PC is powering down again...

[Flonne]

I just got a new PSU 2 months ago. I've taken the entire thing apart over a dozen times and tested each part individually to see that they were properly grounded/not shorting out the system, and NOTHING IS WRONG. NOTHING.

Can someone please give me some ideas? Anything? Just make pomegranate up, and I'll probably try it if it sounds good, at this point.

There are no crash messages, no BSOD, nothing, just flat shuts off in the middle of doing random pomegranate; no correlation between power consumption/processor intensity, that I can tell. The only error I get even in the event log is the generic "this system has shut down unexpectedly.", Event 41 Kernel-Power.

Almost every time I also get Event 1, "Initialization of the High Precision Event Timer failed due to a BIOS configuration problem.
The operating system will use another available platform timer in lieu of the High Precision Event Timer. Contact your system vendor for technical assistance. Initialization status: 0x1.", but changing the HPET settings in the BIOS does nothing, and I'm pretty sure that error is just a byproduct, since it only occurs after a crash when rebooting.

[Polantaris]

Just throwing it out there;
Are you sure you a proper amount of capacity for the PC when you got the new PSU?

You say, "no correlation between power consumption/processor intensity, that I can tell," but what about your GPU as well? Those things take the most power in modern systems(in my experience).

[FabledGumbo]

It's probably totally irrelevant, but I stabilized my system some by disabling some raid/sata options in my bios and disabling hyper threading, which may be relevant if you are either running with just one hard drive and/or a processor with hyper threading capabilities. I'd also do some basic stuff like plugging the computer into different wall sockets and trying with and without various surge protectors/splitters or whatever it may be.

[Flonne]

It's probably totally irrelevant, but I stabilized my system some by disabling some raid/sata options in my bios and disabling hyper threading, which may be relevant if you are either running with just one hard drive and/or a processor with hyper threading capabilities. I'd also do some basic stuff like plugging the computer into different wall sockets and trying with and without various surge protectors/splitters or whatever it may be.

hyper threading is kinda important...but I can try disabling RAID settings, not sure that will help anything though.

Just throwing it out there;
Are you sure you a proper amount of capacity for the PC when you got the new PSU?

You say, "no correlation between power consumption/processor intensity, that I can tell," but what about your GPU as well? Those things take the most power in modern systems(in my experience).

My new PSU is 150w stronger than the old one; the old one just died of old age, it handled it fine before then, so I doubt it's that.

[Derosis]

Probably a DOA.

[Flonne]

Probably a DOA.

We have a portable electrical meter here; I've tested all the parts, and they are getting power flow properly/not shorting.

[Dudewitbow]

Can you post build, and more specifically, PSU model in question. In the world of computer hardware, its not really regulated, and manufacturers can sell you a power supply labled like 750w, when it can only really do like 500w peak in normal conditions(psu testing conditions are under 20c room, which isnt normal in real life). I dont need the whole build, but really the:

Cpu in question, and what speed its at when overclocked
Gpu " "
Power Supply model # and brand, or slightly easier amperage on the 12v rail, as well as the max combined amperage on the rail
Number of Drives(5.25, 3.5, 2.5 drives)

rest is probably negligible to some extent.

[Flonne]

Can you post build, and more specifically, PSU model in question. In the world of computer hardware, its not really regulated, and manufacturers can sell you a power supply labled like 750w, when it can only really do like 500w peak in normal conditions(psu testing conditions are under 20c room, which isnt normal in real life). I dont need the whole build, but really the:

Cpu in question, and what speed its at when overclocked
Gpu " "
Power Supply model # and brand, or slightly easier amperage on the 12v rail, as well as the max combined amperage on the rail
Number of Drives(5.25, 3.5, 2.5 drives)

rest is probably negligible to some extent.

Sure.

CPU:E6850 (dual core)
GPU:HD5750
PSU:OCZ-ZT750w, max load on 12v 62A, max combined 744w
Only 1 drive, a normal HDD, FDDs are all external.

[Dudewitbow]

That's pretty odd. the system as a whole shouldn't take a lot of power(approx like low 300 watts on average). what my recommendation is to isolate which hardware(assuming its hardware) is causing the problem. First, you should be possible to isolate if its a PSU problem by using the PSU on a separate build, as if ti fails on that machine as well, then its definitely a psu quality problem. If the psu works on another build for an extended period of time(preferably on mixed loads, and not idle 100% of the time) then you can almost rule out it being the psu. After that, I would check out to see if the motherboard is faulty in anyway, and not delivering enough power to the parts when its needed.

[Flonne]

The problem is it's not constant. If it were crashing constantly and refused to power on I would at least have something to go by, but right now it only happens like once a week or less, so testing each part individually would take months.

[Dudewitbow]

So to be clear, it shuts off randomly, as in no matter what computer load, rather it being on idle, or playing a moderately sized game?


edit: if its a software issue, the easiest way of attempting to fix it would be a clean OS install.

[Flonne]

So to be clear, it shuts off randomly, as in no matter what computer load, rather it being on idle, or playing a moderately sized game?


edit: if its a software issue, the easiest way of attempting to fix it would be a clean OS install.

