PC Troubles. Help!

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Hey everyone,

I hope that I may pick your collective brains on a problem I recently started having with my pc. About 2 weeks ago my computer started randomly shutting off. What happens is this: I'll be on the pc doing whatever then suddenly the pc will power down (like standby mode) and make a constant high pitched beep. There's still power to the system so it hasn't shut off. I have to hold in the power button to shut it off completely.

I thought it was my video card but I installed a new on last night and it still happens. Any thoughts? It happens randomly at no specific time and I haven't made any changes to hardware at the time it started. I'm thinking heat but I need some more ideas before I dump money into new parts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Yeah it sounds like heat to me. I would start by opening the case and making sure the fans are still running properly. If there is a lot of dust inside consider buying a can of compressed air and using it to blow the dust out.

 

Yeah tried that. And for the record, plastic fan blades moving at 3000rpms do cut flesh by the way. Oops. lol I cleaned it all out, blew out all dust and made sure that all fans are working. I have 3 thermaltake case fans as well as a Dragon Orb 3 heat sink fan on the CPU. Maybe another fan?

 

With those fans working I would have to say that you should be okay heat wise unless you are doing some serious number crunching (my brother had to get a special fan for his PC when he started looking for large prime numbers ) or have an overclocked beast of a machine.

 

Not overclocked. It would be easier if it happened at the same point all the time but it's random. Not crunching anything major either. What bugs me is that happened out of the blue. Virus maybe? I'm graping at straws I know...

 

Well, there are virii called "logical bombs" that are really, really specialized, but I doubt you have a nasty little bugger like that on your machine. If the fans are working and you don't have anything blocking the air circulation, then you really should check your motherboard and other hardware to see what is causing such ruckus. It may be faulty, but just in case update your drivers.

 

Do you have a button on your keyboard than can send you computer into sleep or standby mode?
There may be a small chance that the button is pressed down partially and if you bump the keyboard it causes the button to trigger.

 

It happens even when we're no where near the pc. I think it's haunted, that's it. It's haunted! Actually I was doing some research and it may be the power supply that's cutting out. I guess I'll have to try. Thanks for all the help so far, keep it coming and I'll keep you posted.

 

Well, check the wattage of the power supply. Ideally, you shouldn't be normally using more than 75% of the given wattage for stability. I heard of someone once who, having installed a new video card, started getting random crashes. So they put it through some tests while they watched TV. Anyway, they, during an ad break they went into the room with the computer to see how it was doing and noticed that the monitor was turned off. Since it had been much less than the standard 1/2 hour of lack of use since he last checked it, this was a bit strange. He took one step more into the room and smelled ozone- the fan had fallen off the videocard and the resultant heat had fried the thing. Check your CPU HSF's connectors. In addition, if the computer is going beep, then this is something which the motherboard's knows about. Check the website of the maker.

 

Reinstalling your Operating System may help. I had a very similar problem on one of my old PCs and replacing the operating system fixed the problem.

 

Going back to the the heat issue. Are you sure that the heatsink on your CPU is actually installed properly? The "Dragon Orb3" sounds like it is aftermarket, so I'd suggest that you make sure. IF you choose to remove it, you'll need to put new thermal past between the CPU and the heatsink...after you clean the two off first.

As for the power supply, I'd take it out and try using a different one for awhile...if that's possible to you. If the new/different PSU fixes the problem, then you simply need to buy/keep the good PSU for your computer...if it doesn't fix the problem, then try formatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP (SP1)...that's always good for a computer, broken or not.

Oh, and the beep thingy...that is...or should be your mobo telling you that something *is* wrong somewhere...if your mobo has an LED POST indacator, then try taking a look at what it reads and then find out what that number means by reading the mobo's user manual.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions folks, much appreciated. I think I'll format my C drive and do a windows XP reinstall. The first costs no money and that's always a good place to start. If that doesn't work then I'll replace the Power supply. And lastly if that still hasn't fixed the problem I'll bring it in for testing since my motherboard is still under warranty. I'll you all posted as to what I find so if anyone else has the same problem in the future maybe it'll help.

[ March 21, 2005, 13:53: Message edited by: Istolil ]

 

I had a very similar problem way ago (without the beeping, but my PC kept going "standby mode" out of the blue) and it was the power supply. I'd suggest you to borrow one from your mates and check if it keeps crashing then.

Don't wait too long though, cause I did and lost most of my PC when my power supply burned up (or whatever) after making something like what you described.
Only things that survived were my screen, loudspeakers and mouse IIRC...

 

Running your PC without the cover, maybe? I used to do that. Check the fan rate. When I last changed my cover, it occured that the power supply could have made the thing blow up in three days had I not changed it. The thing practically stopped rotating.

A virus would also be able to do that - they typically shut it down altogether, but why not hibernation. Run an antivir scanner, I think.

If you're going to reinstall XP, delete your partition and set it up again. Then install antivir software as the first thing after the OS. Not like it's a miraculous cure for everything, but sometimes this helps without you ever knowing what was fishy before.

 

So an update on things... I pulled out some hardware that I don't really need and made sure to do a heavy cleaning of all fans. Well now I have no power to my system. I quadruple checked that everything was connected properly and still no go. When I turn on my system the only thing the power supply does is get hot, no fans. So I believe that ultimately it was the PS. Keep you posted when I install it. Thanks again to everyone for all the suggestions and help. Much appreciated.
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All right. I have FINALLY solved the problem and have my pc running again. It was a 2 pronged attack on poor Charleen (my pc). 1. The power supply died a slow death. 2. The motherboard decided that what the power supply was doing looked fun and decided to join it.

Fortunately the MB is still under warranty and I had an extra one in case of emergencies.

All this was discovered after ripping everything out of my pc on component at a time and testing it. GAH! May you never have to go through that yourselves.

Thanks again to all who posted suggestions, all is right again in the world. SP folks are the best!

[ April 03, 2005, 14:57: Message edited by: Istolil ]