computer troubles

[bed_head7]

Every once and a while when I am running something big (like, say, Civ4), my computer just shuts down with no warning. This initially starting happening after I started running folding@home, so I thought it was a virtual memory thing or something. By the way, don't laugh too hard at me not having a clue about what I am talking about. Somehow, my being a nerd skipped over learning a lot about computers. But after I stopped running that, the problem continued. Then, it occasionally started to happen when I restarted after it happening, which has prompted me to believe it is an overheating issue, and I am hitting some built in safety feature that keeps me from completely frying my computer, as I could not find any other reason why it would just shut down right in the middle of reboot, and still being hot is a fairly obvious reason. Is this plausible? Anyone have any better ideas? Or, if my guess sounds right, how do I fix it? Or verify that that is the cause? Thanks in advance for any help.

[barbu1977]

I would say the power supply or some capacitors on the motherboard are at fault. One of my old computer at work use to do that. It got especialy bad when I accessed the CD rom drive or for some reason when Arcobat reader started. The IT guy changed the mother board/power supply duo and that solved the problem.

Forst thing to do is take a look at your mother board and look at the little cans (the capacitors) if the top of one of those is cracked or bulbed, that could be your problem (in 2002 taiwan capacitors around the world got that problem when the electolite liquid maker who supply most compagnies made a mistake in their receipe and caused premature failliures. The receipe was stolen from a japan maker and there was a mistake in the stolen version.)

If you don't see anything abnormal, I would recommend to first change your power supply (since it's cheaper) and look where that takes you.

[akots]

Indeed, like barbu said, power supply (fan only if you can do it) and CPU fan are the first candidates. Or if you have some extended "modern" video card, a video card fan. Do you have the same issue when you take off the cover from your PC? If not than it is definively overheating.

[Rik Meleet]

If the "shuts down without warning" = "as if someone pulled the powercord out" then I'd be thinking Powersupply-related. If it stops responding after a while then it could be heat-related (fans in that case). If you think it is heat-related: I have a simple test (Don't do this with an AMD CPU, only with a Pentium).
Boot your PC into the BIOS and leave it on the temperature screen for a couple of hours. If your PC has crashed it is very likely it's temperature related. If it stays functioning properly there; think of your videocard or software first.

[BCLG100]

try posting this in the folding@home thread- i know nothing but they might also have some ideas :)

[bed_head7]

Well, power supply seems to be the unanimous winner here, as I did not see anything wrong with my capacitors. Thanks for the advice, and I'll let you know how it turns out. I am going away for a few days though, so my it may be awhile before I actually go out and do anything.

BCLG100, I did post in that thread, and did not really get anything useful except maybe to turn down percentage of processor that I gave it or run it while the screen saver is on. For the time being, I am just not running it, while I figure out what is going on.

[Beam]

I'd say don't rule out overheating assuming you are running folding@home a great deal of the day if not 24/7. I don't know the program at all but if it is like seti@home it will take all remaining cpu power meaning your computer is always running top speed. In everyday use a computer only runs top speed a fraction of the time and imo economics for computers like we use most likely dictate cooling is designed for temporary peaks is cpu usage.

In other words don't run folding for a while and see if the crash still occurs.

[BCLG100]

i might tone down my folding a bit now :)