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Random sudden power off, usually during games

J

jattardi

Junior Member
Been having some problems with my PC lately. At seemingly random times, almost always while playing a game, my computer will suddenly shut off. No spontaneous reboot or error screen, the power simply cuts off.

This is where it gets strange. When I press the power button to start back up, nothing happens. If I toggle the switch on the rear of my power supply to Off then back to On, the power button still yields nothing.

The only way I can get my computer to come back to life is if I (1) unplug the power cord, (2) flip the switch to Off then back to On, and (3) then try the power button. Performing these steps in that exact order is the only thing that will get my computer to turn back on.

When it happened again last night, I left it alone and came back to it this morning (~10 hours later). The power button still didn't work - I performed the above steps and it came right back!

I have made no hardware changes to my system; only have installed/uninstalled a few small applications. This has happened every time I play a game, and has happened once or twice at other times.

AMD Athlon XP 3000+, WinXP Professional, 420W Antec PSU ( I think.. it's 400-something), MSI motherboard with nForce2 chipset.

Any ideas?? Thanks 🙂
 
This happened to me only when I had something grounded to the case. There's probably something loose that's grounded to the case.

Either that, or check your rails of your PSU. The PSU could be defective.

Also, does the power completely go out, or is the computer fans and such still running, it's just that the screen goes blank? The Electrical power completely is gone from the computer spontaneously?
 
First, I'll answer the easy question. The power goes out completely - no fans, no nothing. 100% dead.

As for the others, bear with me - when you say something is grounded to the case, does that mean there's something metal on the motherboard or one of the cards that is touching the metal of the case? I can check for that when I get home tonight.

Also, what do you mean by the rails of the PSU?

As you can tell, hardware is not my area of expertise. I'm a software guy and am often eluded by weird problems.
 
the rails on the PSU generate amperage for the 12 volt rail, 5 volt rail and he 3.3 volt rail .. for instance your case fans run off you 12v rail, and your RAM runs off of you 3.3v rail..

 
Try another PSU.

You can d/l and install Motherboard Monitor 5 and set up the sys log feature to record your voltages and temps to a text.doc. After it shutsdown, reboot and have a look at the text.doc.

Have a look in your PSU, may have a bunch of dust causing it to overheat and shutdown.

Fern
 
Do as they say...go and download Motherboard Monitor 5 it will show the rails...the other thing I would be wondering about because of the comp shutting down in games is a heat issue
 
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