[P] Pc turning off and on by itself?

[Richard15]

Please can anyone help?In english as i am not pc litrate!
My Scaleo P Home PC running on windows xp with windows live onecare for virus protection has suddenly started switching itself off and back on all by itself,sometimes it it switches on and will not turn back on until i pull out the power supply from the wall socket and then back in again
This has become very annoying it happens sometimes at least three times a day always when i am in the middle of something.
Please can someone out there help?But as i say in plain english because i am thick when it comes to my pc!

[bubblegum]

Have you checked for dust around the fan & heatsink?

[teemuas]

Hi!

I know this might be far fetched but I too have Scaleo P and I have noticed that the Power button in front of the computer may get slightly jammed in or stuck so that one side is in and the other is not: that might cause some weird situations. Please check that the power button is not stuck in a wrong position.

BR, Teemu

[Richard15]

Hi thanks for reply,in responce i must admit i have not checked the fan for dust although i have noticed dust on the grate which i suspect the cooling fan lays behind?Is it easy to get into the pc?As i said i am thick when it comes to pc's?
As for power button,no its not jammed or anything from what i can see,but thank you both for your reply's,much apprectiated!

[bubblegum]

On my Scaleo T there is a plastic slider, move that, & slide the side panel backwards.

There might be a black plastic funnel over the heatsink & fan. An Air duster might be the easiest way for you. But there is no guarantee you will get rid of all the dust.

To remove the fan, there are a couple of metal clips. release these to remove the funnel & fan. You should be able to clean most of the dust from the top of the heatsink.

Beware, if you try to remove the heatsink, the heatsink compound (white or grey grease) might hold it tight, if you twist the heatsink gently, about a couple of degrees, it should break the seal. But do this at your own risk.

When you have cleaned the heatsink, go into the BIOS, PC Health, & set the Temp alarm. This will give you a warning the next time the dust builds up.

[tenchiten]

If you do remove the heatsink from the CPU then you should remove any old thermal compound and replace it with new before re-fitting the heatsink again.

[bb193]

I'd test to see if the PC is overheating. Download some software to show you what temperature you are running at. I use Everest home edition - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Sys ... tion.shtml

Your BIOS has a setting to switch the PC off if it overheats - it is normally set to about 85-95C. The PC would normally run at 30-45C depending what it is doing. If you are much over that, clear dust out from the processor heat sink. It has lots of fine fins on it, and the fan sucks air through it. An ideal arrangement to trap loads of fluff and stop heat dissipation!

Switch off, take the power lead out and take the cover off. Let it cool down. Then, using a can of compressed air (eg http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Mod ... an&doy=3m4) to blow the dust away. Put it back together and check the temperature.

If it isn't overheating, I'd then suspect a RAM problem. Check your RAM with an application like these:-
http://www.memtest.org/
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

If you have more than one RAM DIMM, you can also remove them one at a time, to see if the problem goes away.

Finally, as a last straw, I'd find the manufacturer of my hard disk, go to their website and download their disk diagnosis tools. Run them, and see if they tell you anything.

It is worth downloading the memory test and disk diagnosis tools anyway and burning them onto a bootable disk. Personally, I think every PC should get a set when they are sold. You never know when you might need it, and when you need it, you probably can't download it!

[Graeme of Boinc UK]

An article I wrote for my team forum may be of use to you if over-temperature is the problem.

http://forum.boincuk.com/viewtopic.php?t=2414&start=16

Graeme.