This is a clean OS install. And, it hasn't ever shut off on COMPLETE idle, as in, when I was asleep or something, but beyond that, I've had it shut down when just browsing the internet at the same...well, hmmm, actually now that I think of it, Dolphin is heavily CPU intensive and it seems to crash a lot more often when I'm playing Xenoblade...it may be the CPU overheating. That would not surprise me; I've had this CPU for 7 years, and it is CONSISTENTLY 5-10 degrees above factory recommended, and as many as 20 degrees over when doing something CPU intensive. Could be that it's just finally breaking down. If it can hold out a few more weeks, I'll have enough money to replace it, but to replace it I have to replace the motherboard because the socket type is now obsolete...and if I replace the motherboard, I need to replace the RAM, because my current RAM is DDR2, I doubt that's still supported either.

[Dudewitbow]

This is a clean OS install. And, it hasn't ever shut off on COMPLETE idle, as in, when I was asleep or something, but beyond that, I've had it shut down when just browsing the internet at the same...well, hmmm, actually now that I think of it, Dolphin is heavily CPU intensive and it seems to crash a lot more often when I'm playing Xenoblade...it may be the CPU overheating. That would not surprise me; I've had this CPU for 7 years, and it is CONSISTENTLY 5-10 degrees above factory recommended, and as many as 20 degrees over when doing something CPU intensive. Could be that it's just finally breaking down. If it can hold out a few more weeks, I'll have enough money to replace it, but to replace it I have to replace the motherboard because the socket type is now obsolete...and if I replace the motherboard, I need to replace the RAM, because my current RAM is DDR2, I doubt that's still supported either.

yeah any major upgrades from this point will be on a new platform, new ram, and new cpu, which will be moderately costly. What temperatures is the cpu running at. if temperatures are a problem, clean out the heat sink, if not buy a new heat sink entirely. Assuming you are using a stock heat sink, because stock heat sinks arent very efficient at spreading heat. and the older the processor, the less efficient per watt its most likely going to be.



If you did end up buying a new build, take note that there is a possibility of ram changing to DDR4 in 2014. On top of the fact that AMD is lagging behind in gaming cpu performance to price(will perform only slightly better then what you have now at stock), whereas intel keeps changing sockets, and ivy bridge is the last lga 1155 socket cpu, and is moving onto 1150 on haswells release in q3 2013. If you were to buy a build, I would recommend buying parts used if possible.

[Flonne]

Yeah I don't buy newest stuff, I buy mid-tier at best; price is exponentially lower and for current gen stuff it's more than fine. This is a 7 year old PC and I can run current games near max still. I think the upgrade (before factoring in holiday savings) will cost me about 400-500. The heatsink was just recently cleaned when I replaced the PSU, but yeah, the CPU, I don't even know how it's not a melted mass of metal, at peak it runs over 80C. oh and, no, it's not overclocked, I forgot to answer that.

[Dudewitbow]

hardware longevity can be a random thing. my Intel Celeron 345 single core desktop sitting in my closet still works.

[FabledGumbo]

I think it was disabling hyper threading that fixed it for me. I was getting blue screens fairly frequently when I ran my processor at base clock and less frequently when I overclocked it. Since then I disabled hyper threading and put my processor back to base clock and it all seems stable now. I imagine my issue's totally separate, but if disabling hyper threading fixes it for you it might still be better than risking shutting down all the time.

[Flonne]

It may be the same issue, since some say hyper threading increases power consumption (which in turn increases heat production), but disabling it at this point would be very silly; my processor barely hands things now, without it things would just be too slow. I think my only option is to upgrade, at this point; even if I fixed everything, the hardware limitations would be too much. I know for a fact Xenoblade doesn't run without stuttering on 2 core 3ghz, it's impossible even with everything optimized for performance, and TERA during Nexus is about 1 frame per 10-15 seconds at the moment, if the game doesn't just time out and crash. Otherwise it runs at 25-30fps, which isn't GREAT, but I would prefer higher.

All that said, now my next question is, what processor do you guys recommend? I'm really interested in getting one of the sandy bridge series, but I think i5 may be enough/i7 is too much. Motherboards...I'm not really that good at picking them out, so all I know is I need socket 1155 on it. RAM I always go with corsair, and I'm thinking about 8GB instead of my current 4.

[Dudewitbow]

my recommendations as follows:
Sub 180$
Pentium G series for barebone
i3-2330 ~125$
Phenom II x4 955/965 + HSF for overclocking. The upcoming(2 days) FX-4320 will probably take over amds spot here.

post 180$
if your not going to overclock: Ivy Bridge i5-3330. no point on getting any higher, since the extra ghz is not as much worth the cost
Overclock: i5-2500k/i5-3570k. to a gamer, hyper threading is pretty moot in gaming, and is more designed for professional work.
If you need hyperthreading because you magically do actually do those stuff:
None overclock: Xeon E3-1230,
overclock: i7-2700k/i7-3770k

possibly the upcoming FX-8350 may be close to a i5-2500k, but i would wait for benches to confirm that. If you are waiting to buy a processor that fits the quad core requirement on a few select games, then i would personally recommend the i5-3330 as the budget quad core.

[Flonne]

Yeah, I'm looking at these 3.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Desktop-Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ssors-Desktops
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...l-Motherboards

I don't overclock at all, I prefer my stuff to last as long as possible. A few extra degress cut off can certainly make a difference, and I don't have water cooling or anything like that to combat it.

[Dudewitbow]

I would recommend low profile ram if you ever feel the need to add in a cpu cooler.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1086486
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1086810

just giving alternatives.

Also if you dont overclock, i wouldn't bother with an i5-3570(non k). i would still recommend gettinga normal i5-3330 and using that money elsewhere.