How to tell whats wrong with my pc :/

Tiddlypeeps

My pc has been acting weird lately, the motherboard died over the summer from what i think was a power surge, all the capacitors on the motherboard had exploded, so i replaced the motherboard.
Shortly after this my hard drive failed, thankfully i was able to fix this by doing a full format on it.
So then I had to reinstall windows yet again, it ran fine after this for a few weeks and now every time I play any games after about 10 - 20 minutes the computer dies, all power is cut completely, no error messages, no attempt to shut down, it just silently cuts all power and dosent attempt to reboot.
I have no idea how i can tell what is causing it. I though it may have been either my cpu or my graphics card, but I have ran a benchmark programme on it for over an hour and didnt die.
As far as i can tell it only dies when im playing games, the only games i have installed and tried are World of warcraft and half life 2, these aren't exactly heavy on resources. I have tried exauhsting the cpu on its own with no graphical tasks like zipping files nd transfering files, the computer understandably runs at a snails pace when I did this but even after nearly an hour of pushing it it still ran fine.
Its really odd that the bechmarking software didnt kill it but games do, from what i can tell they are doing the same thing.

Any ideas on how i can tell what might be wrong?

Captain Furball

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

My pc has been acting weird lately, the motherboard died over the summer from what i think was a power surge, all the capacitors on the motherboard had exploded, so i replaced the motherboard.
Shortly after this my hard drive failed, thankfully i was able to fix this by doing a full format on it.
So then I had to reinstall windows yet again, it ran fine after this for a few weeks and now every time I play any games after about 10 - 20 minutes the computer dies, all power is cut completely, no error messages, no attempt to shut down, it just silently cuts all power and dosent attempt to reboot.
I have no idea how i can tell what is causing it. I though it may have been either my cpu or my graphics card, but I have ran a benchmark programme on it for over an hour and didnt die.
As far as i can tell it only dies when im playing games, the only games i have installed and tried are World of warcraft and half life 2, these aren't exactly heavy on resources. I have tried exauhsting the cpu on its own with no graphical tasks like zipping files nd transfering files, the computer understandably runs at a snails pace when I did this but even after nearly an hour of pushing it it still ran fine.
Its really odd that the bechmarking software didnt kill it but games do, from what i can tell they are doing the same thing.

Any ideas on how i can tell what might be wrong?

Does it turn on again straight away or do you need to leave it a few minutes?

Tiddlypeeps

I turns back on straight away.

CreepingDeath

If something "blew" all the capacitors in your motherboard, God knows what other damage it did. Was your computer plugged into the same plug in the wall as high power items like a heater ?

If you only replaced the motherboard, does that mean you're using the same CPU, memory chips and graphics card ?

You can test the memory chips with Mem Test.

Mem Test Software

If it was the graphics card, she'd still boot.

So the system fan, CPU and memory chips are the main suspects for me.

strangeloop

Have you checked if the processor or graphics card are overheating? Are all the fans working?

Tiddlypeeps

CreepingDeath wrote: »

If something "blew" all the capacitors in your motherboard, God knows what other damage it did. Was your computer plugged into the same plug in the wall as high power items like a heater ?

Nope

CreepingDeath wrote: »

If you only replaced the motherboard, does that mean you're using the same CPU, memory chips and graphics card ?

Yup

CreepingDeath wrote: »

If it was the graphics card, she'd still boot.

It is still booting, it runs perfectally fine untill I try to play a game.

I will try that memtest thing, to rule out the memory.
Cheers.

Captain Furball

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

I turns back on straight away.

When you replaced the motherboard you put on thermal grease I hope?Your power supply might not be outputting a stable enough voltage when your playing games.Power good circuit not getting the correct signal would cause your problem.

Have you a spare power supply you could try?

CreepingDeath

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

It is still booting, it runs perfectally fine untill I try to play a game.

Have you the latest graphics card driver installed ?

Overheal

theres a very good chance the system is overheating. Run the game and let it crash; Now start the machine, enter the BIOS again and note the CPU temps, which are probably hovering around the 70-80 (at least) and dropping rapidly. All I can guess is maybe theres some GPU function that the benchmark isnt using and the games are.

