :D
Being an IT Engineer you woulda thought I'd know all this, lol.
Being an IT engineer i would of thought you could of sorted the problem out without resorting to asking us bunch of reprobabtes :D
Smeghead
You would :D
And dagnamit, BiA is back to shutting down my PC! Grrr... lets hope this paste jobby does the trick tomo
Well here goes nothing... may be back on later on my bro's laptop cursing and screaming if it all goes wrong! lol
Okay all pasted up and cleaned out and BiA still crashes the comp after the Geabox intro!
Gonna run Memtest now and see what that says grrrrr
If it is only BiA crashing.. i'd bet my mortage that your problem is not hardware!
If it were crashing after 30mins play, that might be different.
Nah after playing PR for a while (sometimes hours, othertimes minutes) it will either freeze (and require resetting) or will shut down completely. Has frozen playing CoH too but not in a while.
Can't get memtest to boot from CD and just had a blue screen of death, oh the joy! What the heck can i do?!
Unplug all hardware not NEEDED.. i.e extra CD drives, extra hard drives, usb devices.. cos if its a power issue this may resolve it and point you in the right direction.
commando-101
19-10-08, 13:19
Also, can you swap in another grapgics card to test it??
I had a similar problem on one of my PC's that turned out to be the graphics card (as much as I didnt want it to be it was!!)
Okay update again.
BiA runs fine when SLi is disabled, but will crash my system every time its started with SLi enabled. This leads to believe its either a GPU or PSU problem. (PSU perhaps knackered after acquiring too much dust of which i cleared crap loads out earlier)
Can't easily disconnect hardware to see if its a PSU problem. Will try each GPU card individually in the week and see if there are any problems there, havent gotten any spare to test either. They are both old 7800GTX's (think only 256mb each)
Sir.Fingers
19-10-08, 14:11
I have a spare 7800gtx u could try
Oooh that could work.. is it 512mb by any chance?
What i could do is, ditch both my gfx cards and replace with one 512mb one. That way, power should be reduced (hopefully solving the problem if its the PSU). Or, if its the graphics cards fucking up then the new one would obviously be fine...
Sir.Fingers
19-10-08, 16:00
The 7800GTX I have is a 256 mem card , Your more then welcome to borrow it to see if this is your problem . you have said it is happening in sli mode ( is that the case with both cards in the PC on there own ) if so I would urge you to go with what Tommy has been saying all along POWER SUPPLY .. they are dam hard to detect a bad one ... but usually the first thing a computer repair shop will change to see if that is the answer to MOST problems let me know if both your 7800's work well on there own . if that is the case I may have a spare power supply to swap
Okay my PC has just died completely so now on my bro's laptop! :( Was talking to Vilhelm on TS at the time with Bf2 running, so now you know Vil :D
Either the PSU has gone (which seems most likely now) or my thermal paste job has fried the CPU. There did seem to be a bit of a burning smell and noise coming from the case not long before this occurred.
I'm thinking i should maybe just buy a whole new rig, as it seems what i have isnt very upgradable as its almost 3 years old now anyway!
I'm not yet apt or confident enough to go build my own so any ready to go systems would be best (unless someone wants to build it for me and be cheaper than going elsewhere, including £100 your way for time/effort). I've got about £1100 to spend on the rig itself and £300 or so for a new widescreen monitor. Machine is gonna need to be able to run Arma 2, OFP 2 and BF3 on high so needs to be good. Budget could be stretched slightly if required!
Ideas?
Something like this takes my fancy! :)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-079-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name="Ultima%20Extreme%20OC%20GTX%20280"%20Intel%20Core%202%20Quad%20Xeon%20X3350%202.66GH z%20@%203.30GHz+%20Quad%20Core%20DDR2%20System (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-079-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name=)
SargeBanner
19-10-08, 16:45
Burning + noises point to PSU. Has happened to me.
Except mine sort of started fizzing then with an almighty bang & a big flash finally died :eek:
Thats a rather nice system too. Case looks like it would keep stuff cool ! :D
Sarge.
Well you lot know more about gaming PC's than me, what would be really handy is suggestions/links to rigs that you'd recommend, then other people can take a look and respond until we find something suitable :) (otherwise ill end up buying one with a shitty onboard sound card again or something :D)
SargeBanner
19-10-08, 17:27
Nothing wrong with an onboard soundcard ! :eek:
Sarge.
P.S This post probably indicates my knowelage (or lack off ...) towards PCs in general. :D
First off:
What's your budget?
