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Not often I can't diagnose a PC fault, but this one has me stumped

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benscoobert

benscoobert

Member
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Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Location
UK, Yorkshire
My PC started shutting down randomly, sometimes a restart, sometimes it shuts down then turns itself on many hours later.

Initially I thought it was my windows install just getting old as I didn't know it had been turning itself on. So I bought a new hard disk and did a fresh install.

So now I'm thinking, hmm its like someone just pressed the power button, checked all the wires were not loose, wiggle them while its switched on, nothing.

Now I'm thinking PSU or mobo, anyone else had similar to this fault?
 
Just been stressing it with prime95 and furmark, no crashes.

Really is like someone presses the power button

Went to bed last night and left it on, a few minutes after I left the events log says it shut down, yet it hadn't sone it all day, then it turned itself on about 8am, then at 9am a restart. Maybe even powered off during restart becasue I woke up to a failed bios post warning.
 
Go to your bios and see if you have it set to power on after a power failure. A loss in line voltage could cause it to restart.

Do you have it set to "wake on modem?"

Do you have it set to wake on keyboard or mouse? Kids, pets, a large vehicle going down your road, or even minor seismic activity could set this off.
 
Another thing you can try is to disable the reboot upon BSOD so if there is a blue screen, at least you'll be able to see it.
 
Daemonkin said:
Go to your bios and see if you have it set to power on after a power failure. A loss in line voltage could cause it to restart.

Do you have it set to "wake on modem?"

Do you have it set to wake on keyboard or mouse? Kids, pets, a large vehicle going down your road, or even minor seismic activity could set this off.
Click to expand...

It doesn't lose voltage, it is battery backed, it is literally like you clicked shutdown or pressed the power button, it goes through the motions of closing everything you are doing.
Wake on LAN is enabled, but rest is not.


G33K454URU5 R3X said:
Another thing you can try is to disable the reboot upon BSOD so if there is a blue screen, at least you'll be able to see it.
Click to expand...

It never did a BSOD, just a proper shutdown at improper times.
 
24 hours and no shutdown, fingers crossed, I think it is getting a shutdown signal from somewhere which narrows it down to the switch, the mobo or the PSU
 
I maybe off on this but could it be Windows update. If it's set to default settings it will shut down and restart after the updates are done. You could disable it and see what happens.

Dunno, kinda weird and this is just a thought.
 
Try benching the system to remove the case from possibilities. I have a friend who had his reset button acting on the fritz where it was half stuck down, and would cause random restarts.

If that doesn't work, perhaps an exorcist can help you? :)
 
Was actually talking about where you had shut the computer off, to rule out winows doing a restart.

Maybe the computer is possessed :fight:

But I am leaning more toward a switch problem. if you have a switch from another case you could swap em and see if it stops.

Let us know what happens.
 
I see you are going for 24hrs without shutdown issues but if it continues...

Reboot the system to safe mode without networking and leave it on. If it goes 24hrs+ then its probably not hardware and more likely to be a software issue. As people mentioned before viruses and wakeup on lan can cause stuff like this. If it still turns off/on by itsself check your power supply with a DMM and check the lines that run from the front of your case to the f_panel on the mainboard, especially the power and reset lines.
 
36 hours or so now and it seems fine, I guess I'm getting a rogue short from the power switch somewhere, I can live with it as it is on 90% of the time anyway and by disabling power off by switch in windows it isn't troubling me, I really can't be arsed to pull it apart when I'll probably move onto a new setup next year

Thanks for all the suggestions
 
as above post have you checked the windows update settings?

also check your task scheduler to see if you have anything in there set to reboot your computer at any time? :shrug:

a wild guess but worth checking anyway.
 
nooster said:
as above post have you checked the windows update settings?
also check your task scheduler to see if you have anything in there set to reboot your computer at any time? :shrug:
a wild guess but worth checking anyway.
Click to expand...

I can't tollerate windows doing updates when I don't want it to so I manually do them and it disable auto updates

canibalpenguin said:
Good to know it's just a switch. Even if you can disable the shut down I would swap the switch. I know it would make me uneasy.
Click to expand...

I'll email antec and see if they can send a freebie

I put the machine in sleep mode last night, this morning it is still asleep
 
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