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Author Topic: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts  (Read 15514 times)

renluop

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Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« on: September 30, 2016, 02:35:23 PM »

My 6 to 7 y.o. Dell desktop for a while suffers from unexpected restarts. Often dust is mentioned and over heating as a result.

However, today the first incidence was within 5 minutes of turning the power on from the overnight power down. That causes me to discount the dust/ overheating theory, at least for the first incident. What do you guys think; is something like the PSU giving up, or may be the machine getting ready to pop its clogs?
« Last Edit: September 30, 2016, 05:40:35 PM by renluop »
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Weaver

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Re: Plaued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2016, 05:16:44 PM »

I would check the fans and reseat the RAM. A thorough RAM testing tool might be worth a go.
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renluop

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Re: Plaued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2016, 05:39:31 PM »

Well I have run Memtest. As for the rest, I'm a new octogenarian, who's always had two left feet on my right hand. :blush:

The computer box is hardly ever moved, and then it's usually dragged, so what's the chance of anything unseated?
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roseway

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2016, 06:37:21 PM »

Heat generated during normal operation can cause things to move and make joints intermittent. Really you need to remake any plug/socket connections inside, including things like PCI cards.
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  Eric

renluop

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2016, 07:02:15 PM »

Oh dear! :'( for reasons I gave above. Do I get my man to help at a cost on an probably obsolete m/c, or be more drastic?hmmm
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tbailey2

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2016, 07:41:01 PM »

When did you last vacuum out your PC ...... Attachment shows why you might need to  :swoon:
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renluop

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2016, 11:23:10 PM »

That'll be in hand, though it was last at "my man" mid May.
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Weaver

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2016, 08:52:04 AM »

Impressive pic.
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renluop

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2016, 11:52:42 AM »

The pics show how it looks now; the best I can do with only a hand vac available, which is not good on dust. I wiped out as best I could. Grey had hues; didn't help.
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Weaver

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2016, 12:23:07 PM »

I used to take my machines outside and blast various nooks with a tin of compressed air.
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renluop

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2016, 01:40:08 PM »

Am on to that ASAP. I didn't think mine looked half as bad as tb2's pic. My effort doesn't seem to have worked. Considering age could the PSU be getting creaky? From my readings testing looks ****** complicated, unless someone knows otherwise?
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roseway

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2016, 02:25:00 PM »

The power supply is one possibility, but there are several others. Almost any bit of failing hardware could result in intermittent reboots. But really, the next thing to do if you haven't already is to reseat all the plug/socket connections.
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  Eric

phi2008

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #12 on: October 11, 2016, 10:01:26 PM »

I'd suggest first identifying if this is hardware or software(e.g. Windows drivers/kernel space). Get a Linux live CD and run your machine using that, see if you get shutdowns. If you do then you can start checking/swapping out hardware to see what's failing - RAM, PSU, graphics card, etc.



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renluop

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #13 on: October 11, 2016, 11:14:20 PM »

I'd suggest first identifying if this is hardware or software(e.g. Windows drivers/kernel space). Get a Linux live CD and run your machine using that, see if you get shutdowns. If you do then you can start checking/swapping out hardware to see what's failing - RAM, PSU, graphics card, etc.
Can you explain further, please, as I do not understand how a Linux CD would work with a Windows machine? Also, I haven't a clue where I would get such a CD, nor what its content need be. :-\
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Weaver

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Re: Plagued at times by unexpected restarts
« Reply #14 on: October 12, 2016, 02:01:21 AM »

A live CD means a bootable CD. You boot from it and then you're running another operating system, Linux in this case. This can then for example examine your current system.
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