My computer randomly shuts down

[squareking]

So my machine randomly shut down a few times yesterday. I'm fairly sure it's a heat issue, but here's what's been happening.


I've had this machine for almost 2 years. It's a custom build from iBuyPower. I went this route because I knew nothing about building PCs at the time (knowledge is still minimal) and the price was right.


It's been running great until last night. A few days before, I noticed the primary fan started whining and making other undesirable noises that was getting steadily worse with time. After shutting it off, blasting it with air (which I try to do monthly) and restarting, the noise got worse and it shutdown before loading Windows. Here's a terrible phone pic of the thermal readout from Speedfan. Looks hot. :(


Thankfully it's still under warranty for labor and support, so I'll probably go that route, but I'm curious what's causing heat spikes so suddenly. It's well-ventilated under my desk and, while my apartment is dusty, I keep it clean. The system came with a free liquid cooling upgrade, listed on my invoice as Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1156] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan, and this is the guy I believe is acting up.


When I rebooted to run Speedfan and took this shot, I noticed the mobo bootup screen didn't display as it usually does.


Specs at a glance are:


i5 760
Radeon HD 5830
8GB RAM
Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3
800w Solytech PS
Win7 64


Any ideas? Simply a failing fan? What should I look for? I shot a video of it booting up and the fan struggling after letting it sit for an hour or so. Not sure how illustrative it'll be, but my phone picked up the "sad fan" sounds...I'll upload it in a bit if someone thinks it'll help.


And thanks in advance for any help and advice. This might be a good opportunity for me to finally understand how to put things together myself and make stuff work.

[Timofee]

I'm not familiar with Speedfan, but do those temp read outs that say 75 and 85 actually change? Also if they /were/ core readings then I'm puzzled since I thought the i5 had 4 cores.

They look more like no sensor could be found and its just making something up, similarly its fairly obvious no part of your system is at -128 (!)

I use Speccy for monitoring temperatures if you want a different piece of software to cross ref with.

Clearly if the 75 and 85 degree temperatures are accurate then yeah, thats not good but I can only really conceive of them getting that high if the fans point blank weren't working or the whole heat sink had become disconnected. That being said I'm not particularly familiar with liquid cooling (never trusted it - As far as I'm concerned my very expensive 'lectronics and water does not mix, and if I'm a Luddite then so be it!)

Out of interest have you actually taken the side panel off and done a spot check to see if all the fans appear to be working? You only have readouts for 3 fans of which one is the graphics card. I thought most prebuilt systems would have at least an intake and and exhaust fan in addition to the CPU and GFX card, so you're potentially one fan down.

Another incredibly rough and ready thing to try is if you have a large desk fan take the side off the computer point and angle the fan to blow air across the system, if your issues go away then you've pretty much confirmed its a heat issue.

[Sakkura]

Out of interest have you actually taken the side panel off and done a spot check to see if all the fans appear to be working? You only have readouts for 3 fans of which one is the graphics card. I thought most prebuilt systems would have at least an intake and and exhaust fan in addition to the CPU and GFX card, so you're potentially one fan down.

Plenty of prebuilt systems rely either on just the PSU fan or at most an intake fan plus the PSU fan.

Anyway, Speedfan tends to be unreliable. Try using HWMonitor to check your temperatures. Are those readings during idle or while stressing the CPU?

[squareking]

The readings are after a few minutes of idling. They started out around 70 by the time I had Speedfan up and running, and slowly increased to the high 80s. I had the panel off while running this test and all the fans (front intake, side panel and rear) were running. I also have no idea how the liquid cooling system works -- hey, it was a free upgrade and I figured it could only be a benefit.

My case, a Lexa-S, has controls on the front to manually set fan speeds. I haven't checked to see if they're connected, but I know that adjusting them doesn't seem to affect the fans. This leads me to believe the ibuypower folks didn't do a thorough setup, so the temp readings may very well be inaccurate. From the fan noise and shutdowns, though, I don't want to boot it up until I have a solution. Someone on another forum recommended I remove the water cooler and install a Hyper 212, which I think I'm going to attempt. I'm a little worried though, not having any prior experience (re)building computers or installing hardware. From what I've seen, it's not that hard. Hopefully I won't have to remove the mobo to install it. I'm certainly not happy about dealing with liquid. Any DFW-area RPS folk want to help me out? :D

I'll give removing the panel and setting up a fan a shot and try Speccy, I guess.

Oh, is there any reason why the Gigabyte splash screen doesn't show up anymore?

edit: Looking at the packaging for my Lexa-S case, I just realized IBP didn't include a 4th 140mm top fan that comes with the case. Just got off the phone with them and they're sending a 120mm fan, which will work. Mildly aggravating and partially my fault, but at least they're sending me something.

And here's the video:

[Sakkura]

The fan does sound a bit strained, but it may just be running at full tilt because CPU temps are high. Hard to tell by a video clip.

I'm guessing the waterblock may no longer be properly seated on the CPU, or the liquid cooling system may have gotten partially clogged. Both would compromise CPU cooling, with the higher temps just making the fan spin up in a futile attempt to cool the CPU.

I have no idea why the splash screen doesn't appear anymore. That's a BIOS function, and BIOS shouldn't be affected by this problem. So there might be some other weirdness at work. It'll be useful to check what temps Speccy reports to verify that the (main) problem here is indeed CPU temperature. The temps reported by Speedfan definitely aren't normal.

Whether you can install a heatsink/fan like the Hyper 212 Evo without removing the motherboard from the case depends on the case. Many quality cases have a cutout in the motherboard tray that allows easy access to the area behind the CPU, so you can mount the backplate easily. Google's telling me your case does indeed have a large cutout.

[Spengbab]

Does it shut down and immediately reboot or only shut down? If it's the former, it may be something driver/OS related instead. Usually, a blue screen would tell you so, but if its disabled, your computer immediately reboots upon the error. Try disabling the reboot by:

My computer properties > Advanced system settings > Advanced > Settings (Under startup and recovery) - it's the "Automatically reboot" that'll be the offender.

Or maybe it is a heat issue after all, w/e

[Mohorovicic]

Yeeeeaaaahh idling at 80 C with max being a 100 and Tcase of 72 is "hardly ideal".

Sounds like a botched cooling job to me, not the case fan, but the liquid cooling itself; broken pump, the radiator came loose, stuff like that.

[squareking]

Appreciate the help, people. I'd like to run Speccy and get another readout, but I'm thinking I'd rather just wait and install the 212. Not worth the potential for mucking things up further. It looks like I should have enough space to install it without removing anything else, so that's a potential plus.

Spengbab, it just shuts down -- no reboots.

edit: Huzzah! Friend happened to have a spare Hyper 212+ and a couple fans. Got it installed and, according to Speccy, I'm now in the low 30s C under moderate load. Much better. I discovered a tiny, tiny leak on the water cooler's radiator, so I wonder if that's to blame. Now I just need to shop around for quiet, decent, 120mm PWM fans to replace these noisy guys he gave me.

[squareking]

Begone spambot

edit: This was better in all caps. :c

[Sakkura]

Hey at least it took the blame AND made me notice your update. I guess we were right about there being some problem with the cooling system.

[squareking]

Any thoughts on fan options? After shopping around, I am considering these Xigmateks. Unless anyone has horror stories or a must-recommend 120mm PWM fan (blue LEDs a plus but not a requirement), I think these'll work for front intake, 212 cooler and rear exhaust.

[hejianjiang98]

Oh, is there any reason why the Gigabyte splash screen doesn't show up anymore?

[squareking]

Xigmateks bought! I've never been so excited about fans before. This must be the "nerding out" I've heard so much about.