Computer Turns Self Off

[ratchetclan4 0]

sometimes my computer switches itself off at any moment without warning it just instantly turns off i don't know if its when i run some programs or not cause if i try to save something on windows movie maker it turns itself off and the turn on button won't work until i switch it off from the back and then back on anyone know whats wrong?

[foolakadugie 0]

sometimes my computer switches itself off at any moment without warning it just instantly turns off i don't know if its when i run some programs or not cause if i try to save something on windows movie maker it turns itself off and the turn on button won't work until i switch it off from the back and then back on anyone know whats wrong?

This may be caused by your computer overheating. Has your computer been making much noise lately? You may need to replace a fan in your tower.
Try opening up the tower and then starting up the computer to see if the fans are running properly. If a fan is either no working or if there is one making
unusual noises then I would get a new fan. While the tower is open, I would suggest cleaning the inside by blowing all of the dust our with canned air.
Sometimes collected dust can slow down the ventilation in some areas.

[HellFire121 0]

This could be caused by overheating, faulty hardware, new programs or dying power supply.Check foolakadugie's post just above to see how to deal with overheating.You should download a utility that monitors voltages and fan speeds etc (for example speedfan) and make sure everything is reporting ok. If you notice a voltage drop or something that pretty much points to your power supply.How long have you had the computer for? Did it just recently start happening? Did you install any new programs?If you are 100% sure that you didn't install any programs, your cooling system is fine and your psu is fine then something in your computer must have developed a fault. The best way to go about this is to send it in to a computer store so they can professionally test what needs replacing.Good luck-HellFire

[faulty.lee 0]

sometimes my computer switches itself off at any moment without warning it just instantly turns off i don't know if its when i run some programs or not cause if i try to save something on windows movie maker it turns itself off and the turn on button won't work until i switch it off from the back and then back on anyone know whats wrong?

It's very likely the power supply. I face that problem before, just few weeks ago. If you have another pc around, you can try swap the power supply. It usually turn off at peak load, say when doing encoding or saving a big file. For my case, sometime even when booting up. For me, since i know electronic, i open up the power supply and found out that a few capacitors is not in good shape. After replacing them, voila, it's be on until now, for more than 2 weeks. I left my pc on 24x7.

EDIT: The main cause of the problem above is that, there's a voltage dip during the heavy load. If the dip is way of the tolerance of the board, which is usually +/- 5%, then the motherboard will switch off, but holding the power supply on. In my case, the power led is blinking. You can't do anything until you turn off the main power switch to reset the faulty state.

After confirming that it's the power supply problem, you can either send to a known friend or change the capacitor yourself, or just get a new one, it won't be expensive. It's around RM60/= here, equal to less than $20 US dollar.

Nowadays as things is getting cheaper, so is the parts they use. Capacitor has the shortest life span. If you checkout the datasheet, you'll bee surprise that the quoted life span is only a mere few thousand hours. If say it's 3000 hours, If i on 24 hours a day, that's only 125 days.

Good Luck
Edited July 7, 2007 by faulty.lee (see edit history)

[lonelym 0]

As the previous posters have said, this may be caused by overheating, faulty hardware, or maybe your fan in giving out. It could also be that you plugged your computer to the wrong electric socket, giving it too much electricty, making it overheat. There are a lot of factors in this problem. It could also be that your RAM (Random Access Memory) is too slow for the programs that you are executing. Maybe upgrading it (RAM) a little bit would work?Hope what i said helps.Edit: I suggest using an AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator) for the CPU and the monitor, but make sure that you plugged the wires in correctly.

Edited July 7, 2007 by lonelym (see edit history)

[ratchetclan4 0]

This may be caused by your computer overheating. Has your computer been making much noise lately? You may need to replace a fan in your tower.Try opening up the tower and then starting up the computer to see if the fans are running properly. If a fan is either no working or if there is one making
unusual noises then I would get a new fan. While the tower is open, I would suggest cleaning the inside by blowing all of the dust our with canned air.
Sometimes collected dust can slow down the ventilation in some areas.

ill open it up today and clean it out its been there for at least a year or something it's probley covered in dust

[Sweet Impact 0]

sometimes my computer switches itself off at any moment without warning it just instantly turns off i don't know if its when i run some programs or not cause if i try to save something on windows movie maker it turns itself off and the turn on button won't work until i switch it off from the back and then back on anyone know whats wrong?

