Greetings. I've been trying to "Frankenstein" a decent rig (for home use) and I get so close to the top, then lose my grip and slide all the way back down hill.

Here are the components I've cobbled together -

MSI 890FXA-GD70 motherboard (purchased second-hand, "lightly" used, still under warranty)
8GB Kingston KVR1333 RAM (4x2GB) (purchased brand new)
AMD Phenom II X4 970 (3.5 GHz) (purchased brand new)
MSI 440GT video card (purchased second-hand, came with the case)
650W modular PSU by Raidmax (purchased second-hand, came with the case)
Basic LG DVD-RW (purchased second-hand, came with the case)
500GB SATA HD (purchased brand new)
APEVIA X-telstra case (purchased second-hand)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (OEM)

I took it to a shop and had them look it over to insure that I connected everything correctly. I brought it home and plugged it in. Naturally, I was hit with Windows and component updates, which I expected and faithfully installed. Now the PC basically won't stay on. It powers up, sometimes I get to the logon screen, and then it just powers down - no error messages, nada. And as far as I can tell, CPU temperature is not an issue.

Like I said, I have a suspect in mind, but I don't want that bias to blind me to other possibilities or combinations of possibilities.

Any good testing tools and/or debugging methods would be appreciated as well.

TIA to the best on-line forum! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/uarulez2.gif)


AvgJoe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hat_tip.gif)

Take this with several grains of salt ... <G>

A WAG (not EVEN scientific) ... sounds like a fault in a power supply that fails as/after it (the power supply) starts warming up. Easy test? ... swap it out for a spare, if you have one.

Experienced something similar (my pc kept restarting though) a couple of months ago, and in my case it was a defect fan, resulting in a hot cpu which triggered some safety.

Jeff, Yves

Thanx for the replies. Jeff - congrats on passing the 5k post milestone.

While I'm leaning to the PSU, I don't have a modular one to swap out. And for a PSU, I'll go brand new purchase (no second-hand). It does appear that when something warms up (and it seems like it doesn't take long to warm up), the whole system shuts down.

Both fans are running fine and I can see the CPU temp on the motherboard. The CPU temp seems to be stable at around 70 deg F. But I have given Yves' comment some thought. The CPU is detecting a problem (somewhere) and is shutting down the system for self-preservation.

"Thank You" - and Happy Holidays.


AvgJoe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hat_tip.gif)

have you checked your video card? if onboard see shipset is too hot.
if pci - try replacing for a test.

let me know - there many problems that can make a pc to go down.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumbup.gif)

Does the Windows Event Log give you any clues? or can you even get there?

Can you boot into Safe Mode? Does it power down even in Safe Mode?

Is all the hardware 64-bit compliant? Have you tried a 32-bit OS? If it works with 32-bit, then your hardware is good, but it may be a driver issue with 64-bit.

My guess would be that Windows applied an update that the hardware doesn't like.

ScorpDevil, Walter

Thanks for the replies.

ScorpDevil - the video card is on the suspect list. Since this rig is going to be more for business use, I don't need a high-end video card, just a decent one for rendering business graphics and my maps. It seems like me and video cards/video card drivers don't quite see eye-to-eye for some reason.

Walter - I've given both of your suggestions some thought. What gnaws on me regarding 32-bit is that I have to settle for 4GB of RAM. Not that 4GB isn't a bad thing, it's just that I have more available and the mobo can support more ram. And I think there's a possibility that one of the updates is giving the system some heartburn.

Given that Football is over (although Hockey is now here), my job-related testing is over (I'm now waiting for the test results), and I'll finally have a day off to myself, maybe I can crack open this bad boy and see if I can get it going.

I'll post back once I have more information.

"Thanks" for the input/feedback.


AvgJoe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hat_tip.gif)