If it isnt running hot then it could be a memory failure: thats something ive never dealt with before.

edit: Mitchell?? Howdy.

Tiddlypeeps

@Creeping Death, yes i have the lastest graphics drivers.
I tried that memtest thingy you suggested and about half way through the first pass the computer died in the same manner as before, it just cut all power, i tried this twice and got the same result. So i removed one of the ram chips and tried again and it ran the test fine, i tried this with the other chip and it passed fine aswell, so i then put both chips back in and ran it one more time and it passed, i let it run for 3 passes

@Overheal, howdy
The tempature is usually around 70ish, which I think is a little bit high but shouldnt be causing any damage, I could be wrong there

Overheal

Watch it in the Bios for a few minutes though and when it cuts off get into the BIOS quickly as you can to see the highest you read it at. If its dropping a lot, it could be heating. I think I worked out on the AMD 1 core that was running Doom3, it had a cutoff of 80C. I've heard Overclock stories of silly high temps approaching 100C and beyond, but after that you really do watch them fail and burn. Anything Factory should not be going over 80 unless its been specifically Factory Overclocked.

This video is fun. He removes the heatsink and uses an IR gauge to see at what point it goes cracked Its them damn Malaysians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSGcnRanYMM

I tried that memtest thingy you suggested and about half way through the first pass the computer died in the same manner as before, it just cut all power, i tried this twice and got the same result. So i removed one of the ram chips and tried again and it ran the test fine, i tried this with the other chip and it passed fine aswell, so i then put both chips back in and ran it one more time and it passed, i let it run for 3 passes

So you've reseated the RAM which is a fix I hear about a lot. And yeah, its possible when you swapped the MoBo the Ram was not seated right. Go ahead and run HL2 again.

edit: if you ever want to know your desktop temps, this is my favorite utility for that sorta thing. CPU and HDD temp are a couple of the things it reads out.

http://www.moo0.com/?top=http://www.moo0.com/software/SystemMonitor/%23SystemMonitor

Tiddlypeeps

It appears to be working now (i hope):/ I played hl2 for over an hour and it was fine so fingers crossed it stays that way.

Must have been that the ram wasnt in right or needed to be reset.
Cheers for the help.

Captain Furball

Cool glad you got it working.

Tiddlypeeps

The computer is still dying, dunno why it didnt happen yesterday when I was playing hl2 but anyway, I have discovered that the cpu tempature gets up to around 100 degrees Celcius before it dieds. I think its safe to assume this is the cause of the problem, cuz thats just not a healthy tempature for a cpu.

Anyway, anyone any ideas how i can cool it down. There is thermal past on the cpu and all fans are working. Its not the best cooling setup available but it should still function

Captain Furball

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

The computer is still dying, dunno why it didnt happen yesterday when I was playing hl2 but anyway, I have discovered that the cpu tempature gets up to around 100 degrees Celcius before it dieds. I think its safe to assume this is the cause of the problem, cuz thats just not a healthy tempature for a cpu.

Anyway, anyone any ideas how i can cool it down. There is thermal past on the cpu and all fans are working. Its not the best cooling setup available but it should still function

Ah that's a shame,but at least you now have the real cause.
Buy some artic silver thermal paste.
It comes with instructions on how to put it on.
It's only around 6 or 7 quid you'll get it in most computer shops.

Just a tip for you I use nail varnish remover
to get off the old stuff and it works great.

Overheal

Yeah, so long as you did use fresh paste, cleaned off all the old stuff, and did not put a ridiculous amount of it (you only need a pea's worth iirc) it should be fine. Each CPU has their own deal with how the paste goes on too. Artic Silver has manuals for most/all CPUs (based on socket type) that show you which way to apply it.

http://articsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

Actually it seems strange it didnt crash on HL2, source engine is big-heavy on CPU usage. Especially lighting and shading.

And the airflow thing:



At least its something simple like an overheating issue. If it turned out to be a fried sub-circuit, that'd suck.