PC turning itself off often

[Raidin]

Ever since I got an MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard, my Power Supply has been acting up (previous motherboard was an MSI K7T Turbo). If I switch on my PC, it usually won't stay on for long, turning itself off mid-boot. If I turn off the PSU, and wait long enough and then turn it back on, I can boot into Windows and everything is fine from there on. If I leave the PSU off for only a few seconds or a minute, the problem returns. This is why every time I turn off my PC for the day, I have to switch off the PSU with it.

Now I have a new problem. It seems that at random, my PC will shut itself off after a few hours, sometimes only 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes after 24 hours. I'm looking into replacing my PSU, but if there's something else I can do, let me know. Thanks in advance.

Raidin



MSI KT3-Ultra
AMD Athlon 2100+ (266)
512MB DDR333
IBM 10GB 7200 ATA/66
Maxtor 60GB 5400 ATA/100
GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB
CompUSA-branded 300W ATX PSU

 

[altonb1]

This sounds like a heat issue. Are you sure all fans are spinning and connected properly? If the system is getting too hot, it will turn itself off to protect the hardware.

You may want to open the case, turn the PC on, and watch to make sure all fans are running. It could be that one or more of the fans are not spinning when you first turn on the PC, and after cycling power, it gets enough of a kick to fire up all the fans the 2nd time. just a guess, though.

 

[PCHPlayer]

I would check the following:
1. Is your CPU overheating causing the computer to shut off?
2. Is your BIOS setup to shutoff the computer if the CPU fans stops spinning? If it is maybe you have a bad connection between the fan and the MB (Or a bad fan)
3. Any other settings in the BIOS that can turn the computer off.

And.............. Welcome to ATF!!!

 

[Raidin]

Thanks for the welcome. =)

Actually, when this happened again this morning, I opened my case and turned on my PC and used a flashlight to watch every fan, and they're all working fine. I checked the temperature of the CPU and the case interior, both are fine. (56C for CPU under load and 45C for the case interior) My motherboard IS set up to turn off my system incase of overheating, but this is set at 80C. I'm going to try and turn off this feature and see what happens, but it still doesn't help me with the original problem of the PSU, where it must stay off for at least 2 to 3 minutes in order for my PC to boot all the way to Windows (WinXP Pro) and stay on normally.

 

[PCHPlayer]

Hmmmm. Check the PSU fan. Try another PSU of you have one laying around.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

what are the voltages on your rails?

 

[Raidin]

What do you mean by rails?

Edit: Checked the PSU fan, it works fine. At the time of writing this, my PC has been up for almost 12 hours straight BTW, so I doubt its a heat issue.