PC Power going off

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

Hi,

I have a Pentium-D 2.8GHz. PC with 512MB RAM running on Intel Motherboard. I use Windows XP with SP2. The PC was running fine for the last 9 months. Recently I installed a Pinnacle PCTV Pro TV Tuner Card and for 2 days it worked fine. But from the 3rd day onwards I am facing a peculiar problem.

My PC is freezing all by itself after running for about 5 minutes. The monitor goes to standby mode and the green LED keeps blinking. The HDD LED also goes out. Only the green Power LED remains on and the CD Trays are also ejectyed and closed. At this point, the Power Switch and the Reset switch also does not respond.

If I directly switch off my UPS the PC goes off. Now when I switch on my UPS and try to power on my PC, the Power and HDD LEDs dont turn on, but the CPU fan and Chasis cooling fan starts. There is no further response in my system. The monitor LED is also in standby mode. The green LED on Motherboard is on. THE CD Trays do not response. Niether is there any BEEP sound.

If I try restarting the PC after 2 hours or so, it boots up normally but again after 5 minutes, the entire process is repeated.

I have tried by removing the TV Tuner card, but the problem persists. I have even removed and then reconnected the RAM, HDD and Motherboard Power Cables, but the problem still persists.

Can anyone please help me with what I should do?

 

[michael555]

Hi,

I have a Pentium-D 2.8GHz. PC with 512MB RAM running on Intel Motherboard. I use Windows XP with SP2. The PC was running fine for the last 9 months. Recently I installed a Pinnacle PCTV Pro TV Tuner Card and for 2 days it worked fine. But from the 3rd day onwards I am facing a peculiar problem.

My PC is freezing all by itself after running for about 5 minutes. The monitor goes to standby mode and the green LED keeps blinking. The HDD LED also goes out. Only the green Power LED remains on and the CD Trays are also ejectyed and closed. At this point, the Power Switch and the Reset switch also does not respond.

If I directly switch off my UPS the PC goes off. Now when I switch on my UPS and try to power on my PC, the Power and HDD LEDs dont turn on, but the CPU fan and Chasis cooling fan starts. There is no further response in my system. The monitor LED is also in standby mode. The green LED on Motherboard is on. THE CD Trays do not response. Niether is there any BEEP sound.

If I try restarting the PC after 2 hours or so, it boots up normally but again after 5 minutes, the entire process is repeated.

I have tried by removing the TV Tuner card, but the problem persists. I have even removed and then reconnected the RAM, HDD and Motherboard Power Cables, but the problem still persists.

Can anyone please help me with what I should do?

Not sure about this one ,could be power overload or your fan is over heating.

Check if your harddrive is working fine,and the graphic card.

 

[mudfrog]

It does sound like it's overheating to me.

Open the case and power the machine up and see if the cpu fan is working and any other fans you have are spinning.

Perhaps try and get some air in a can and give it a good once over to get rid of any dust and dead insects lying about

 

[psd99]

get yourself a program installed that monitors the temperatures in your pc.

It is called Sensors View
then post your temperatures here

 

[psd99]

Your spelling and grammar is brilliant!

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

Hi,

I checked and found that all the fans are spinning (the CPU Heatsink fan and a Chasis Cooling Fan). Also, the cabinet is quite clean (no question of any dead insects whatsoever).

If it is still the case of overheating, how can I confirm?

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

But how can I run the Sensors View program if my PC refuses to stay awake for more than 5 minutes?

 

[Abarbarian]

Try plugging the pc directly into the mains and see what happens . Your UPS might be a problem . Try taking out the TV card and see what happens . Eliminate things one by one and you'll find the problem .

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

As I have posted in my original message, I have already tried by excluding the TV Tuner Card. The problem still persist.

So far as excluding my UPS is concerned, I'll do that, but I dont think that will resolve the problem.

And regarding eliminating things one by one, at this moment I only have the monitor, keyboard, mouse, HDD & DVD ROM connceted to my PC. There's nothing much I can eliminate, can I?

 

[Abarbarian]

Sorry mate missed your last paragraph about the tv card . Is your PSU getting hot ??Could be a PSU fault .

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

No, the PSU is not getting hot either. It's really strange that a PC that was working fine all these months will suddenly start behaving in a such a manner. It does look like a overheating problem, because the PC is starting fine after 2 hours or so. But again 5 minutes later, its going blank. Does anybody have a solution?

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

There's one more thing that I noticed. For once my PC did boot (as it now does when I try after a couple of hours). I switched on the TV view through the TV Tuner Card. As usual after about 5 minutes the PC went out. But amazingly, the TV audio kept on, the CPU and Chasis fans kept spinning, and the CD/DVD drives also were alive. But the screen went to stand-by.

Does this bit of observation help anyone in proposing the solution? I am really going mad.

 

[Abarbarian]

Take the card out . Uninstall all the card software . Run CC Cleaner . See if that makes a difference .

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

ok mate! I'll try that out also and let you know.

 

[pushpal.bhattacharya]

I first uninstalled all relevant software and drivers, took the TV tuner card out, cleared the BIOS, and restarted the PC.

Now a new problem has cropped up. The PC ran OK for 20 minutes. Therefater, the display started flickering and gradually it faded out completely. There was no reponse from the mouse or keyboard. The fans kept running. The HDD and Power LED kept glowing. The Reset button didn't work.

I powered off the PC, and tried re-starting it. BEHOLD! Again the same problem. The PC didn't start.

 

[Abarbarian]

Looks like your down to checking each component then . If you can borrow a psu to try that would be good . Can you try the monitor on someone elses pc . Same for HDD and memory and graphics card . Sorry can't be any more help but it really is down to elimination .