I experienced this before, my PC randomly restarts because I installed a software then immediately used it without restarting.
If you installed a new software, try to uninstall it first, reboot, then install your software and restart again. That's what I did and my PC is fine now. Try also to clean your power supply, CPU fan, etc. Make sure also to connect the power supply plug directly to the wall socket and don't plug it to extension wires.

[ratchetclan4 0]

I experienced this before, my PC randomly restarts because I installed a software then immediately used it without restarting.If you installed a new software, try to uninstall it first, reboot, then install your software and restart again. That's what I did and my PC is fine now. Try also to clean your power supply, CPU fan, etc. Make sure also to connect the power supply plug directly to the wall socket and don't plug it to extension wires.

by power supply plug do you mean the one that goes into my computer to power it if you mean that then mines plugged into an extension cable cause i only have one wall socket

[faulty.lee 0]

As the previous posters have said, this may be caused by overheating, faulty hardware, or maybe your fan in giving out. It could also be that you plugged your computer to the wrong electric socket, giving it too much electricty, making it overheat. There are a lot of factors in this problem. It could also be that your RAM (Random Access Memory) is too slow for the programs that you are executing. Maybe upgrading it (RAM) a little bit would work?
Hope what i said helps.

Edit: I suggest using an AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator) for the CPU and the monitor, but make sure that you plugged the wires in correctly.

I rule out the possibility of RAM and also "wrong electric socket, giving it too much electricity". RAM problem could have just cause the system to restart. As ratchetclan4 has mentioned, "the turn on button won't work until i switch it off from the back and then back on". That means the motherboard turn itself off, mostly due to power dip, it's call brownout in electronic, and to prevent further problem, you need to power off everything to reset the state. This is a safety implementation. The system might have a corrupted RAM data during the brownout, so it's safer to just halt everything. The suggestion of AVR might be a right move. But before buying anything, it's safer to just do a confirmation check, on whether it's the power supply. Unless you have no other way to swap the power supply for a test run, then whatever closer is the next good move.

[wutske 0]

best way to test is getting speedfan and some kind of cpu test program (like Prime95, S&M, OCCT, CPU-burn, ...). Speedfans allows you to monitor the temperatures and voltages (it can also log these values to a file, which I suggest you to do so you can see the last value recorded). Then start the cpu test program, if the computer immediatly powers down, then it's a faulty psu, if not you should keep an eye on the temperatures and voltages.

[unimatrix 0]

I would say faulty power supply as my first guess. Generally in the past when I had heat issues, the machine would freeze rather than shutdown. Granted this was back in the day with Windows 2k pro. Not sure how XP/Vista handles the problems. But I had this problem before with machines and it was the power supply that was to blame.

[ratchetclan4 0]

yesterday i opened my computer and cleaned it saying as it's been there for a year untouched and after i plugged it all back in it worked fine it was on all last night andall today without switching itself off so i think i fixed it

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I think it could also be a virus because there are viruses that are known to just shut computers off out of the blue. If that's not the case, then check for faulty motherboards and faulty PSU. Lastly it could be just a dusty machine.xboxrulz

[Grafitti 0]

I just had a P4 that had those exact problems, out of the blue would shut down and sometimes had to completely power off and wait before it would restart. it was a buildup of dust in the fins of the processor heat sink.Then another P4, exactly the same model and config, wouldn't shut down, but froze and the mouse jerked around erratically. Was the same dust problem. I'd try that one first, as it's the cheapest to fix.

[ratchetclan4 0]

I just had a P4 that had those exact problems, out of the blue would shut down and sometimes had to completely power off and wait before it would restart. it was a buildup of dust in the fins of the processor heat sink.Then another P4, exactly the same model and config, wouldn't shut down, but froze and the mouse jerked around erratically. Was the same dust problem. I'd try that one first, as it's the cheapest to fix.

yeh did that a couple of days ago and it fixed it btw can i close this thread or not? lol im kind of new