Computer Issues

Jysin

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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4,024
My desktop is doing similar things (shutting down), but not repeatable and just randomly. I can sometimes play WoW for 4 days or more in 4+ hour sessions and it's fine, then the next day the screens may shut down 30 minutes in. Odd thing is the game is, I think, still running as the music carries on, I just can't wake the pc and have to hard reboot. I'm not sure it's heat (my first thought) as I installed CPUID and my GPU never goes above about 65 and the CPU maxes at about 43 ish. I've checked all the fans and they're all running fine.

I'm wanting to upgrade anyway but due to baby on the way I was hoping to delay for a little while as my gaming will be curtailed in the short (and long? :) ) term anyway. Is there anything else I can try? My Google-fu may be weak but the only things I saw mentioned overheating of the GPU, and I don't have a spare I can try to see if that fixes the issue.

Your temps sound fine. I would try and test the memory and see if you're getting memory faults, which can present itself in all sorts of different manner and crashes.

How to run Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool in Windows
 

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
532
456
Ran the mem test and nothing wrong, so it says. Oh well, I'll just have to continue swearing at the computer when it shuts down, until it gets to the point where I just go and buy a stack of new bits and replace it.
 

Jysin

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,274
4,024
Yea, from what you describe, it is going to be tough to pin point exactly what the issue is without having spares to swap out.

You say your screens black out, but you can still hear music and whatnot in the background? Do you have a spare graphics card to swap out and test?

I'd check out (in order): graphics card, power supply, motherboard.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
60,708
132,925
Ran the mem test and nothing wrong, so it says. Oh well, I'll just have to continue swearing at the computer when it shuts down, until it gets to the point where I just go and buy a stack of new bits and replace it.

Do you get a BSOD, blue screen? if no blue screen and you just get either reset or black screen, your power is fucked. i know you said you checked fans, but check your power supply fan, it could have stopped turning, if so, either replace powersupply or replace the fan, you might or might not have to resolder it, watch out for capacitors and discharge.
 

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
14,413
6,131
My desktop is doing similar things (shutting down), but not repeatable and just randomly. I can sometimes play WoW for 4 days or more in 4+ hour sessions and it's fine, then the next day the screens may shut down 30 minutes in. Odd thing is the game is, I think, still running as the music carries on, I just can't wake the pc and have to hard reboot.


Is it shutting down or just screens going blank? Cause it sounds like you could be having multiple issues if its both.
 

elcaro1101

Vyemm Raider
1,971
4,374
I would take a look at fans as others have said, even give the system a good internal cleaning with compressed air.

Also, if you have multiple memory sticks, try isolating and running them one at a time, and see if you can find an issue that way. While a memtest can find bad I/O issues, it could be a thermal issue with a single stick that didn't appear during the test. If you can run on a single stick for an extended time, add the others one at a time and see if the issue shows itself again. Even just rotating them from the slot they are in now could possibly resolve an issue.
 

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
532
456
It's not shutting down, its acting exactly as if the monitors were going into sleep mode. However, sleep mode is completely off on this PC and it won't wake, I have to hard reboot. The psu fan appears to be working, if I hold my hand over the exhaust it's blowing quite hard and it also feels cool. It's all a bit odd really, I'm no expert but if I had to guess it would be a hardware issue as I'd changed no drivers/software immediately prior to this starting to happen, and subsequent driver/windows updates have changed nothing. As mentioned before I'm leaning towards a new PC anyway (it's a 5 year old mobo/cpu and the card is only an r9) so rather than throw good money after bad I'll just hold out until it becomes too annoying then buy the parts and build a new one.

Cheers for all the advice though.
 

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
532
456
Balls to it, ordering the bits tonight, 16fps in azshara doing dailies, bag of shit thing. Tried the card out of my wifes pc and that was just as bad so its not the gpu.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
60,708
132,925
It's not shutting down, its acting exactly as if the monitors were going into sleep mode. However, sleep mode is completely off on this PC and it won't wake, I have to hard reboot. The psu fan appears to be working, if I hold my hand over the exhaust it's blowing quite hard and it also feels cool. It's all a bit odd really, I'm no expert but if I had to guess it would be a hardware issue as I'd changed no drivers/software immediately prior to this starting to happen, and subsequent driver/windows updates have changed nothing. As mentioned before I'm leaning towards a new PC anyway (it's a 5 year old mobo/cpu and the card is only an r9) so rather than throw good money after bad I'll just hold out until it becomes too annoying then buy the parts and build a new one.

Cheers for all the advice though.

Maybe your monitor is just fucked, try a dif one, most tv's now have vga inputs if you don't have one lying around.
 

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
532
456
I've got two plugged in and they both go off at the same time, I've had enough of it now. Pissing about on WoW is my de-stress method after work so the pc crapping out on me just isn't on! :)
 

Kalaar kururuc

Grumpy old man
532
456
Not sure if this is the right thread but here goes:

New bits have been ordered and on the way, question is about win10.

I'm re-using the SSD from the old PC which has the free windows 10 install on it (over a genuine win7), however that is hardware linked I believe? If I had the software I'd just do a clean install but I don't, so will I be able to reactivate the free win10 copy with all new hardware if I just bung the SSD in? Or do I now need to buy a copy of win10?

edit: oh, my Google-fu had been weak but I've now found a link about creating a Microsoft account and linking the free win10 key to that, this then allows you to reuse that key when you upgrade, so hopefully problem solved.
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
Do you get a BSOD, blue screen? if no blue screen and you just get either reset or black screen, your power is fucked. i know you said you checked fans, but check your power supply fan, it could have stopped turning, if so, either replace powersupply or replace the fan, you might or might not have to resolder it, watch out for capacitors and discharge.

Jesus fucking Christ no.

If you are not a qualified electrician, don't open a fucking power supply. The fuck are you trying to do to the man?

Just replace the shit, its not hard, nor expensive.
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
Not sure if this is the right thread but here goes:

New bits have been ordered and on the way, question is about win10.

I'm re-using the SSD from the old PC which has the free windows 10 install on it (over a genuine win7), however that is hardware linked I believe? If I had the software I'd just do a clean install but I don't, so will I be able to reactivate the free win10 copy with all new hardware if I just bung the SSD in? Or do I now need to buy a copy of win10?

edit: oh, my Google-fu had been weak but I've now found a link about creating a Microsoft account and linking the free win10 key to that, this then allows you to reuse that key when you upgrade, so hopefully problem solved.

Move your Windows 10 License to a New Computer - Win 10 FAQ
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
I figured anyone that opens a computers psu to do work deserves whatever arc touches their body. Let's not forget that capacitors can actually kill you..

Im a computer engineer and I wouldn't open a power supply, especially a faulty one.
 

radditsu

Silver Knight of the Realm
4,676
826
I figured anyone that opens a computers psu to do work deserves whatever arc touches their body. Let's not forget that capacitors can actually kill you..

Im a computer engineer and I wouldn't open a power supply, especially a faulty one.



Too cheap to care about it, However this POE module i just spent 200 dollars on that all of a sudden stopped working....


Goddamit i was at 100% implementation too.