PC Spontaneously Shutting Down

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Earbanean

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#273377 19-Aug-2020 11:45

I've got a PC that is shutting down by itself, unexpectedly. It's a Lenovo M83 full size case, i5 4590, 8 Gb RAM, Radeon HD 8570, Win 10 Pro. It's about 5 years old and had run fine. It's been in storage for about a year and now runs OK, except sometimes it just shuts down. e.g. when my son is playing Fortnite. Normal email, browsing seems OK. System auto-sleep is switched off.

I'm guessing most likely reason is thermal cut off, maybe due to dust or damage from storage. It doesn't feel hot and at least one fan seems to be going OK. So I thought I'd open the case and have a look and then maybe also install a temp/fan monitoring app like HWiNFO or HWMonitor.

Does that sound like the right approach? Anything in particular to look for inside the case? Is there a dedicate fan for the graphics that could be faulty? Anyone have experience with any of the monitoring apps? Anything else this could be?

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#2544334 19-Aug-2020 11:52

Heat sounds likely... check the power supply, CPU, and graphics card fans. There may be a chassis fan in the front or rear but these are less critical.

In my experience, the little graphic card fans just don't last.

If the graphics card fan is the problem, try pulling the graphics card and see if the onboard graphics are sufficient for Fortnite. I've a 6th gen i5 and the onboard graphics are OK for Fortnite but I've not tried a 4th gen.

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Earbanean

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#2544397 19-Aug-2020 12:41

I've opened it up and had a look. All fans, include on graphics card, have dust onthem, but are running. It's hard for me to know if they are running fast enough though. I think I'll give them a clean, then install HWiNFO and watch it while my son plays Fortnite.

xpd

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#2544400 19-Aug-2020 12:49

Install Afterburner, keep eye on the GPU temps with that.

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Earbanean

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#2544471 19-Aug-2020 14:32

When I took it further apart, I realised actually it was really dusty. Particularly between the case front and the intake fan. So I've given all that a really good clean and vacuum. I think that was probably the issue.

However, when switched back on, I can now see that the fan on the graphics card is not running. I'm not sure whether it wasn't running before either, or if I've damaged it. Should that run all the time, or just when that gets hot?

Earbanean

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#2544479 19-Aug-2020 14:42

Graphics card fan has come on now, so obviously temp controlled. Will give the newly cleaned rig the Fortnite test this evening.

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#2544487 19-Aug-2020 14:53

Afterburner lets you control when the video card comes on as well, so prob wouldn't hurt installing it anyway and see when it is kicking it etc - some older cards need to the fan to come on earlier as their paste wears out etc.

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K8Toledo

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#2544621 19-Aug-2020 16:39

Earbanean: I've got a PC that is shutting down by itself, unexpectedly. It's a Lenovo M83 full size case, i5 4590, 8 Gb RAM, Radeon HD 8570, Win 10 Pro. It's about 5 years old and had run fine. It's been in storage for about a year and now runs OK, except sometimes it just shuts down. e.g. when my son is playing Fortnite. Normal email, browsing seems OK. System auto-sleep is switched off. I'm guessing most likely reason is thermal cut off, maybe due to dust or damage from storage. It doesn't feel hot and at least one fan seems to be going OK. So I thought I'd open the case and have a look and then maybe also install a temp/fan monitoring app like HWiNFO or HWMonitor. Does that sound like the right approach? Anything in particular to look for inside the case? Is there a dedicate fan for the graphics that could be faulty? Anyone have experience with any of the monitoring apps? Anything else this could be?

Yes...shut down probably due to CPU overheating or failing power supply.

Aida64 is another good app for checking voltages/temps. Also MSI Afterburner.

It may be due to PSU OCP (over current protection) kicking in and not a failing PSU. Does yours come with a 280W PSU or 450W?

Apsattv

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#2544688 19-Aug-2020 19:06

Run cpuid hwmonitor then crank up prime95 and run heaven benchmark at the same time

give it a 10 minute stress test. That will max out the temps triggering any thermal shutdown

spaceknight

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#2544700 19-Aug-2020 19:37

Could be failing power supply. I had this same thing happen to two of my PCs. Replaced the power supply and it was fine after that.

Try attaching a USB drive to it while it's running ok, it's one way to test if voltage fluctuation is causing it to shutdown - my PC used to shut down when I did that.

rb99

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#2544705 19-Aug-2020 20:00

And check out the power cable. Had that once, long time ago.

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#2544706 19-Aug-2020 20:03

I would suspect PSU as first guess, especially given the quality and age. Often you'll get some kind of throttling, artifacts, or bluescreen when it's a component overheating.

If you have a multimeter, or ideally oscilloscope, try seeing what the ripple is by measuring AC volts on each rail.

concordnz

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#2544710 19-Aug-2020 20:24

Possibly thermal paste on CPU has 'aged' & dried out - after 4yrs use & 1 year 'storage'.

I'd download a CPU temp monitor like "Core Temp" - this will record what 'Max temp' has been hit & you can see if it is that causing it.

Could also be RAM sticks (either dust worked into slot or 1 stick going bad)

Easy to download a men test software to rule that out.

PabloD

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#2544828 19-Aug-2020 23:13

My money's on the PSU

Some of them are like a donkey on the edge and will cope under low load for a while

Earbanean

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#2544945 20-Aug-2020 09:50

OK, after a really good clean, including taking off and cleaning each fan and heat sink (and especially the huge amount of dust caught at the inlet fan), it seems to be running OK now. My son played Fortnite for over an hour and no shutdown.

However, I noticed the fan on the graphics card is a bit noisy, so I had a quick look after that with HWiNFO. The GPU got up to 90 deg C, with fan at full speed and that wasn't while he was playing. I think it might be worth replacing that fan, if for no other reason than the annoying noise. Would it also help to redo thermal paste for that as well? There didn't to be much and it was probably dried out, come off.

Note the main CPUs were only 30 - 40 degrees, so I don't think any problem there. I'll monitor/log temps and speeds this afternoon through another Fortnite session to check these and the GPU under more load.

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#2545002 20-Aug-2020 10:08

90 degrees while not gaming sounds pretty warm to me, but I'm not a gamer and have little experience with consumer video cards. If the fan is noisy, it may be operating inefficiently (running slower) because of the extra friction from the sideways wobbling. The

I've never seen dried out thermal paste myself, and figure its all kinda 'squished in there' with almost zero exposure to the air for it to dry out? Typically I don't remove heat sinks unless absolutely necessary so I don't disturb the factory thermal paste (which I have to assume was done properly).

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