PC Turning Itself Off :(

[C45P4R]

Hi everyone,

I bought a PC from PC specialist a number of years ago now. I've posted the set-up below.

I had lived abroad for a while and my pc built up tonnes of dust in my mates building site of a house. I took off the fans and unseated a few things when cleaning all that dust out. I was careful to put things back the way I found them (I dont really know what I'm doing) and I then reinstalled windows.

Since doing all this I've found that my PC randomly switches itself off when doing any slightly more heavy activity than java games (osrs) or youtube. For instance DOTA2 makes it turn off despite the game running very smoothly until that point. I've also today had it switch off on me when playing osrs whilst watching twitch and a movie at the same time. The PC will switch straight back on if I try after but seems to be more prone to turning off again if it happened recently.

I've checked everything is seated properly and cant find any issues there. I double checked I put all the fans back the right way around and that's also all fine. Ive reinstalled the drivers and seen no change. I've also checked the bios and the temperature doesn't seem high enough that it's a temperature issue. GPU was in the 35-55 C range when monitoring with some overlay software and CPU max I saw was 64 C. I was hoping to get more data points on temp during stress tests but for some reason the software wont overlay anyway after turning off. Doesn't seem like its overheating anyway?

I also bought a new electrical cable for the power supply as I moved I Switzerland. Before that I was using a converter but my mate thought that might be causing the problem. Unfortunately it didnt fix but potentially could have caused the issue to begin with?

From reading online I think the next stage would be to buy and test a new power unit. Would anyone be able to provide any advise on whether or not this is the best next step before I do so? Would there be any particular suggestion of supply to buy that's more than sufficient but hopefully not beyond 100quid or so?

Thanks for your time. Much appreciated. On a separate note, what would be best things to swap out to upgrade this rig or is it now so old I may aswell start from scratch!?

Processor (CPU) AMD FX-6300 Six Core CPU (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
Graphics Card 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Sound Card ASUS Xonar DS
Power Supply 450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
64bit w7

 

[SpyderTracks]

When you cleaned it did you remove the cpu cooler and heatsink?

 

[C45P4R]

When you cleaned it did you remove the cpu cooler and heatsink?

Hi there. Thanks for your reply.

I removed the CPU cooling fan from over the top so I could clean that and get to the heat-sink which was stuffed full of dust. I didn't remove the heatsink itself but I did undo a vice-like mechanism to get more dust out.

Wish I had just left all the dust in there now .

 

[nathanjrb]

It could be a coincidence, but doesn't sound like it. I would re-seat things one at a time to see if that resolves it. Also re-check all your connections. A test with a known working PSU would be a good shout, but definitely just check all the seating, cables and connections again.

 

[nathanjrb]

...but I did undo a vice-like mechanism to get more dust out.

Can you elaborate? What CPU cooler are you using? There is a lever that clamps the CPU down to the motherboard, beneath the heat sink. It's unlikely you would be able to lift this without removing the cooler though. Although I've heard weirder things!

 

[C45P4R]

Can you elaborate? What CPU cooler are you using? There is a lever that clamps the CPU down to the motherboard, beneath the heat sink. It's unlikely you would be able to lift this without removing the cooler though. Although I've heard weirder things!

I am not well-versed in computer components so it's possible I'm not referring to the correct components.

There is a fan directly on top of the heat sink. I assumed this was the CPU cooler but perhaps not? I removed this fan to get to all the dust in the heat sink and undid the clamp (what i referred to as a vice through lack of vocabulary) as it was blocking a bunch of dust. I did not remove the heat sink completely but perhaps undoing the clamp was enough to unseat it and cause the problem.

Will shutdown my PC so I can see what the fan says on it. Checked back in my old posts but only detail I could find on what I probably bought was "STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER" which doesn't sound like will be particularly helpful.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I am not well-versed in computer components so it's possible I'm not referring to the correct components.

There is a fan directly on top of the heat sink. I assumed this was the CPU cooler but perhaps not? I removed this fan to get to all the dust in the heat sink and undid the clamp (what i referred to as a vice through lack of vocabulary) as it was blocking a bunch of dust. I did not remove the heat sink completely but perhaps undoing the clamp was enough to unseat it and cause the problem.

Will shutdown my PC so I can see what the fan says on it. Checked back in my old posts but only detail I could find on what I probably bought was "STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER" which doesn't sound like will be particularly helpful.

That means the heatsink has been unseated. You'd have to fully remove the heatsink, clean the CPU of any paste and repaste it and reapply the heatsink.

And don't use it in the meantime, you'll likely burn out the CPU and or motherboard.

 

[C45P4R]

That means the heatsink has been unseated. You'd have to fully remove the heatsink, clean the CPU of any paste and repaste it and reapply the heatsink.

And don't use it in the meantime, you'll likely burn out the CPU and or motherboard.

Thank you both for your time. SpyderTracks sounds pretty confident I've messed with this heatsink seating so let's give fixing that a go. I'll watch some videos and order what I need for the job.

Not that it matters much now but the fan had this code on it: AMD FHSA7015B

 

[nathanjrb]

Ah yes, I forgot about the heatsink clamp. Sounds like that's the problem. Good luck!

 

[C45P4R]

Made it far too complicated for myself by not knowing what I was doing and undoing bolts I shouldn't have, resulting in having to take the entire mother-board out, but so far so good. Can't thank you enough!


It's lasted much longer than for some weeks. Will do some proper testing tomorrow