PC shuts down and won't start up again for several hours

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by Blighter, Feb 1, 2006.

  1. Blighter

    Blighter Regular member

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    Hey guys,

    My Pc's about 4 years old, it's a Pentium 4 1.6ghz, 512mb ram, (upgraded to a) Radeon 9800 pro etc.

    Yesterday, it randomly shut down without warning, which kinda suprised me a bit, considering i've never had any real problems with it. My first concern was that the motherboard had gone, because pressing the on switch did nothing. I checked all the power cables were firmly in their sockets then tried it again and it turned on. About 3 minutes later, it turned off again. It started up as soon as i turned it on though, and i ran a scandisk. It turned off again! I thought maybe it had something to do with the CPU overheating, so i left it for a good 30 minutes, tried it again and it turned on. It worked fine for another 6 hrs, after which i turned it off. Then today, i'd had it on for about 2 hours, and it turned off again...

    5 hours later and it still won't turn on. I've had a look inside, can't see anything wrong, the fan seems to work fine, i've cleaned all the dust out of everything, it doesn't seem hot at all. But it still won't turn on. If i leave it for a while, then try to turn it on, i notice that the DVD Writer's lights flash green then turn off again, which sounds like it was about to start up but failed to. Atm, i'm leaning towards the PSU being the problem? Does anybody else have any other ideas as to what it might be?

    Cheers guys,

    Blighter
     
  2. NJman

    NJman Member

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    could be the power supply if its not the cpu or the mobo. i've actually have this happen with an old comp i had and it ended up i just needed a new powersupply.
     
  3. dolphin2

    dolphin2 Guest

    Sounds like the Power Supply overheating.

    The DVD lights flashing during start-up is normal. (At least on mine!) Just shows there're getting power.
     
  4. NJman

    NJman Member

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    also try checking all of the connections. i.e make sure all the wire are firmly in place and working.
     
  5. rav009

    rav009 Active member

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    That happend to me, the exact thing, for me it was the power supply and i was using a pc that had a non standard power supply so i had to buy a new case.

    when you turn it on and nothing happends means the power supply is probaly dead.
     
  6. Blighter

    Blighter Regular member

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    Awesome, ordered a new power supply 10 minutes ago...

    Not that it matters now, but is there anyway to find out whether it's the motherboard or the power supply without swapping parts around?
     
  7. rav009

    rav009 Active member

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    Yep and it takes up to 5 seconds, you need a power supply tester.
    pop it in and it'll tell you what the state is.
    anyway im pretty damm sure its the power supply looking at the syptoms.
     

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