Computer randomly Freezes or shuts off

[Alik AlRahim]

Ok, you guys might have remembered a couple days ago I wrote about how my computer was overheating and how I fixed it. Welllll new problem. Now the computer just randomly without warning, without overheating, shuts itself off. I'm sitting here reading a web page and bam it's off. Sometimes it just freezes, as in it's running but then just decides that it doesn't like that mouse moving around anymore and just stops. Everything is hooked up good, all the wires are right and all that. What else should I check? Could it be O/S related? I'm running XP if it matters. So what do you guys suggest? Could it be a video card overheat? When I was fixing my CPU I took off the video card heatsink and put some arctic silver on it, could that be it? I really hope it's not my Power Supply going bad as I just got it a couple months ago and the money to replace it just isn't there :(

Funny side note, soon as I pressed submit on this post the computer shut itself off again :eek: (Note to the moderator, move this where it has to go if it doesn't sound like a cooling issue)

[Amedeo602]

what temp is your CPU at when it happens? mine used to do that to me and it turned out the cpu was just too hot (safety feature, i'd imagine)

try running the comp at stock speed and see if it still does it

(and if your psu is only a few months old chances are it's still under warranty)

[Alik AlRahim]

It's only running at around 41-43 (varies cause I've been keeping mother board monitor up to see if this was the problem) When it was overheating it was running at 59-62

[Amedeo602]

hmm...43 shouldn't be a problem


my guess is either power supply or memory....but those are *guesses* (maybe reseat your memory and unplug your cd-rom drive and try it then?)

[KILLorBE]

I can only think of 2 things (I don't know $#!* bout AMD, well just a little (K5,K6;) )

To me it looks like either your PSU or your mouse (the cable) is bad.

How old is your mouse?

I had the same problem, but I'm still not sure what it was.(Guess the problem solved itself, tho I did switch PSU's as I have 2 in my case **EDIT** not sure if I changed or fixed the mouse)

[Alik AlRahim]

Originally posted by KILLorBE
How old is your mouse?

Mouse is 4 months old, got it when I got the rest of my setup. The cable looks fine, it's one of those fancy microsoft optical USB ones and the whole computer freezes not just the mouse so I don't know if that's what it would be. Maybe I am overloading my PSU. I have like 8 fans in my case, 3 HDs a 16x CD RW and it's a 400 watt PSU. But it's 400 watts... It Should be able to handle all that stuff, right?

[Dunga Bee]

That sounds like ALOT of gear for one PS unit, even if it is 400W.

I would take it back down to stock speed and unplug most of those 8 fans and run it, leaving just maybe one intake and one exhaust and the PS fan. With the good HSF you have (Gladiator), your temps should stay reasonable, even without lots of case fans.

Run it like that, monitor the temps, and see if it stays stable. If so, then you know where the problem is and you could look at getting a smaller PS to power the fans.

DB

[Len]

A friend of mine once had a problem like this and it was a simple IRQ conflict. The video card was sharing a conflict with something else. I don't know how WinXP handles IRQs but you might want to check it out.

Another thing to check is your case temps. In my system during fan configuration testing I had case temps go up into the upper 30's and my overclocked GF2 Ultra locked up.

[Amedeo602]

8 fans??!!?!?!?!

definitely take the chip to stock speed and unplug some fans then try it (and if you're stable after that then look into buying an old AT or a small ATX PSU just for fans)

[Len]

I think his 400 watt Antec PSU should be sufficient. My rig runs off an Antec 300 watt PSU and I have no problems. In addition to the PSU fan I have SIX 80mm case fans, the fan on my Glaciator and a small fan on the northbridge. My CPU is overclocked and overvolted to 1.95v also. I have one 7200 rpm hard drive, one CDRW, GF2 Ultra, NIC and SBLIVE.

[Alik AlRahim]

http://www.geocities.com/alikalrahim/mycom.jpg
This might be my computer, dunno if geosh!tties will let me post the pic ;) I'll give it a shot though, hopefully taking off a few fans will stabalise this pos :-/ otherwise I'll have to dig up my old computer and take its PSU ;)

[UnseenMenace]

going by the picture of you case I would still consider the possibility that the problem is heat related, as cases in general like slightly positive pressure which helps reduce hotspots as the positive pressure keeps air moving through the case. The picture you display of your case I would consider may have poor air flow as the fans may not work well with each other when set up like.
When I had my duron it was stable all the time at reasonable tempratures unless I played Q3 for an hour and then it exhibited the same faults as you discribe and the problem in my situation ws heat related

[YMAN]

In my oppinion its a hardware conflict, or the power supply!
As for temps, It should not be a problom unless you
have some type of auto shutdown thats set too low.
(In The Mainboard BIOS)
My computers motherboard has this feature.