PC woes

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've got a home assembled PC about 18 months old. Asus motherboard with an Athlon dual core processor.

For the last few months it's been shutting down at random. Thinking it was the PS replaced it. No improvement.

It seemed to be at least slightly heat related or possibly peak energy - it only seemed to happen after the machine had been on for some time and when actually in use - usually coincident with a key press, etc.

Wondering if it was the processor overheating I removed the heatsink/fan and to my delight found the thermal transfer compound was dry. Cleaned it off, replaced with new and great - it then worked perfectly for a couple of months. Then the same fault came back. But the paste is fine. On fixing back the heatsink and it once more worked ok for a while. Then the same fault. Put some weight on the heatsink or wiggle it and it will usually fire up. So I'm thinking poor connection in the socket? Dry joint? Broken track?

I remember the processor being very stiff to fit - so wonder just how I'd get it out to check without doing damage? Any other guesses?

[TMC]

Graphics card is another cause of random restarts

Have you the option to check the processor temp either in the bios or using feature of the motherboard?

Also need to make sure that the heatsink is clipping on properly as I don't think that they should wiggle about

Tony

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It doesn't restart - it shuts down.

Dunno. The heatsink feels normal, though.

Meant move slightly with pressure. It is clipped on properly.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Does this coincide with high CPU activity?

What OS do you run? The BIOS may well have a screen for setting up cooling parameters (fan speeds, etc), and tell you the core temperature, although that might be quite different from when the OS is running.

It shouldn't move. Make sure the mating surfaces are both very clean (clear of old heatsink compound, and any scratches which have resulted in any raised burr). Assemble without heatsink compound initially and make sure the faces align properly without any wobble. Then reassemble with the heatsink compound. You want as thin a layer as possible which will still guarantee contact across the whole area. Such a thin layer will by itself generate sticktion between the two surfaces, so again I would not expect any movement without a large enough force to break the sticktion.

[Count de Monet]

Check the event viewer for clues

[Chris J Dixon]

Have a look at

[Dave Liquorice]

Erm, you did lift the little lever on the side of the CPU socket to fit it didn't you? The CPU should just drop into the socket and even rattle a little, you then push the lever down to lock it into place.

To get it out you lift the lever and lift the CPU out, no force or prying required at all.

I'd take it out and look for a mangled pin but what damage may have been done to the contacts matching socket hole is another matter. New mother board time if that is damaged...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I reckon so.

XP.

I have the 'cool and quiet' disabled. But haven't actually found a page that gives actual core temp. Probably because I'd not looked. But it's taken to shutting down while in that setup mode so I can't really look much.

Think anything will move if you try hard enough. ;-)

Ok - I'll give it a try. What confuses me is that it worked fine for several months after replacing the compound. And for about a year with the original. My gut feeling is this is a red herring...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Don't know what that is.

[Clint Sharp]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

The processor shouldn't be stiff to fit, it should drop into the socket with zero force (apart from gravity), that's why they call it a zero insertion force socket. You did open the socket before you put the processor in didn't you?

[dennis]

ZIF (Zero insertion force) sockets shouldn't be stiff. Are you sure you opened the socket before you put the processor in? (Assuming it has pins that is.)

[Andy Hall]

In the control panel. Hardware funnies are often reported

[Clint Sharp]

In message , Andy Hall writes

Including the amazingly useful and accurate;

The last system Shutdown was unexpected.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Don't seem to be any.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Thinking back it might just have been the latch that was very stiff.

[Colin Wilson]

To help eliminate whether it's a hardware or software issue (almost certain this will be hardware related though), you could try booting up a live linux CD and seeing if it lasts any better. If not, it's got to be hardware related...

I suppose there are a couple of random things it might be, such as faulty RAM* (google MemTest86), or a known fault in the BIOS causing timing issues or somesuch, but I doubt it, given that you said it improved for a while.

• my worst weekend ever consisted of 26 failed installs of XP, each failing at a random different point, with a random different error.

About the best I can come up with would be a dry joint on the board.

If it was an older machine i'd suggest the capacitors, but yours is probably from the time they first went over to RoHS soldering methods

- which I believe are prone to this sort of crap :-}

[Mark Williams]

Have a look for signs of on the motherboard and I/O cards.

[Andy Hall]

That points more in the direction of a hardware problem - driver type issues usullay leave something in there or a blue screen.

You could try probing and tapping gently around with a plastic object. This may find things like dodgy PCB or CPU/memory socket issues. Swapping memory modules around and to different sockets might provoke a different behaviour and give a clue. Generally, ASUS is a well respected brand, but like anything else can have failures.

After that it's roll the dice on motherboard, CPU and memory.

[Andrew Gabriel]

With memory, assuming you don't have spare modules on the shelf, you could try taking half the DIMMs out, again assuming you have enough DIMMs in there to leave a working system with half removed. Then swap out for the other half.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Most recently - ie yesterday - it started shutting down before even starting to boot Windows. So I'm thinking it's not even heat related.