Read Masaq read, its up there ^^^
£1100 for rig and about £300 for monitor. If i can get a no interest finance deal for 6 months etc i can stretch that easily by 30% (e.g on overclockers and mesh computers do it then just pay it off before the interest kicks in)
I'd seriously look at building your own - it's really not that difficult, I priced up an equivilent pre-built system from Dell and it worked out to be around £1700 - I built mine for just over £1000 and thats got me :-
Phenom 9950 Black Edition @ 2.6Ghz
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe Heatpipe Edition - Really nice board with 'express gate'
4Gb OCZ Reaper 1066 Heatpipe Memory - Really good quality RAM
Coolermaster CM 690 Case - Best case I've ever worked with
Coolermaster 620W Modular PSU - Modular FTW
10000RPM WD Velociraptor 300Gb SATA II HDD - Unbelivably fast
EVGA 260GTX Superclocked 896Mb GFX card - great card
X-Fi Extreme Gamer - generic greatness
Pioneer DVR-112BK Dual Layer DVR-RW
Zalman ZM-MFC2 fan controller - Nice LCD RPM/Temp displays
2 x 120mm Generic fans (Not really needed but just to be on the safe side)
Vista Ultimate x64 (But I got this FOC)
The only unforseen problem I had was m/board had an old BIOS on that didnt support 9850's/9950's so I got stuck in a boot cycle - had to send back to vendor to re-flash for me.
Everyone here says Intel chips are better but I have always been a fan of AMD and having weighed up all the pro's and cons I decided on the AMD line - considering I never OC.
4 x 2.6Ghz (and quite possably because the 10k drive) I get instant folder opening and alt-tabbing from PR @ max settings/8aa is instant.
Crysis gets nothing less that 25FPS @ High setting/1440x900/4xaa
I'm sure if you do decide to go down the self build route there is enough grey matter around here to assist you m8
Side note - simply phoning ebuyer and talking nicely to the phone op got me a few quid knocked off too!
commando-101
19-10-08, 18:33
well the components for that rig from overclockers are available seperately at £985 - so basically you are paying the difference of £259 for them to put it together!
Not horrendous and fairly reasonable imo for a pre-built system with warranty but more than I would pay!
All depends if you are willing to build yourself or not m8.
Cheers so far fella's. I'd love to build a machine and i will do at some point in the future, however for peace of mind and lack of knowledge at the moment i think i'll go for a pre-built one. Also, on OCUK you can get 6% off till Wednesday using a voucher which knocks £80 off, so only paying $180 for complete system and satisfaction. Any more suggestions greatly received.. wont be making any decisions till Tuesday i reckon!
Gods not overclockers!
Go scan fella
Currently very tempted by these 3 but the similiar price and small spec differences make it all a bit confusing.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-070-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name="Ultima%20OC%20GTX%20260%20SLI"%20Intel%20Core%202%20Quad%20Q6600%202.40GHz%20@%2 0QX6950+%203.00GHz+%20Quad%20Core%20DDR3%20System (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-070-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name=)
£1138
=====
The next two seem identical except one has 2 ATI cards (2048mb total) and the other is one nvdia (1028mb) but for the same price? Makes no sense to me can someone explain?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-079-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name="Ultima%20Extreme%20OC%20GTX%20280"%20Intel%20Core%202%20Quad%20Xeon%20X3350%202.66GH z%20@%203.30GHz+%20Quad%20Core%20DDR2%20System (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-079-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name=)
£1253
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-078-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name="Ultima%20OC%20HD%204870%20X2"%20Intel%20Core%202%20Quad%20Q9550%202.83GHz%20@%2 03.30GHz+%20Quad%20Core%20DDR2%20System (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-078-OK&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat=&name=)
£1253
Gods not overclockers!
Go scan fella
Any in particular?
Also, is Duo or Quad Core the way to go?
Right now, a Duo will do you fine.
If you're planning on ever doing things like burning DVDs or encoding video or using Photoshop etc, go Quad Core.
It also depends how soon you're happy upgrading again. If this machine is going to last you 4+ years, go Quad. If not and you'll be looking to upgrade in 2 years or so, Duo will tide you over.
Sir.Fingers
19-10-08, 21:10
Rico Before you do anything take your old pc to a shop for a FREE quote
If all else fails go here
www.easypc-uk.com (http://www.easypc-uk.com) this guy knows his stuff from the £300 systems to the £3000 top dog system I went with his £1200 quad core 260 graphics all singing all dancing tower only ...just don't pay for any OS systems ..I got them all ...and he dont mind putting them on
Gonna do as you suggested Fingers and get a quote, need to get the info off the HDD anyway.
