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Tech's cannot replicate my computer randomly shutting off
KittyK13
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
I've had this problem ever since I got my computer over a year ago. Randomly it will either shut down completely, or freeze up. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, sometimes it's right after I turn it on after it's been off all day. Sometimes when it's been on all night. Strangely enough it never happens while I'm playing games. The really weird part is that my cousin [who is a certified computer tech at Futureshop [basically bestbuy] cannot replicate the issue. He's left the computer running programs to purposely tax the system for several days without it shutting down. What this leaves me thinking is that it's something specific to how I have it set up at home. When my cousin tests it he uses his own power cord, power bar, monitor etc. I've tried replacing the power bar, as well as the power cord. I even plugged the power bar into an outlet outside my room, which seemed to work at first then it started to happen again.
At this point I think it is a problem with the wiring in my apartment as the outlet outside of my room shared a wall with the original outlet. I'm not sure what exactly I could do about this. My cousin's only suggestion, and he freely admitted it was a shot in the dark, was that the faulty wiring was causing disruptions in the power to the computer and suggested getting a battery back up.
Before I go with that option, as I don't have a lot of spare money, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to what could be causing the problem. Let me know if you need any specific information regarding the computer, I was mostly just wondering if anyone had seen something similar and decided to leave that stuff out.
Thanks for your time.
At this point I think it is a problem with the wiring in my apartment as the outlet outside of my room shared a wall with the original outlet. I'm not sure what exactly I could do about this. My cousin's only suggestion, and he freely admitted it was a shot in the dark, was that the faulty wiring was causing disruptions in the power to the computer and suggested getting a battery back up.
Before I go with that option, as I don't have a lot of spare money, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to what could be causing the problem. Let me know if you need any specific information regarding the computer, I was mostly just wondering if anyone had seen something similar and decided to leave that stuff out.
Thanks for your time.
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Your only option is pretty much a UPC.
http://www.amazon.com/APC-BE550G-Back-UPS-Outlet-550VA/dp/B0019804U8 (Prime eligible too!)
That's going to get you about ~3-5 minutes of emergency power on average load with an average PC. It's not superbly expensive, you can go with the lower model but your PC might consume more than 200 watts under load. It'll give you just enough juice if your experiencing brownouts to last through them (which should be a 5-10 seconds at the most). I'd recommend everyone to have a UPC anyways!
Monitor might be LCD/LED and stores enough power that a minor brownout wouldn't affect it that much. All the rest of your devices are in standby mode probably, like printers.
How often does it happen? If it is pretty infrequent I'd ignore it.
but they're listening to every word I say
A standard power surge protector does very little to help if you're getting brownouts of dirty power. a UPC/Power Regulator is the way to go
This doesn't tend to happen when you plug something into a front USB port or audio jack, does it?
Because I had an old Cooler Master case where the front I/O panel wasn't grounded properly and you could make the whole system freeze or reboot by plugging in a USB device or headphones without discharging static by touching them to the case side first.
I'd advise against this for anyone reading this thread. If your computer shuts itself down or freezes on any kind of regular basis, even if it's once a month, that's something to investigate. Ever since Windows XP, my computers have been extremely stable. In fact, when I installed Path of Exile, it caused this computer's first blue screen crash in 1.5 years. The last one was because of a bad SATA controller. Computers that are unstable are either in serious need of maintenance, or have faulty hardware.
Hmmm.. you think so? I just remember the bad old days of everything before xp. All crash all the time. Even after that I've had computer freeze ups. I'm no expert but a certain amount of zany computer instability seems inevitable, unless all you run is Microsoft word.
The restarting itself is probably actually a concern. I had that happen when a power supply went out once. Wasn't good. Ended up frying the motherboard. If it is the power grid though, probably not a whole lot to be done on the cheap.
but they're listening to every word I say
Did you miss the part where he said his tech friend could not replicate it? If a power supply is failing, it will be failing everywhere, not just at his house.
@KittyK13 - you very likely have a wiring issue. It's possible that nothing else electrical you have is sensitive enough to be bothered by a dip in power. The wiring may not even be causing complete power shorts entirely - even a small dip in power is enough to cause a computer to restart. If you can, beg or borrow a UPS from somewhere - if your friend has been a tech for any length of time he should have dozens of the things lying around, or at the very least should be able to get you one to borrow easily. If the computer is just freezing and restarting and not actually cutting out entirely, any problems that are happening are only persisting for a few seconds, so a UPS is probably your best bet.
Actually, your best bet is probably a complete rewire, but that could range from costly to completely impossible.
I host a podcast about movies.
Again - doesn't explain why the tech can't replicate it in a different environment.