Computer turns itself off :(

[WoodPeckr]

secretagentintoronto

Agreed.
I usually buy online at Newegg.com.
The PSU at BB costs double what Newegg sells it for.

Turned out my friend's motherboard went bad, not the PSU.

 

[stang]

Okay, I just plugged in a new power unit. Seems to be working okay so far.
Funny thing is though, the plug from the PSU to the mainboard has 22 slots and the pin on the mainboard only has 20. So two slots on the cord are not engaged. But like I said everything works so far.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Funny thing is though, the plug from the PSU to the mainboard has 22 slots and the pin on the mainboard only has 20. So two slots on the cord are not engaged. But like I said everything works so far.

Such is technology, they are always changing things every few years. In 5 years much will change again. Looks like you got lucky if it was just a bad PSU and nothing else.

 

[The Options Menu]

Such is technology, they are always changing things every few years. In 5 years much will change again. Looks like you got lucky if it was just a bad PSU and nothing else.

Actually, too many pins is no problem-- Too few is a big one. The way the power plug is designed is such that the power will only lock onto the Mobo connector in the right pin arrangement, and the extra pins were often detachable for PSUs made in the transition period. Mind you I recall there being 4 pins, not 2... but I haven't had to install a PSU for anybody but myself in a good while... (Programming, now networking geek, who only does desktop hardware for fun, family, or friends.)

edit: The industry has fought really hard to not tart up the ATX form factor. It's amazing that you can fit a full ATX, flex ATX, and or Micro ATX mobo into any case of the minimum size or up, and that they've put the effort into keeping the power so compatible. That design has been barely modified in forever, while Intel (and AMD to a lesser extent) seems to love to change their CPU slot at least once a year. That will often turn a CPU upgrade into CPU + Mobo + RAM. But you can keep the case plus the PSU (Sans the too few pins issue).

 

[The Options Menu]

One other thing-- I don't think this was made clear enough in my earlier post. Most computers use ACPI, and the defaults for this are pretty common. The standard option for powerfalure is 'reboot', the most common option for overheating is to 'turn off'

This actually has interesting implications:
- If it reboots it could be a fault in the PSU, the mobo, or to a far lesser degree bad ram or a bad (video) driver. (Mind you the latter two are 'free' to test.) A faulty PSU or Mobo will look like a powerfalure in most cases.
- If it goes off and stays off it's probably heat. (And you'll probably get a nasty warning by just turning it back on.)
- If it hardlocks it could be a bad (probably video) driver or anything else poking the lowlest level bits of your OS. Then again that could also be bad ram, or pretty much any bit of hardware. Checking your firmware and BIOS is a smart plan here as well.

This all assumes you are virus and spyware free.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[WoodPeckr]

My friend had a PC with the motherboard going that was shutting down a lot. At first it happened once a week. Then couple times a week. Then more frequently as it got worse. Finally it just wouldn't boot. Mobo was shot.