computer fucking out

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by vslayer, Apr 17, 2006.

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  1. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    ok, my computer started fucking out today, in the middle of a game, my computer died and refused to start until i had completely cold booted it with a 10 minutes break. i found the problem to be my CPU fan not going, so i moved it onto some case fan jumpers and it worked again(so at least the CPU fan controller on my motherboard is broken)

    since that it has died 5 times(in 2 hours), each time a little different, and each time needing a cold boot.

    im pretty sure that my CPU was damaged from overheating when my CPU fan cut out. but i also have suspicions about the power supply.

    im still having a weird reaction to some bad weed i smoked last night, so im not sure whether the insanely hot weather is just me, or whether it really is about 35C in the middle of autumn. but anyway, my CPU was running at 33C before the crashes, and ive moved the room fan onto the computer(taken the case off and put the fan right up to it) which has brought it down to 29C idle. and i dont believe it was overheating that cousde the last 5 crashes.

    ive had this system since the start of february with only one crash befor today, so this is certianly not a common occurence.

    any help?
     
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  3. cato less hate, more science Registered Senior Member

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    bad weed? I don't think so. unless you get it laced with something, weed will never do that.

    anyway, it might be your motherboard. I would just take it in somewhere.
     
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  5. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    sounds like a job for a new power supply

    a symptom of a overheated cpu will be a slow machine

    if your cpu was damaged by the heat i doubt if the machine would even boot
     
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  7. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    thats lucky. i can afford a new power supply, but the amount of tieme it would take to get my motherboard replaced(all the crap witht my warranty), as well as the time it takes to get EVERYTHING unplugged, and then put back together.
     
  8. Roman Banned Banned

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    Use a thermometer to measure the temperature, or check the local weather on the net, or turn on the computer, or ask somebody else.
     
  9. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    PSU's will cut out if there is a power surge.

    Currently I'm having that problem with my computer, the answer is pretty much to lower the PSU's load by unplugging the monitor power cable and USB connection, even turning down the fans on my system with their fan management control block is enough to lower the power usage a little.

    Simply while your computer is running I would suggest looking for a good PSU replacement with greater power output available if you want to run loads of power consuming devices from the computer.
     
  10. Lemming3k Insanity Gone Mad Registered Senior Member

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    I presume what happened is that the computer shuts off and everytime you try to switch it on it just repeats shutting off? When i had this before for some reason it was due to overheating which then messed the graphics card up, a new graphics card and an extra fan and it all worked fine again.
     
  11. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, it could be the graphics card. Have you checked the fans on the card? My friend had a computer that kept shutting down from an overheated graphics card. And you said you were playing a game the first time it happened, so this could easily be the case for you.
     
  12. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    the graphics card is another possibility

    rereading your original post i suggest giving your computer a thorough cleaning
    especially all of your heatsinks
    you may even want to remount them with fresh heatsink compound

    if your computer randomly crashes consistently and you get sporadic BSOD mixed in with it the power supply getting ready to fail is a likely suspect

    if you have upgraded your computer since you purchased it is another reason to suspect the supply especially if you installed a high end video card
     
  13. CielChocobo Registered Member

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    If you ask me, the most likely case is that you burned out your CPU if you didn't have a heatsink / fan. What kind of CPU are you running?
     
  14. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    im not running anything that should be putting too much load on my PSU. 3 hard drives, and about 4 fans off the 12v plugs. but thats it.

    as for cleaning it out, i got the parts brand new 2 1/2 months ago, so the amount of crap settled on them should be minimal.

    and replacing the graphics card is a problem, as i dont know anyone else that uses a PCI-e card.
     
  15. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    ok, ive checked the fan on the graphics card, and it goes fine, but i noticed in tis latest 2 freezes that the screen turns off before the whole computer dies a few seconds later. this leads me to believe that it may be the graphics card. so is there any way to check it without swapping it out?

    btw, ny computer is now unusable and i wrote this on my spare computer, so mind the spellin, im on a qwerty...
     
  16. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    Your motherboard probably has it's own on-board graphics system. You could try taking out your PCI graphics card and then going into the BIOS and setting your graphics device to on-board. It's worth a shot. If it works, your problem was the graphics card. If it doesn't work, then either it wasn't the graphics card, or permanent damage was done.
     
  17. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    i dont have onboard graphics, but i do have an old PCI tnt2 crad from the 90's lying around, i suppose i could try it.
     
  18. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    ok, ive tested with another PCI-e crad, which took me a while to get, with exactly the same result. computer still crashes. is there any way to tell whether it is the CPU or motherboard without swapping out the CPU(i wont even be near another socket 939 computer for at least 2 weeks)
     
  19. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Simple breakdown for crashes:

    PSU overload (too much power drain)
    Harddrive failure (Virtual Memory could be using a corrupted area of disk, use Scandisk to fix)
    RAM stick failure (If this was the case the system wouldn't boot)
    Graphics Card (Can occur, although usually it's just a driver misconfiguration)

    Personally I would boot your computer up and try running Scandisk/Error-Checking on your drives.
     
  20. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    I once had a computer crap out suddenly, and the next thing I knew it was crashing all the time, and bringing up an assortment of BSODs. I ran Scandisk, and it took a full 3 days to fix all the errors on my disk. Now that I think about it, your problem is very similar to what mine was.

    But then again, if you are sure it was directly caused by a thermal event, then I don't know what to tell you. I don't know if hard disks can be damaged by CPU overheating, or PSU problems.

    Good luck!
     
  21. vslayer Registered Senior Member

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    ok, i was planning to take it into the shop tomorrow, and was taking out my hardrives, when i noticed the power plug on the motherboard was slightly askew, so i plugged it back in and booted it up, worked fine in the bios, no crashes at all.

    i put my OS drive back in, and im currently using the computer no problems, still havent been able to put it under a full load though, as most of the high demand games require ISOs on another drive.

    ill put the other 2 back in, and if it works, then i will be rather embarrassed at such a simple problem.
     
  22. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    Oh, wow! That could definetely do it.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
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