Random Shutdowns

[BruteClaw]

My system has been acting strange lately. It will randomly shutdown and the power LED just blinks. Power button does nothing, only way to get it back to usable is unplug it for at least an hour then plug it back in. Even then I only get about 2 hours of use out of it.

My system Specs are as follows:
1000 Watt OCZ z80 gold series power supply
2 X Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB hard drives
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition cpu
MSI 790XT-G45 motherboard
8GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 ram 4X2GB
MSI N240GT primary video card
MSI N220GT for Physx
Coolermaster HAF 932
Zalman 9900A CPU Cooler

Thought it might be an issue with my overclocking to 4Ghz, so I reset my settings back to the original 3.2Ghz with no change. Then my thoughts moved on to heat issues, the CPU never got above 42C with core temp before the last shut down.

I have tried removing all but 2Gb of RAM, a single hard drive and single video card. My system stayed on longer when I did this but still has the problem.

I am to the point now that this might be a power supply issue and I am getting my old 750 watt back from my friend that I sold it too. So while I wait for him to get that back to me, I was wondering if any of you have any other thoughts on this issue.

Thanks

[blaze15301]

just switch your power supply and see if that works. keep us posted, good luck.

[diluzio91]

i agree, if lowering the load on the PSU makes it last longer then that raises a little flag, look inside *NOTE!* dont open the PSU!!!. look through the fan holes and see if any caps have vented or anything looks funny inside. If you see something obviously wrong i would hunt down the warranty info asap

[slaveofconvention]

+1 on the PSU - I think that'll be your issue too - if you've eliminated overheating, the only other thing which springs to mind is bad RAM, so download and burn a memtest+ cd (current version 4.2 I think) and let your PC boot from it.

[BruteClaw]

If you see something obviously wrong i would hunt down the warranty info asap

Would love to RMA this to Newegg, but I bought it as a recertified one to save $100. It was purchased in December, so past the 30 days they give me to get a replacement. Guess I didn't save anything in the long run with this one.

+1 on the PSU - I think that'll be your issue too - if you've eliminated overheating, the only other thing which springs to mind is bad RAM, so download and burn a memtest+ cd (current version 4.2 I think) and let your PC boot from it.

Thanks for the info on the updated version. I had ver 2.10 that I was using to test my friends Crucial Balistix Tracer RAM that wasn't "tracing"

Been posting this all from my laptop. But I tried to power on the system today and it is immediately shuting down and the light starts blinking. And no luck on my friend getting me that old power supply, he already put it in a system that he sold.

Looks like I know where my tax refund is going to this year.

[Cale_Hagan]

brute, did you try using a different stick of 2GB mem or only the one? also, try swapping them into another ram slot? you wouldn't believe how many times ive had issues with ram on my friends computers

[jdbnsn]

Also rule out the video card. I've had this same behavior come from a video card issue. Try popping the cards out and letting it run, if it stays on overnight then it's the cards. They could be overheating, but I think my issue was a poor PCIe connection if I recall correctly. But a real diagnostic approach is strip it down to the bare essentials to run including a single stick of RAM, if the problem goes away start adding one component at a time until it replicates and you should have a better idea.

[BruteClaw]

Quick update on my issue. Ran into financial trouble that required me to spend the tax refund on other things. Still haven't resolved the issue with just rearranging existing hardware. But on the plus side, my wife is letting save up money to get a new power supply and dual Radeon HD 6870s for a crossfire setup.

[BruteClaw]

So this issue has been resolved. Got a new power supply in and it is working fine. didn't get the 6870s. Had to settle for 5770s instead. But in crossfire they should out perform my 240GT anyways. Only issue I have now is that windows got corrupted from all the shutdowns that were happening. Already in the process of reloading and restoring from drive images.

[BruteClaw]

Note to others that are switching from an nVidia card to ATI cards. Driver conflicts in Windows 7 64 bit became an issue. Rather then try and clean them out, I formated and started over with a fresh install.