Computer Has a Sad

Annes

My computer keeps rebooting at random times. It will go several days and reboot or it will reboot 3 times in 1 day, you never know! There's never an error when it comes back up and the only thing of interest I've found in the system logs has been a critical kernel-power error: "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

As a note, I've already run the RAM through its paces with MemTest.

Annes

Oh, yeah, and in regards to overheating I've been running CoreTemp and the Catalyst Control Center recently to see if I can catch it getting out of control, never saw a temp above 61C across any cores or my GPU.

Thrax

61C on what CPU?

Sonorous

Is this a laptop or desktop?

mertesn

PSU failing?

Annes

Desktop. Core i7 920. How do I check for a PSU failing?

Thrax

You rule out everything else, basically.

PirateNinja

You can try going to control panel -> system -> advanced -> startup and recovery -> uncheck automatically restart on failure, check write an event to system log

Next time it happens you would hopefully get a blue screen with useful info and a nice entry in your event log with the same.

primesuspect

Anecdotally: The last two computers that I worked on that had this problem both had failing power supplies.

RootWyrm

X58/ICH10 combos of that era with heavy use are still relatively okay (both from a performance and 'not suffering bitrot' standpoint.)

It's the PSU. Most likely, the holdup capacitors have crapped out, so the slightest dip in line voltage results in the PSU going "NOPE."
I would recommend Seasonic, Corsair (except VX/Builder), Antec, FSP (Fortron Source) or XFX. I would NOT recommend Thermaltake, as their best units are the 800W+ ones. There is such a thing as too much power. (The TR2 isn't bad but you can do better with the others for less money.)

Stay away from Rosewill, Diablotek, Logisys, Athena, Sparkle, Apevia, and Compucase at ANY cost. These manufacturers produce dangerously low quality units which also often lack things like overvolt protection, overcurrent protection, and have been known and documented to lie about wattage and features. This is the kind of junk they like to put out in the 'budget' category.

BobbyDigi

primesuspect said:

Anecdotally: The last two computers that I worked on that had this problem both had failing power supplies.

+1 that is exactly what my main machine recently went through. If you follow what Pirateninja stated and you still don't get a blue screen, swap the power supply.

Annes

What sort of warranties do OCZ Fatal1ty PSUs have? Paging @ryder

RootWyrm

Annes said:

What sort of warranties do OCZ Fatal1ty PSUs have? Paging @ryder

1, 3 or 5 years depending on model. Fatal1ty is 3.

Ryder

750W has a 5 year: http://ocz.com/consumer/psu/fatality-750w-power-supply
750W is $99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341041
Silencer MkIII 750 has a 7 year: https://shop.pcpower.com/products/description/Silencer_Mk_III_750W/index.html and is $119: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703038

PirateNinja

Silencer MkIII has been good to me.