Random Total Shutdowns

[rkoenn]

I have been working on a friends computer I built him 2 or 3 years ago. It was running Windows 7 but I now have Win 10 on it. He brought it because it was acting up. When I received it it would start but was bogging down but the big problem was it would randomly simply turn off, like if you pulled the power cord. No blue screen or anything else. It has a Gigabyte AMD MB with AMD FX-6300 CPU. As I did some extensive work this would randomly occur. I checked the BIOS temp features and turned off all the shutdown on temp settings etc. After working on it a while I began to believe it was something in the Win 7 installation. I then pulled another HDD today and installed Win 10 and the update which I did nicely but I do recall maybe one of these shutdowns. Finally I got Win 10 on, updated to the fall update, and started copying over his old data. Well while all the install seemed to go just fine now during the copy process I am getting random shutdowns again consistently. I also had installed an Artic Freezer heat pipe CPU cooling system which is huge and feels very cool during operation. I am now stumped as I thought between the new OS and cooler I would be running stably. I have also checked all the other components, video, sound, and stand alone memory sticks and this glitch continues. Could I have a bad CPU or MB? I have really narrowed it down to that. I ran a stress test and memory check tests today with no problems found. Anybody ever heard of something like this. I also replaced the Corsair 500W PS with a Corsair 600W PS.

 

[Ketchup]

Failing power supply.

 

[Pick2]

It sounds like the MoBo. You would think a bad cpu would throw errors or just lock up , not just power down. Run a live linux from a USB drive and see what happens.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What board is this? Is the FX-6300 overclocked, in any way? I'm wondering about the VRMs on the board. If they have a heatsink on them, then perhaps it's loose. If not, perhaps you need a heatsink on the VRMs or a fan mounted such that it blows constantly on them. Those FX chips were torture on the VRMs, especially when overclocked. Although, that's a six-core, not an eight-core, so you would think that the load would be a bit lower.

This isn't an 760/780/785G-based AM3+ board, is it? Those boards were such compromises, they were never really intended to run the FX CPUs.

 

[Torn Mind]

It does sound like something on the motherboard is flaking out, assuming the 600W Corsair has no flaws in operation.

One time, on an old Pentium 4 system, I closed Firefox and the whole computer shutdown. But I never replicated that issue and the PSU was a "featherweight" and I could only suspect that was it. But it never happened again. Your scenario is different since you already swapped PSUs.

 

[Iron Woode]

download memtest86 and run it from a usb. this way you can be sure if there is a ram issue.

are there any blown caps?

 

[rkoenn]

Thanks to everyone suggestions. I am honing in on the motherboard. The system is two or three years old and up until just recently it has run well. I isolated the components down to the motherboard/CPU parts, as I couldn't replace them or substitute parts, and it still would repeat the problem. I did install a new load of Windows 10 as his old Win 7 was not in good shape. I ran a stress test after and also Memtest and neither found problems although I believe on one run of the stress test it locked up but didn't shut down. The machine has 2x4 GB DDR3 and the chipset is an AMD 760 on a Gigabyte MB. I switched memory but while it ran good with the new memory and had no crashes I wouldn't expect just a SHUT DOWN if one was bad from past experience, blue screens or lock ups make more sense. I also was putting in a new CPU cooler and the new is a huge heat pipe Arctic cooler so the CPU should be staying cool. The machine also has four 1TB HDDs so the new PS should be fine, it was a brand new Corsair 600W. Finally it did the Windows 10 install and fall upgrade with no crashes. Now he has it again and called to say it crashed twice yesterday. If it continues I am going to suggest a new motherboard and get an MSI 790 based board which will use the CPU and shouldn't require a complete reinstall of Windows.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If it continues I am going to suggest a new motherboard and get an MSI 790 based board which will use the CPU and shouldn't require a complete reinstall of Windows.

Thumbsup!