System powers itself off

Recently, my DSO system started powering itself off. No BSOD, no klaxon horn or red lights, just quietly powering down without warning.

The first thing I asked myself was "What has changed recently ?". The (only) answer was that I had recently replaced my corded USB mouse with a LogiTech M510 wireless mouse. Aha, I said, that is surely it !! So I removed the USB dongle, turned off the new mouse, deleted the SetPoint software, and re-installed my old corded mouse. No joy - the system still powered itself off from time to time.

As I looked for a pattern, it became clear that the power-offs only occurred when a graphics-intensive game, specifically WoW, Diablo 3, or SWToR (the latter was the reason I bought this system in November 2011) was running. I say "was running" because it makes no difference if I am actually playing the game or it is merely runnning in the background. Once the game is started, my system will power itself down in less than an hour. The shortest time was 5 minutes after I ran SWToR, but it usually is in the range of 15-20 minutes after the game is entered.

Using TechPowerup for my graphic temperature readings and Real Temp for my CPU temps, I determined that the temps at the time of shutdown were at most 80 C. for the graphics GPU and mid-50s C for the CPU. From what I read on the Internet, these are perfectly reasonable temperatures, not at all high. Thus, it does not seem to me that the power-offs are heat related, despite the fact that they are graphics related.

I had my nephew, a certified electrician, to test all the outlets used by my system. He found them to be fine - no surges, insufficiencies, etc.

Racking my brain for something else to do to eliminate the power-offs, I remembered that I had been intending to open the system up and blow it out but had never done so. So today I blew out 3-1/2 years of dust bunnies. It was so spectacular that I was sure this would fix the problem. Alas, no joy....and no change. I entered WoW and was powered off in 20 minutes.

The last thing I tried was to update my AMD drivers from the 13.251.0.0 that I had to the latest (14.501.1003.0). I then fired up SWToR, and 9 minutes later the system powered itself off. I started it up again, brought up the browswer and went to bed. This morning it was still up and running fine...the power-off only happens if a graphics intensive game is running.

I am at my wits end, folks. I freely admit that I am neither technical or mechanical, and can think of nothing else to try here by myself. I wonder if the problem is the power supply, but I do not know what to do to follow up on that hypothesis. I am throwing myself on the mercy of these forums (always the most friendly and helpful of any forums I have been in) in the hopes that someone here, either DSO employee or customer, can help me get back into gaming. Fifteen minutes at a time is enough to check my auctions in WoW, but not enough to have any fun in any of my games.

My system specs are listed in my signature below. Thanks in advance !!!


Charles M. (Mike) Acord

Hi cmacord,

If your PSU gets loaded with dust it can be the kiss of death. The insides get covered with dust and it is like covering everything with a blanket.

Frank    

Originally posted by Dakota Red Hi cmacord, I had the same problem with my DS Black Ops computer. I checked everything that you did and came up with the same findings. I also tried blowing canned air through the psu which is what bprat22 suggested. Nothing made a difference. It continued to power off and then reboot at different times. My Black Ops computer is over 5 years old and I thought that maybe the psu needed to be replaced because it was starting to fail. Before I replaced it though I happened across one item on the internet. It seems that at that time several years ago, the mobo mfg's, and Intel could not agree on implantation of the system and monitor sleep time out. They did not implement a standardized system. You see this when you walk away from your computer and the monitor and/or computer go to sleep. You wiggle your mouse or touch a key and they come out of sleep mode. Why after years of working fine this decided to be a problem I do not know. I also play SWTOR and I also noticed like you did that this game seem to be connected to this problem in some way. This problem did start after SWTOR started streaming their game so maybe that has something to do with it. Someone on the internet suggested that the sleep mode needs to be turned off for both the computer and monitor. You can do this by entering Windows power management settings and set the computer and monitor to "Never" go into sleep mode. I don't know if this will work for you but it did for me. Good luck and I hope this will work for you.

Thanks for your input, Dakota !!!

I checked, and my computer and monitor are both set to "Never" sleep.

Originally posted by Alex Try plugging the unit directly into the wall outlet to see if that helps. If that does not, it could be your PSU is bad.

Alex, thanks for your suggestion.
It didn't help but it was still appreciated. :)


Mike

You could call DS for their professional advice and years of experience, but unless your psu is dead, there isn't anyway to tell 100%.   If the psu turns on but shuts down under load only a quality psu tester that puts load on it will tell.   Otherwise, its an educated guess.   Its possible another component like the mobo, a HDD or video card is shorting or putting out undo load and causing the psu to drop out.    

Chances are its the psu, but unfortunately no guarantees.

Calling DS and having them help is always a good idea.     

Ok, if I do decide to replace my power supply, should I buy another Corsair CX600 V2 ? I can get one from NewEgg for $65.99. Or has the technology advanced enough in the last 3.5 years that there is a better choice ? If so, how would I determine what unit that would be ?

Also, if I get a different unit, do I have to worry about its size being different from what I have now ? Does that matter ?

Since my last posting, I have done the following:

1. Updated to the latest video drivers for my card,

2. opened up the system unit and blew it out with a leaf blower, killing literally thousands of innocent dust bunnies (first time in 3.5 yrs), and

3. installed and ran a utility called WhoCrashed, which analyzes the system dump file(s).

None of these actions, though comforting, made any difference. The dump file analyzer didn't help because my system is not creating a dump file when it powers off, which would seem to me to be even stronger evidence that the PSU is just shutting down w/o warning the system.

At this point, I am thinking about maybe talking to a local computer person (small town, but I got 2 references from local friends when I posted on FaceBook today), with the idea in mind that perhaps he will be able to determine (and fix, I hope) the problem.