One year into this Build, still powers off

[Indyhiggie]

Hello All,

I'll spare you the long story, and just say that I am new to PC builds, coming from ten years of being a console gamer with my son. We moved this direction in Dec 2005, when the X-Box 360 was introduced, but basically not available for purchase during the Holiday Break. At that point in time PC gaming seemed more attractive, and I must say, It is !! So here I am 14 months into it.

I have built three system so far, the first two have ran well, but my current build, has been plauged with random power off's. I mean the type where it is as if someone pulled the plug from the wall socket.

Here are the spec.s on this system.
A8N32-SLI Deluxe, BIOS 1302, Athlon 64 4000+, 2G Corsair 3500PROLL, 2X Raptor 74G, in RAID 0, NEC DVD_RW ND-2510A, WIN XP pro, GIGABYTE 3D Aurora case, PC Power and Cooling 510 PS, 2X EVGA 512mb 7900GT KO Video cards, Creative S-B Audigy 2ZS, NEC 1970GX opticlear monitor, and an APC 1250 UPS. Random power downs happen with a single Vid card installed or with SLI.

I want to mention that I have tried to replace items that as I am told tend to be power down culprits from other peoples experience. I have had this random problem since day one. The only original parts left from day one, are the MB, CPU, and DVD burner. Thats right, I started with a different case, an ANTEC 550 PSU, one 7800GT vid card, a single HD with XPhome, 1G of Corsair PC32000 RAM, and a full head of hair....(OK, I was thin on top to start with, but I would have pulled it out by now if it were there).

Is there anyway a noob like me can monitor operating conditions, and determine the cause of this problem?

[Cricket]

Are you using the standard AMD heatsink or a third party one?

Is the CPU heatsink installed properly?

How's your case cooling set up?

Cricket

[eaglestrike7339]

i have the same problem.......with a laptop that was not changed at all since it was bought. It has a P4 (a well known heat culprit), and is also plagued with random power offs. any suggestions? i got a free temp monitoring program, but since the lappy was semi-budget, it only has a single heat monitoring chip that is unhelpful with pinpointing the prob

[glc]

eagle, please start your own thread. Thank you. If it's a laptop, it also does not belong in BYOPC, it belongs in Mobile.

[LeftyAce]

Right after it powers off, turn it on and go into the bios. There should be a hardware monitoring section, and you can see temperature information for the CPU and motherboard. If it's getting into the high 50s to 60 degree Celcius range, it's an overheating problem. Let us know what you find.

[Indyhiggie]

I am running the stock cpu cooling fan. I think it is installed correctly, I could take it off and apply some Artic Silver I now own. Since it has powered off in less than a couple of minutes of being turned while reading e-mail, and stayed on for days that included 6+ hours of cpu running at max in COD2 gaming, I didn't think it was a physical install problem. I have wondered about a temp probe malfunction.

I am very open to buying an application that would monitor several functions, and keep a log that I could view after I power back up. I just don't have a clue about what to get.

I will try to see temps in BIOS as suggested, or at least look into the ASUS PC probe that is present on the current install.

[LeftyAce]

Hmmm. Sounds like an odd kind of overheating, if it's overheating. You said you replaced the PSU, so that's probably not the problem either.

Is there anything you can do to trigger the shutdown? (IE does it usually happen when you're downloading your email, or running a virus scan?)

The ASUS PC Probe automatically logs alert conditions (Fans dropping below the recommended RPMs, CPU overheating, voltage fluctuations, etc) Assuming it has the time to do so before the machine shuts off. Click on the button next to "Configure" in PC Probe (it's white, looks like a piece of paper). That'll show you any alert conditions logged since you installed the program.