Desktop keeps switching off/restarting by itself

[Lord Flacko]

Hello

There is a desktop in the study running windows 7 that switches off / restarts after a few minutes of watching a video. It also cant retain the time after being off. I've already changed the CMOS battery to no avail.

The fan and the heat sink don't seem to have any dust causing possible heat dispersal or airflow issues.

The only thing I have not done is to remove the ATI graphics card from the machine and use it for a while without it.

Any possible solutions or reasons as to why the machine is acting in this manner ?

 

[Glingfram]

Does it restart only when watching videos?

If so, removing the card and running without it is a good option. If that works, uninstall the drivers and reinstall them.

Also clean and re-seat the RAM.

If none of these work, install a hardware monitoring tool if you don't already have one and monitor the temperature of the GFX card and CPU.. Thermal paste needs to be re-applied sometimes with age.

 

[shadow_man]

Faulty RAM or GPU possibly.

If its during video then take GPU out, clean it and put back in as suggested above.

Alternatively swap it for another GPU or the onboard video and see if it works.

If RAM you can use Memtest to test. You can find it on any Hiren's boot disc or Ubuntu disc.

Alternatively grab it from their website http://www.memtest.org/

 

[lerouc]

overheating?

 

[hirosa]

Sounds like 1 of 3 things to me:

1. Graphics Card - Does it still reboot if taken out?
2. Memory - try using different memory modules of if you have two modules, pop in one at a time and test again
3. Motherboard - Most unlikey but still a possibility, test the above two components in different machines, if they do not do the same thing the I would inspect the motherboard for swollen or burst capacitors

Good luck!

 

[mr_norris]

If it's not just when watching a video, if it still does it when doing other stuff, or even idling, it may be your PSU.

My aging parents PC did that a while back. Replaced the PSU, problem solved.

 

[Lord Flacko]

Thanks for the responses guys, i'll look give each of the mentioned responses a try and let you know.