Never Had This Happen Before

[StormCrow]

Ok, first off, let me say... i know how to get onto the game, get to my movie download sites and thats about it when it comes to computers, im am VERY PC illiterate!

 

So, playing in Ftag the in COD4 yesterday morning... out of nowhere my PC shuts off. i curse and swear and hit power button, PC boots up normal, not error, no wanting to run skandisk nuttin. ok... go back into game... 10 minutes later same thing.. PC shuts itself off. I reboot and had to head out to work at this point. Got home last night and asked wife if PC was doing anything weird... nope.. all was good. Ok, watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds i have downloaded (HDMI chord runs straight from vid card to TV) Everything was fine and dandy. Before heading to bed set up Maleware Bytes to run a full scan. Get up this morning and No virus or any infected files. Head into COD... play for a half hour or so... bam... PC shuts itself down... fuck me... hit the power button, everything is fine, posts, boots up fine, no scan disk, no windows shutdown unexpectantly error, nuttin. Head back into COD, play for 20 min and had to head out to work.

 

Be going home from work in a few hours so wanted to toss this up here to see any thoughts.

Here is what xfire.com listed as my system specs

 

 

  Manufacturer Acer Processor Intel® Core2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz Memory 2030MB RAM Hard Drive 244 GB Motherboard Not Available Operation System Windows Vistaâ„¢ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.100608-0458)

Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 Physics Card No Monitor Dell 1907FP(Analog)

Soundcard Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) Speakers Not Available

Keyboard USB Root Hub Mouse USB Root Hub Mouse Surface Not Available

 

 

 

 

the only thing different would be that i am now running Windows 7, have been for a while now so no, thats not when the trouble started

 

Any help for this old stoner would be greatly appreciated

 

Remember, laymans terms, im a PC idiot as well as an xtreme one!

[Unchileno]

Sounds like your video card is over heating or it is on its last hours..Open it up and give it a good BLOW job..(You should be good at that)..Clean processor too while you are at it..MSI after burner is pretty good to control your fan speed crank it and see what happens..or open side panel and put a fan directly to it..see how that goes..if it dont shut down...Than you know what it is..

 

Good luck..

[TecHnOBoY]

Agree with Chile.
This is a typical behavior of overheating GPUs or CPUs. Have a look at your components if they are dusty.
You can monitor the temperatures and collect a lot of other information of your components with tools like "Speccy", it's freeware:

 

http://speccy.en.softonic.com/

 

[Merlin007]

Agree with what the others are saying. It's the computers way of protecting itself. Make sure you blow out any dust build up on the cpu and gpu heatsinks as well as around the psu and that all fans are running.

[StormCrow]

Ill pick up a can of air tomorrow and blow it all out... i called the wife and had her look inside, she says its fairly dusty

Thanks for the help!!

[Chris]

Blow what all out exactly?!?! lol

[Hunter1948]

Now that your wife knows it's dusty see could clean it with pledge. LOL

[J3st3r]

I don't know if the newer motherboards do this or not but if your CPU fan falls below a certain RPM I think it was 600 rpm the motherboards would immediately shut down.So it could be a failing CPU fan,Power supply overheating or CPU overheating because of dirt.Or possibly a bad speed sensor in the CPU fan,I've had a bunch of the stock Intel Core Duo,Pentium D and Core 2 Quad fans malfunction like this.

 

 

If it is still shutting off after you blow it out,I would replace the CPU fan.They are easy to change out and very cheap.I have a couple dozen CPU fans in the closet,If I don't have 1 that will fit your CPU Heat-sink I'm sure some one else may have 1.

 

 

Most PCs from Dell,HP,Compaq ect. ect. Will not shut off because of heat.They will keep running and burn them selves up.Because the Bios in the Box store PCs does not have an Overheat Protection option.Here's an old Pic of a Bios with Overheat Protection.

 

 

[djMot]

Assuming no other recent changes to the system, and given the specs on the video card, it looks likely you've not been messing with it, I would agree that overheating is a strong candidate and a good cleaning is in order.

 

A couple of utilities to help you determine if temperature is the problem, and where the temperature is going out of range:

 

CPUID Hardware Monitor:  http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Real Temp:  http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

 

Note that your hardware has to support temperature monitoring applications, but there's no harm in trying to use them.

 

Also, a degraded power supply could be the culprit.  If you're still experiencing problems after a thorough cleaning and if temperatures seem within acceptable range, it's most likely going to be your power supply.  Stranger things could be candidates, but given the symptoms as you've laid them out. I think we're on the right track here.

