Pc Auto-shuts off

TheCrossMovement · #1 14th Jan 03, 04:30 AM

I posted this in the other post below this, and sorry for creating a whole new thread, but I want this to get noticed asap so I can get some help to figure this out.
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My PC is also shutting itself off on its own. I'll walk away for 30 or so min and come back to find it completely off. Attempting to turn it back on does NO good until I pull the power cord and wait 10 seconds and put it back in, and THAN it turns on. What do you think is most likely the cause of this and how can I resolve it?? Would re-install the OS do any good? Am running an Hp Pavilion with 500Mhz, 256MB of ram, 10GB HD, and Windows XP Home Edition. Plz reply asap.! Thanks

TCM

Note: I've had this PC for 3 years now and it has NEVER started doing this until today early this morning when I went to take a shower, and came back 20 min later to find it shut off on its own. And now its been doing this off/on all day long.

Sephiroth · #2 14th Jan 03, 05:14 AM

if it's shutting off by itself and then not coming on unless you kill power to it for a few seconds, i would say there's something screwy with the electrical current and check the power cord and psu asap

TheCrossMovement · #3 14th Jan 03, 05:16 AM

Yeah, replaced the power cord with another.......still shut itself off. Tried plugging into another outlet.......no difference. Wherever I plug it, after a while of being away it shuts off. I'd check the PSU too, but I have no idea what that is? Is it Power Supply or something? if so, HOW do I check it or go about resolving it if there's a problem??

Sephiroth · #4 14th Jan 03, 05:22 AM

the PSU is the power supply unit

if you open up your HP (i've worked on 6 different HP's in the past year, and they are all hell to get apart, good luck,

), and look at the top of the of the case where the power cord plugs in, there should be a box screwed into the chasis with power cords running out of it to your drives and your motherboard. Gently disconnect the power cords from the motherboard and your drives, unscrew the PSU, and remove it from the case, then go to best buy or compusa and buy a new one. 300 watts should be plenty for the box you have. And a word of caution: do NOT open the PSU yourself, there's a ton of electrodes and capacitors in there and if you touch the wrong thing you're gonna be in for quite a shock :P (pun intended) lol

Sephiroth · #5 14th Jan 03, 05:24 AM

if you need more help doing this, check this link:

http://quietpc.ca/psuinstall.html

TheCrossMovement · #6 14th Jan 03, 05:25 AM

If the behavior continues, perhaps a trip to best buy with my PC would be beneficial?

Sephiroth · #7 14th Jan 03, 05:29 AM

if you're uncomfortable trying to install a new psu yourself, then yes, take it to best buy or compusa and let them install it for you if they too think that's what the problem is

TheCrossMovement · #8 14th Jan 03, 03:11 PM

I am almost certain the PSU must be the problem. I've had this pc for 3 years and I bet its showing its signs of age. About every 30-40 minutes it just powers off on its own. I was even surfing the web on here last night and it just suddenly cut off right in the middle of what I was doing. But PSU are pretty cheap at best buy, so price shouldn't be a problem(hopefully).

My next question is this: how do I go about finding out how much wattage my current PSU holds? I mean, it wasn't doing this at all before until now. Maybe its simply a lose cable, yada yada?

TCM

Alpine · #9 14th Jan 03, 04:04 PM

I add this prob too last year ( with XP SP1 )

By doing some hardware test first .... i found that was 256DDR memory that was making me reboot automaticly each 20, 30 or 40 mins !!

Cactus · #10 14th Jan 03, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TheCrossMovement@Jan 14 2003, 03:11 PM
I am almost certain the PSU must be the problem.

I had three PSU's lost due to overheating. They all gave me the same problems you got, including the disconnectiong the powercord before the boxes would startup again.

I disconnected the PSU's and connected just some HDD's, and still it wouldn't start untill the powercord was disconnected (and then reconnected of course

) I think that prooved it was the PSU in my cases.

If you wanna be sure it's the PSU in your situation, if the error occurs again, disconnect all cables except the powercable, one of your HDD powercables and the powerswitch cable and see if it will start. If not, disconnect the HDD cable, and connect it to the CDROM drive. If it still won't powerup you proofed your PSU is at fault.

Maybe cooling is the problem for you too. Try vacuming the PSU, it often helps . . .