Hey guys, I recently put together my first PC. It wasn't to hard to figure out, having some previous knowledge about electronics (electrical tech in the US Army) but I have been having this ongoing problem. The computer just randomly shuts down. It is so irritating because when it is working it's awesome. Sometimes it'll turn off after 45 minutes or as little as 10 minutes. I thought it was a bad PSU, but I checked it with a multimeter, and the voltages are within tolerance both under load and not. I really don't think it's over heating because temps in bios are fine, and I have plenty of fans, good circulation/cable management. I have also tried rearranging the RAM but didn't make a difference. Ran MemTest with no errors also. I am going crazy not being able to figure this out. I would really appreciate any advice or tips where to go from here. I would have posted on a PC forum, but I am not a member of any so..

PC Specs:AMD PHENOM X4 II 955 @ 3.2 GHZECS A790GXM-AD3 (using onboard RADEON HD 3300)4GB PATRIOT G SERIES "SECTOR 5" DDR3 1333SAMSUNG 1TB SPINPOINT F1 HD103 7200RPMOCZ FATAL1TY 550W PSU (ATX12V/EPS12V)LG GH22NS50 DVD/CD BURNER24" ACER V243HQ

I'm planning on getting a Radeon 5850 IF I can get this f***ing computer stable...

Is it blue screening before it shuts off? Does it shut down abruptly like a forced shut down or does it go through the windows shut down process? Does it reboot itself when it does this or does it stay off?

It just shuts down abruptly no notice/blue screen or anything. It also does not reboot after it shuts down. And when I try to power it on after a fail, it just powers on but doesn't boot, unless I repower it on a couple of times...

The 955 is a Black Edition chip. Are you overclocking at all? Or was it OC'd out of the box?

No I haven't overclocked it at all. I've never done it before and don't feel comfortable that I could do it right (and don't have an after market heat sink right now) I'm using all the stock voltages and its still blazing fast @ 3.2 Ghz

Ivan_Sal wrote:It just shuts down abruptly no notice/blue screen or anything. It also does not reboot after it shuts down. And when I try to power it on after a fail, it just powers on but doesn't boot, unless I repower it on a couple of times...

Hmm? I had an intermittent Blue Screen issue I was getting a month ago where upon trying to restart, I would get similar problems and had to try and power on several times (or wait like 10 seconds) before it would actually boot. I ended up changing the power supply (used a new case that came with one) and it solved the problem. But I was getting a blue screen and it had many different error codes which led me to believe it wasn't specific hardware that was causing the issue.

I know you tested the power supply, but did you check each lead? I doubt the power rating would be an issue, but an intermittent problem in your power supply or a specific load on a specific power line could cause a problem. It might be hard as hell to detect. If you have a spare, you might try using it to see if it helps.

Hey guys thanks for the reply's. And yes I actually tested the leads and everything, and used a spare power supply I had laying around with the same problem still. I remounted my motherboard using different screws, since I noticed the mounting holes had metal lining around them. I figured this was a way to ground it, and I guess that solved my problem. Damn motherboard was shorting out. I would have suspected this sooner, but I figured that my PSU would be a ground enough. Oh well I guess ECS has to be complicated. Now time to crossfire some GPU's