[CobraBites]

Sounds like your video card is over heating or it is on its last hours..Open it up and give it a good BLOW job..(You should be good at that)..Clean processor too while you are at it..MSI after burner is pretty good to control your fan speed crank it and see what happens..or open side panel and put a fan directly to it..see how that goes..if it dont shut down...Than you know what it is..

 

Good luck..

yea my guess too...video card over heating....or processor or both...one thing u can do is download hw monitoring its totally free..and monitors temps in ur pc...ur processor...hdd...video card...another thing u might want to do is open the case clean inside really well make sure all ur fans are dusted off...if ur fans are loaded with dust it will stop air from getn in and coolin ur card and cpu down in turn causes overheating...other than that it could b power supply as well....

[Pharticus]

I say replace your mice and keyboard.  And get a haircut and wax your back... 

Edited February 20, 2013 by Pharticus

[JohnnyQuest]

Ok, first off, let me say... i know how to get onto the game, get to my movie download sites and thats about it when it comes to computers, im am VERY PC illiterate!

 

So, playing in Ftag the in COD4 yesterday morning... out of nowhere my PC shuts off. i curse and swear and hit power button, PC boots up normal, not error, no wanting to run skandisk nuttin. ok... go back into game... 10 minutes later same thing.. PC shuts itself off. I reboot and had to head out to work at this point. Got home last night and asked wife if PC was doing anything weird... nope.. all was good. Ok, watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds i have downloaded (HDMI chord runs straight from vid card to TV) Everything was fine and dandy. Before heading to bed set up Maleware Bytes to run a full scan. Get up this morning and No virus or any infected files. Head into COD... play for a half hour or so... bam... PC shuts itself down... fuck me... hit the power button, everything is fine, posts, boots up fine, no scan disk, no windows shutdown unexpectantly error, nuttin. Head back into COD, play for 20 min and had to head out to work.

 

Be going home from work in a few hours so wanted to toss this up here to see any thoughts.

Here is what xfire.com listed as my system specs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Manufacturer Acer Processor Intel® Core2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz Memory 2030MB RAM Hard Drive 244 GB Motherboard Not Available Operation System Windows Vistaâ„¢ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.100608-0458)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 Physics Card No Monitor Dell 1907FP(Analog)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soundcard Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) Speakers Not Available

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keyboard USB Root Hub Mouse USB Root Hub Mouse Surface Not Available

 

 

 

 

the only thing different would be that i am now running Windows 7, have been for a while now so no, thats not when the trouble started

 

Any help for this old stoner would be greatly appreciated

 

Remember, laymans terms, im a PC idiot as well as an xtreme one!

go into windows sound on task bar...hit the recording tab...enable stereo mix....if you can't see stereo mix....right click on blank space of windows sound and show hidden devices....i can't play at all unless this is enabled in windows sound not your sound card but windows sound....good luck my stoner bud...i think i will have a bong ........try that and see if it works...the only other thing i can think of is your fan profile isn't ramping up and your vid card might be getting too hot...download evga precision or riva tuner or msi afterburner and set up a fan curve...just one though as two of them will fight eachother...other than those two afore mentioned items i am at a loss,,,good luck,post back and let us know

[JohnnyQuest]

Assuming no other recent changes to the system, and given the specs on the video card, it looks likely you've not been messing with it, I would agree that overheating is a strong candidate and a good cleaning is in order.

 

A couple of utilities to help you determine if temperature is the problem, and where the temperature is going out of range:

 

CPUID Hardware Monitor:  http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Real Temp:  http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

 

Note that your hardware has to support temperature monitoring applications, but there's no harm in trying to use them.

 

Also, a degraded power supply could be the culprit.  If you're still experiencing problems after a thorough cleaning and if temperatures seem within acceptable range, it's most likely going to be your power supply.  Stranger things could be candidates, but given the symptoms as you've laid them out. I think we're on the right track here.

#1 on the degraded psu...i had the same prob two years ago before i built this monster

[Belle]

mine kept shutting off and I thought it was overheating so added a new water cooling system but that didn't solve the problem.  Cleaned and reseated everything but it still kept shutting off.  Finally replaced the power supply a couple weeks ago and it hasn't shut off since so I'd check the power supply storm.

[CobraBites]

yea people think when pc shuts off on u its an overheating issue as this isnt always the case most of the time its powersupply

[HarryWeezer]

Blowing the dust out will help, but you need to get it really clean. Drop it in your bathtub after you've filled it with hot water, plus one cup of dish detergent, one cup of bleach for all those stains, and one cup of muriatic acid to re-etch the mobo. Let it sit there 24 hours, then take it out back and rinse thoroughly with the garden hose. Last thing, melt a large candle in a pan over the stove, and pour the melted wax over the bottom of your PC. As you run, the heat will cause a nice scent to fill the room.