My PC keeps turning off...please help

[texhnolyze]

i've experienced it too 2 weeks ago
the problem was the dust
it runs smoothly after i cleaned my PC wholly

[WinterNights]

Either a bad power supply or your PC is overheating.

[Mishakai]

My wife's computer did this a couple years back, ironically in XIV 1.0. Same thing, she could do other stuff fine, but fire up XIV and the computer would just turn off.

Wound up being the power supply, it finally just blew out instead of powering down. End result wasn't pretty either, generally when sparks and flames shoot out of the power supply, it will take other things with it.

Do you have a friend with a computer you might be able to borrow a power supply from to check? Beats spending the money outright for a new one, only to see the same problem and find out that component XXX is actually the one failing.

[Asmodeus]

Just to reiterate what people have been saying, never ever, ever, EVER skimp on a PSU. It's the most important component in your PC in that if it fails, it puts every single other component at risk of failure as well. If you have a cheap PSU, replace it.

Amen, there are so many junk PSU out there trying to con you with a number like 750 etc etc. This is one part that quality over high numbers is key.

[CaZx]

FWIW, my PC had similar problems randomly about a year back. I started running a heat monitoring program because I felt that overheating was the culprit. I was surprised to find that it was not the CPU or GPU that was overheating but a chipset on the motherboard. I believe it was the northbridge or southbridge, I do not recall exactly which, I am certainly no expert.

That said I removed the chipset in question and found that it was very similar to the CPU and it used thermal paste...the problem was that the thermal past was virtually non-existent it had dried up or something. I cleaned it up, re-applied thermal paste, and put everything back together..I have not had any problems since.

A few different programs will monitor various different temperature readings and if you find one that is getting high you can look up what the reading is for. In my case the temp reading for the chipset was called TEMPIN1 or TEMPIN2 or something to that affect and with a little investigating I found exactly which point on the motherboard this referred to.

[GashMess]

I had exactly the same problem a few months back. Run a game worked fine for 5-10 mins the complete shut down. Turned out it was my power supply unit was failing and either over heating or couldnt supply enough power to run gcard. Replaced it worked perfectly.

[Angelswings]

Dunno if this helps but my pc was randomly blue screening and I finally found out it was actually the ffxiv snakebite controller driver.... Go figure

[Kobolt]

always look for a power supply with an 80 Plus Sticker. that implies that it meets required standard that its 80% efficient, which it also means it was put through rigorous testing.
The 80 Plus web site has a list of all certified supplies, so it is possible to confirm that a supply really meets the requirements.

[Malamasala]

The culprit turned out to be a bad stick of RAM. If you have multiple sticks, take one out.

This is probably my situation. I say probably since it is so random. I replaced by RAM once with new, and the problem seemed to go away. To confirm it really was the RAM I plugged it in together with the new RAM but it worked so it confused me. Later (a couple of months) it began again and I was suspecting the PSU. But just because I could, I removed the old RAM again and there has been no problems since. I can't tell if I'm just in the lucky period, or if it actually is the RAM, but I'm going to see how long this lasts me.

But it is soon time to get a new PC (or most of the inner content anyway) because I've noticed my ethernet plug is broken on the motherboard and it can never be good to have broken stuff on the motherboard and not act on it with replacements.

[Laraul]

I don't think it's the PSU. I think something mechanical (like a fan) isn't properly function. It could be obstructed by a wire preventing it from spinning. Something simple and easily remedied. Unless you have a funky "extreme" custom cooling system, in which case you are on your own.

My bet is the CPU. Make sure you didn't accidentally knock the heat sink loose. I'm pretty sure you didn't but start there in any case.

It could be a faulty temp sensor also. But that's much more remote.