FOAK: PC powerdown problems.

Sat there typing away, when the PC just turns itself off. All attempts
to turn on again lead to 10-15 seconds of fan spinning and disc
revving, then it turns itself off again.

What should I look at first?

This lappie is a bit awkward for typing on.

 

So nothing else - no boot screen, no beeps?

 

No, nothing.

As you may be able to tell - it's now working fine.

Everything was *very* hot inside, though. Fan looks a little slower
than I remember.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..80264../..21661.../..31308.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR'06 Points: 75 Miles: 317

 

CPU fan clean time? Get all the pubic hair and dead skin out of the fan
and fins on the CPU.

 

Sounds like it's overheating. Give it a hoover out inside, see if that
helps.

Failing that I've seen plenty where the thermal transfer paste between the
PCU and heatsink gives up

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 75 TS 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

I need some mind bleach now. I really don't want to imagine SD in the
buff, surfing the web.

 

There was a lot of dust[1], and the CPU/motherboard fit wasn't the
most secure I've ever seen.

All back together now - but I think I'll get a new/bigger fan just to
be on the safe side

I'm not *that* keen on the image myself, tbh.

[1] That dark brown sticky dust, that non-smokers won't recognise.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..80264../..21661.../..31308.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR'06 Points: 75 Miles: 317

 

SD wrote

Fresh London Air?

I have always wondered what that dust is composed of that appears when
the puddle dries up when you hang your gear[1] up after a wet ride. Why
is it a sort of red colour for a start, is it mostly composed of rust
dust?


[1] Textile of course, it don't seem the same with leathers. Mind you
it is about 20 years since I was last out in the rain in leather.

 

The PSU. Classic cause of symptoms like that. Chuck out the shite OEM
one and spend at least 30quid on a replacement - in PSUs you largely get
what you pay for.

 

I was thinking more of treacle myself.

 

I had this last week. Overheating would be my guess. Mine was ok once I left
it 10 mins and then took the side of the tower off.

 

Non-functional fans, clogged filters, etc. In this weather it's
almost certainly overheating.

Check its heat-exchanger, too. They clog up with dust quite easily.

I rigged up an experimental Peltier cooler to try to feed cool air
to my laptop, but the hot side needs much more than convection cooling;
with 3 amps at 12 V the heatsink gets very hot and the "cool" side
basically stays at room temperature. :-(

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Let me know what type of CPU you have, drop me a mail and I'll sort you out
a decent heatsink from my cupboard of samples.

 

Ohh, ta.

Issa little square one.

"System info" says: Intel Pentium 4 - 3.40 GHz

It's currently got a big wavy heatsink thing on it - solid copper
core.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..80264../..21661.../..31308.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR'06 Points: 75 Miles: 317

 

Luckily Brownz will be able to figure out your heatsink type from your
description. Likley to be a 478 socket, no?

 

Are you running windoze ?

Can you run http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-134.zip and post or mail the
results.
3.40 P4s came in both S478 & LGA775 flavours.

 

Number of CPUs 2 (1 Physical)

CPU #1
APIC ID 0
Name Intel Pentium 4
Code name Prescott
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz
Family/Model/Stepping F34
Extended Family/Model 0/0
Package mPGA-478 (2h)


--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..80264../..21661.../..31308.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR'06 Points: 75 Miles: 317

 

Handy program that.

There y'go. 478, as I said.

 

My monster multi-fanned tower was getting a bit warm around the CPU a
couple of weeks ago, when ambient temp first exceeded 10C. It was all
fine except the CPU heatsink which was fluffed to buggery. Half a can
of compressed air and the CPU temp dropped by 15C.

I really ought to find some filters for the fans that don't restrict
airflow through them. I did try circles of ex-ZX-9R air filter, but
that stuff is obviously designed to resist being dragged in to the
inlet tract by a big four sucking huge lungfuls at a time and dropped
the throughput of an 80mm fan by a couple of orders of magnitude. One
day I'll remember to buy some pukka filters ... ;-)

 

Excellent..... any height restrictions ?

Mail me your address and I'll pop one in the post.

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