So last night, my comp would randomly kick off on me. As if I were to just turn the power switch off. It had happened a couple times before last night, but very randomly and like 2-3 times spread out over a couple weeks. I shut my computer down and let it sit for a few hours last night, turned it back on and after about 30 minutes kicked off again. Anyone know what this might be? My initial guess is the power supply, is it dying on me? I've only had the comp for roughly 3 yrs.
Check to see if the CPU is making good contact with the heat sink. If the temp get too high, most computers will shut off.
My guess is it is a heat issue. Make sure you have it in a well ventilated area. You can open it up and look inside. If it is real dusty, especially around the heat sink, then you can buy a can of compressed air and blow out the dust. we have had some issues with machines doing this. The building I work in has very poor ventilation and is real dusty. the dust builds up in the computers and causes them to over heat and shut down. I have to air them out about once a year.
This is exactly what happened to my computer. Basically it starting turning off on me and later on, it wouldn't even start. Like others have said, the first thing may be a heating issue. If you don't want to take the whole thing apart, then just take a vacuum and put the tube right above where the fan is. Another problem may be a RAM error. In the back of your computer, just unscrew it and try out some new RAM. If these 2 things do not work, then I'm afraid that it's a display/motherboard error. For my dell inspiron, there is a switch on the motherboard that controls the power switch. If you get that fixed, it may fix the problem. I've spent hours working on this, but couldn't get to the bottom of it since my warranty ran out last year. If you have a dell, it will cost you $40 for diagnosis of the problem, and $160 to fix if it does not involve the motherboard or screen. So...yeah just get a new computer if you can't fix it. My dell inspiron sells for $200 "As is" on ebay.
opened my case, and WOW was it dusty as hell. sprayed it all around, clearing out fan and what not. hopefully thats the problem. i guess i'll find out here in a bit if my comp shut down or not
My machine will reboot at various times during a game. I went in and cleaned all the fans as it was dusty. Even so...my motherboard monitor keeps barking at me about a "Hardware monitor found an error" on the Main fan. I'm not sure what the Main fan is...but I think it means my case fan and not my CPU or PS fan (correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, I cleaned it all up and I still get that error. Apparently, it's flagged the fan as the RPM isn't high enough (it still seemed pretty high at...I think...1500 RPM). I know I can ignore it by disabling monitoring on it. I think I just need a new fan. However, I'm not sure what any of that has to do with my machine randomly rebooting during a game (BF Vietnam). I am overclocking an older Sapphire ATI video card using Omega drivers, however, so I can't rule that out as the culprit under the extremes of a gaming situation. The video card has a passive heatsink or whatever. It could be just the video drivers are encountering a bug. It's the type of crap that I'd rather not waste any more time trying to figure out and just replace the whole kit and caboodle...given the machine is 7 years old.
your video card might be over heating. it's weird. i had a ati x800xl and never had a problem. installed a new sapphire x1950 pro with a zalman vf900 and my computer has already froze/locked up on me 5-6 times when i play games.
Seriously.............so many people come to this BBS to seek information, opinions or advice and far too often we are never given the conclusion to their Story.
well...after 3 years you probably have a lot of p*rn on your hard drive that has accumulated, I would delete some(not all) of it.
