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Computer shutting down

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by donking24

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I have a refurbished ThinkCentre 9210 Desktop PC Pentium 4 3.0GHz 1GB DDR2 40GB HDD Capacity Intel GMA 950 Windows XP Professional that I bought from Newegg.com for ~$125 dollars, it worked fine for about 6 months and just recently it started shutting down randomly. Trying to figure out where to start trouble shooting. I don't think it's the OS because it will shutdown even when I but in a Linux live disc and there are no errors in Windows event viewer. I'm thinking it might be the power supply, cpu overheating, or maybe the memory. Any help is appreciated.

10 replies

by dyalect

If is just randomly shutting down and with different operating systems it is a heat issue. Try taking the cover off and pointing a fan into the system then boot up and see if this helps. Also, try to remove the cpu chip, clean off the thermal paste and reapply then put cpu back in. If you don't feel confortable doing that, then let the geek squad have a go. Definately a heat issue though.

by kmthom

Please don't take it to geek squad....I'd rather you run it over with your car and put it out of it's misery than pay those shady salesmen of the IT industry...

The thermal paste may be the culprit. I have seen this many times cause a computer to overheat. Find a guide on the internet to help you remove the heat-sink if you are unsure how to do it. I usually use acetone (a paint thinner) to remove the old thermal goo and reapply a nice coating of new stuff.

Others have mentioned it to be the power supply. This could also be correct. My advice is to get your hands on another one and run your computer hard for a while; enough to get the fans really going for about 20 minutes. How long between restarts does it usually take?

Good luck, random restarts are always fun to figure out. :-)

by paulprivate

Other possibilities:
Check for dodgy/loose mains lead, power strip etc
Power supply
Sticky on off button
Loose screw inside case.
Blown motherboard capacitors.
Best luck.

by lhlynn

Based on my experience, its almost certainly the power supply.

by davep.l

Ditto. A friend had the same problem that plagued him for months. Took it into a shop that tried to screw loads of cash for fixing it. In the end he asked me to have a look and it when we swapped out the power supply, everything was good.

by dan.cox

I have seen this on countless machines when the capacitors start to go bad. Open the case and look at the capacitors. If they are bulged your board is about to die.

by bobc471

A friends son took his computer to a shop to be fixed and after charging him $80 it failed in a week; they bought a new one. I took it and the inside was so packed with dirt and dust (6-8 yrs old?) and that killed the power supply, you could smell the fried semiconductors. I jumped in a good power supply and retrieved all their data for them.

If it's dirty, clean it and look for any fans that seem to be slowing down. Those cpu fans are notorious for slowing down.

by donking24

Thanks to all that responded to my original post. I got busy and gave up on this problem for a while just now got a chance to open the computer back up and my son noticed that there were some wires that had been cut into by that case opening and closing. The wires also just so happen to go to the reset button on the pc...that is the reason that the pc kept resetting. Unfortunately i had already taken the power supply and tossed it in the trash out of frustration at the time. Now i have to buy a power supply and get the wiring repaired. Anyways lesson learned for me. Take time to trouble shoot all the way and consider all possibilities. :)

by krama0

Check your ram, If none of the above work for you. One dud address that fails when accessed will crash system

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