Comp shutting off

[kitten]

I will be in the middle of doing something on my comp and it will power off. I am not getting a overheating error or anything. Sometimes it will just reboot by itself and other times shut off period. I looked at it and made sure all the cords were tightly in there spots etc and I just have no idea. It only did it once today but yesterday it was constant. I dont knwo what to do.

[Nocutius]

I had a similar problem if i recall correctly, it turned out the capacitors on the motherboard were about to die. At first the pc would restart only now and then, but at the end it was pretty much unusable. I had no idea what was wrong until i accidentally looked at the capacitors. They should be flat but mine were not.

this (http://www.news.com/2300-1041-5940552.html) is a picture from a random google search for ''bad capacitors picture''
You can clearly see the difference between good and bad ones.
I'm not sure you have the same problem but it's worth a look.

[Scott]

Also could be power supply going out. If you capacitors on motherboard look ok then try to borrow one or get one from BestBuy or Circuit City and try it.

[kitten]

I will check it out, omg I hope its not my mobo I cant afford a new one Its costing 153 a week for my kid to go to school :(

[Methious]

Any Over Clocking?

Even if you don't OC it might be ram voltages, check to see if the voltages on the ram you have meet the factory specs for it.

Also check to see if the ram timings are right. It's best to set them manually to avoid bios reading them wrong.

Check the cpu voltages to make sure it's not over volting or under volting.

If you post up some specs on your rig we can tell you more.

[Sadasius]

Yeah almost 100% of the time for me if I had random reboots it was because the RAM was running too high and needed to be brought down. I would get no error messages or anything, just random reboots.

[MtDew]

When you have your case open to check the capacitors, I would get a can or two of compressed air and and blow everything out. Make sure you have your power supply unplugged when you do it.

I try to do this every couple of months and I have found that I will increase the longevity of your system 2 or 3 times. I worked as a bench tech for a second job (to help pay for a divorce) years ago and you would not believe the number of computers that would come in with dust, pet dander, and residue from cigarette smoke (tar). These computers were cooking themselves to failure.

Good Luck

[Xero (1)ne]

I would go into bios to check your voltages. Borrowing a PSU tester would be good too.

You can try lowering your RAM clock or adjusting timings/volts too, because I've had that happen to me with RAM not liking the speed it was at.