Question PC randomly turning off and then turning itself back on

[Croceus]

HI there good people of AnandTech forums. I come seeking your great wisdom, and humbly beg for you to bestow upon me your knowledge and aid.


To give some backstory, about a month ago, my pc was having a slighty similar but different enough problem. When I tried to turn it on, it would power on for about 3 seconds before turning back off. I figured it was a problem with the PSU and got a replacement via RMA, but that didn't fix it. So i took it to a pc repair place and the guy told me it was probably the motherboard. Had a spare lying around, so i swapped everything over to the new board. Boom, instant success, everything worked perfectly.


For about a month or so, it's been totally operational. However, within the last few days it has started to randomly turn off (the MB lights also turn off) and then turn back on. I've watched the CPU temp and everything seems normal, the PSU fan is spinning, windows memory diagnostic tells me the RAM is functioning fine.


I really don't know what the problem could be. Did I just get unlucky and receive a bad PSU, or have n bad MB? Is it the processor, but a non-heat-related issue?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sometimes, the super-natural shouldn't be discounted.

I once had a PC repair that really stumped me (never really resolved it).

Guy had a PC with one of those, I think that they were called "IBM M-Wave". Combo sound card + modem, or something like that. It was a semi-botched piece of hardware, with DSP onboard, that tried to do too many things, and was less than stable. (Much like Cyrix Super7 CPUs. Speaking of which, I think this box had one of those, TOO.)

Anyways, I had tried various driver packages and revisions, and thought that I had it stable. I had it running for like 2-3 days, no BSODs.

Owner walks through the doorway, BOOM! Instant BSOD. Spooky, really.

I basically handed him his PC, and said, "Sorry I couldn't help you. I thought that I had it stable, but it's clear, that it just doesn't like you."

 

[Ketchup]

While not the best of their SuperNova line by far, I don't see you system pushing enough power to show off its weaknesses either.