Well i think you should build your own system, it really is very easy.
This is what i've ordered from scan.co.uk
700W FSP Sparkle Epsilon FX700-GLN SLi/Xfire, 12cm Fan ATX2.0 (20+4Pin) SATA/PCI-E - £82.24
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual/Quad Core Ready - The Favourite One! - £14.91
Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator Black Midi Tower Case with Mesh Top Panel w/o PSU - £67.34
500 GB Seagate ST3500320AS Barracuda 7200.11, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ - £43.35
Intel Core 2 Duo, E8400, Wolfdale Core, S775, 3.0 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB Cache, 9x Multiplier, Retail - £113.38
896MB XFX GTX 260 XXX, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), Mem 2300MHz GDDR3, GPU 640MHz, 192Cores, 2 x DL DVI-I/ HDTV - £187.13
Foxconn P43A, iP43, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX - £70.62
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2, PC2-8500 (1066), 240Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15, EPP - £70.32
Total £660.62
Save yourself £600 and learn how to build your own rig. I promise you, its not rocket science.!
Nice set up there Tommy.
Building your own rig is a piece of piss nowadays. The mobos are set up and it's just a case of looking at the mobo manual to find sockets and plug in and f**k off.
Old one is in the repair shop atm. If its just the PSU then ill fix it and wait to upgrade when i really need to. Will update when i know more.
mate your a silly boy all a repair shop will do is go its fucked give me loads of money and ill make it unfucked
knowledge is power
power is awesome
awesome saves you money
Goats make cheese :goat:
RICO LMOAAOPAOA
i just saw a text on my phone did i send it to you ?
i love bins
at 4am
i don't even remember this ROFL
lol yes you did, i remember it!
As for the PC, he will quote me before doing any work so i'll see how much it reckons then go from there.
commando-101
21-10-08, 20:30
Mr Rico, thing is your PC will cost £200 to fix - of course we can put it all back together again if you choose not to but that will also cost £200 - wat u want?:p
There is no way im paying over £100 to have it fixed. Plus, the guy is doing a free check on the system, so if i decide not to have him fix it, atleast ill know for sure whats wrong and needs doing :D
bish bash bosh done... £75. Will hold out to upgrade when i really need it.
commando-101
25-10-08, 09:51
come on then - wat was the problem???
His hamster-operated PSU had got wet tail...
Spoke to soon.. fried my new PSU! Possibly a fault somewhere else dammit.. grrr
Have taken it back to the shop and he's gonna have another look. Might have to upgrade after all, dont wanna be needlessly frying PSU's :|
So in short, we still dont know what the problem is, but it wasnt just a case of a new PSU thats for sure.
Will expand on that a little.
Basically i got it back and used it for an hour or so just fine on the internet etc. Decided to try a game, specifically BiA which had all the problems before. It got past the intro's which was a good sign as before it usually shut down at that point. Anyway, was watching through the opening cutscene and bam, PC shutdown and wouldnt turn back on.
So, took it back to the guy and he said it could be a fault elsewhere thats destroying the PSU's, so was a bit reluctant to put a new one in. Hopefully he can find the problem but were both a bit confused as to where the problem lies. Motherboard dying? One of the graphics cards fooked? Who knows :|
could be graphics card - or ram - I had a similar problem and it turned out the ram was screwed - replaced and it works fine
Not being funny but the PSUs you're putting in ARE sufficient to power both the GPUs, yes? :p
Again, try running on one GPU.
well let me know if you want a new PSU.. i have a new 700W one going spare.
Cheers Tommy but should be alright now. Turns out it was the hard drive thats fooked. Have lost all my info on it as didnt back up anything up like a muppet... Should be back online this weekend but gonna take a while to get everything downloaded/installed again.
Well i got it back again after the guy reckoned it was the HDD, but alas, its died again with new hard drive and new psu! Has cost me £140 so far so not too happy. Looking at getting a new one again (but could really do with an overclockers voucher as the last one ran out now dammit)
commando-101
01-11-08, 10:46
Mr Rico, thing is your PC will cost £200 to fix - of course we can put it all back together again if you choose not to but that will also cost £200 - wat u want?:p
Not far to go now.....!
Seriously though m8 it suks - u have my sympathy as well as my sarcasm!
Not to worry i got all my money back yay \o/
Ill crack open a new thread in the general forum about a new rig. Will order on Tuesday i reckon.
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