Random Powerdowns

[letired]

Hi Everyone,

So here's my story. I recently built an entirely new system from scratch, save for the HDD. Put all the parts together three or four months ago and booted up with no issues (or so I thought at the time.) I do remember flipping the PSU switch for the first time, the red mobo light coming on, then pressing the power button, watching the system power up for around 2 seconds, then quickly power back down, then power right back up again. The space in-between power up and power down was maybe around 2 seconds, just enough time for the fans to stop spinning.

The computer ran absolutely perfectly for the next four months or so, until one night at 3am I got a random shutdown. I had it very stable in PRIME95, 24-hours. Nothing like this had happened before. This shutdown was a complete power down, no BSOD like had been occurring with my overclocks when I pushed it too hard.

I booted back up to find my network controller completely fried. Not the cable, the onboard LAN, believe me I tested everything. I ended up wiping CMOS (no overclocks), reinstalling Vista x64 to see what was going on, and the system wasn't doing the weird powerdown thing that's happening now, but it wasn't connecting to the internet either. No lights on the LAN port, etc. So I buy an external PCI LAN card, thinking oh well, must have just hit a power surge or something weird and fried my onboard NIC. I go away for a week to visit my folks, and come back to this weird powerdown problem while trying to install the network card I bought on Newegg. (Just some $8 Rosewill NIC)

The computer will just randomly shut off. No BSOD. No windows error. Its happening when I'm in the BIOS as well as when I'm in windows, so it must be a hardware problem. Is it my Motherboard? My PSU? I'm at a loss. I wish this wasn't happening now, I blew most of my cash on all these new parts...ugh.

My system information should be in my sig. If you need more information I can provide it!

Thanks guys,

Spencer

 

[letired]

Anyone think that my CPU could have somehow become unseated or something? Does this sound like a CPU overheating problem? I didn't think temperatures were very high...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2203357&enterthread=y This sounds similar...

 

[mc866]

What are your temps? Also if one thing on your mobo was damaged, the NIC, you never know what else may have been also. The trouble is the issue may now just be coming up. You may have to RMA your mobo.

 

[robisbell]

got a power surge from whatever the ethernet was connected to. motherboards shot, need to test the ram and cpu in a 100% good machine that will support them.

 

[letired]

It's not a temp problem, I just watched the BIOS temp monitor - CPU temps were around 50°C when it shutoff. I am using Abit's eRMA on my Mobo, as I have no other system in which to test the CPU and RAM. So hopefully that will work...gah.

The weird thing is, I don't think it was a power surge as my roommate and I were plugged into the same switch, so wouldn't he have gotten the same surge?

 

[robisbell]

not necessarily, ask a electrician and they will tell you electricity will behave like a living thing and be quite random.

 

[letired]

Is there anything I can try before my MOBO RMA comes through?

 

[robisbell]

test the CPU, RAM in another machine that will 100% support them.

 

[YankeesWin]

I feel your pain, I went through the exact same problem. This is a NIGHTMARE, and after extensive research, a rather common one. My particular problem happened to be that I jarred my heatsink loose while removing a hdd, and this was causing the system to power up for a few seconds and then cutoff. After about a week of fruitless troubleshooting I actually recognized that it was loose, reseated it and the problem was gone.

Here's the odd part though. I put the hdd from this system into another pc when I initially took it out to help fix someone else's pc. Oddly enough, after doing this the shutdown problem was now happening in the other pc!! That pc is still having the problem now, and I'm probably just going to rebuild that one from scratch as I've tried everything.

My advice to you is to reseat the cpu and heatsink first but DO NOT...I repeat DO NOT try to test the parts in another machine man; during my research I came across more than one person that tested their parts in other working rigs and after doing so the shutdown problem began to happen in the other rigs as well. If reseating it doesn't work, try all other options before testing it another pc, especially someone else's because you don't wanna muck up someone else's rig. Clear cmos, flash bios, the whole shabang before you start removing parts.