Abrupt Powerdown

I have been having numerous abrupt un initiated powerdowns some times I will come home and my pc will be off and will not restart until I unplug and replug the power cord, when it happens while its running it is usually in a game (doesent matter which one ) it is like someone unplugged it. (same proceedure as described above to rerstart it) when I look at the event viewer I dont see any thing that stands out . I think I need a better logging program or the knowlage to set up event viewer logs properly I also think that it might be a power suppily problem it is also throwing a lot of internet explorer must shutdown errors but they are undefined when they report. I have shut down norton av and windows defender as they were active right before the powerdowns according to event viewer. any suggestions would be appriciated
thanks
Jeff

 

Hi, Jeff.

I have two possible causes in mind:

1. The CPU and/or GPU is heating up too much, so your system shuts down before the temperatures get too high. You can download software that will display temperature information for your CPU and possibly GPU. Two such utilities are Aida32 and Everest. Both can be downloaded from Major Geeks.

2. Your power supply might be too weak (not enough watts) or it's getting flaky and needs replacement. If my first susipcion above is not apparently the cause, then try swapping power supplies with one that has sufficient power (watts) to handle everything your machine requires.

EDIT: Pete, GMTA!

 

everest report

thanks guys for all of your help here are the parts of the the everest report I think you may have wanted to see if not let me know what parts you want tried to paste the whole thing but no joy (its pretty big)
thanks again
Jeff

[ Processors / AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+ ]

Processor Properties:
Manufacturer AMD
Version AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+
External Clock 200 MHz
Maximum Clock 3000 MHz
Current Clock 2200 MHz
Voltage 3.3 V, 2.9 V
Status Enabled
Socket Designation Socket-A

------[ Sensor ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83697HF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S8X / K7S8XE / K7VM2 / K7VM4 / K7VT4-4X / K8Upgrade-760GX

Temperatures:
Motherboard 34 °C (93 °F)
CPU 65 °C (149 °F)
Maxtor 6Y120L0 34 °C (93 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 4219 RPM
Chassis 3013 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.62 V
+3.3 V 3.23 V
+5 V 4.68 V
+12 V 12.02 V
+5 V Standby 4.82 V
Debug Info F 28 38 FF
Debug Info T 65 34 255
Debug Info V 65 00 CA AE BB BB BD (01)

 

Hi, Jeff.

Thanks for posting that info. Good work!

(Keep in mind I'm not a hardware expert. )

Did you obtain those values while at idle on your machine or was it shortly after some CPU intensive application or game?

Cooling Fans: CPU 4219 RPM seems normal to me. Mine is currently 4327 RPM.

CPU 65 °C (149 °F) is a bit high, especially at idle. My guess is your system has been shutting down to protect the CPU from getting too hot.
I have the same CPU as yours and Everest v2.20.405 currently reports my CPU temp as 48 °C (118 °F).

My first guess is you may have excessive dust in your heatsink that is not allowing air from the fan to circulate through your heatsink properly.

I suggest shutting down your computer, turning off the power supply switch or unplugging the power, and opening your case. Squirt short bursts of some canned compressed air (available at local computer stores) to blow out dust from your CPU fan and heatsink. [SIZE= "3"]Gently hold the CPU fan with your finger between the blades so it does not spin.[/SIZE] This will prevent the compressed air from spinning the fan, which can produce potentially damaging voltages for your system, even with the power off.


+5 V 4.68 V 4.68 volts seem to me to be a bit low. I dunno for sure though. The hardware experts will probably know. My current +5V voltage is 4.84 V.

 

thanks again

I will clean the cpu cooler as suggested but do you think I need to upgrade the cooler if so which is best I am just using the factory boxed set cooler that came from amd
Jeff

 

it worked (sort of)

I cleaned out the heatsink and fan and the temp dropped substantionally but might still be a little hot report 2 was after about an hour of BF2 report 1 was after 15 minutes of gaming but no shut downs yet and it seems to cool down afterwords

report 1:

--------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc. ]------------------------------------------------------------

Version EVEREST v2.20.405
Homepage http://www.lavalys.com/
Report Type Quick Report
Computer ATHLON3200 (Jeff's PC)
Generator Jeff
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
Date 2006-09-01
Time 21:40


--------[ Sensor ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83697HF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S8X / K7S8XE / K7VM2 / K7VM4 / K7VT4-4X / K8Upgrade-760GX

Temperatures:
Motherboard 32 °C (90 °F)
CPU 51 °C (124 °F)
Maxtor 6Y120L0 29 °C (84 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 4561 RPM
Chassis 3013 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.63 V
+3.3 V 3.23 V
+5 V 4.68 V
+12 V 11.96 V
+5 V Standby 4.85 V
Debug Info F 25 38 FF
Debug Info T 51 32 255
Debug Info V 66 00 CA AE BA BA BB (01)

report 2

--------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc. ]------------------------------------------------------------

Version EVEREST v2.20.405
Homepage http://www.lavalys.com/
Report Type Quick Report
Computer ATHLON3200 (Jeff's PC)
Generator Jeff
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
Date 2006-09-01
Time 22:19


--------[ Sensor ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83697HF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S8X / K7S8XE / K7VM2 / K7VM4 / K7VT4-4X / K8Upgrade-760GX

Temperatures:
Motherboard 36 °C (97 °F)
CPU 57 °C (135 °F)
Maxtor 6Y120L0 35 °C (95 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 4561 RPM
Chassis 3068 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.62 V
+3.3 V 3.23 V
+5 V 4.68 V
+12 V 12.02 V
+5 V Standby 4.85 V
Debug Info F 25 37 FF
Debug Info T 57 36 255
Debug Info V 65 00 CA AE BB BB BB (01)

so do you think I need to do somthing else??
thanks again
Jeff

 

Your Computer Before Cleaning:

• Temperatures:
  • Motherboard 34 °C (93 °F)
  • CPU 65 °C (149 °F)
• Cooling Fans:
  • CPU 4219 RPM
  • Chassis 3013 RPM

Your Computer After Cleaning and 15 Minutes of Gaming:

• Temperatures:
  • Motherboard 32 °C (90 °F)
  • CPU 51 °C (124 °F) (23% improvement!)
• Cooling Fans:
  • CPU 4561 RPM (8%, improvement)
  • Chassis 3013 RPM

Your Computer After Cleaning and 1 Hour of Gaming:

• Temperatures:
  • Motherboard 36 °C (97 °F)
  • CPU 57 °C (135 °F) (12% improvement)
• Cooling Fans:
  • CPU 4561 RPM (8% improvement)
  • Chassis 3068 RPM

Your cleaning apparently made a HUGE improvement! Good work, Jeff! It looks like your chassis fan speed might increase a little when temps are up too (although your chassis fan speed might just vary from refresh to refresh during Everest's realtime sensor report).

If you do your gaming for 3 hours straight and you don't experience any more shutdowns, I'd be inclined to say you're good to go.

I don't know what to recommend for further action to bring those temps down even more. Perhaps someone will offer suggestions.

EDIT: Perhaps adding another chassis fan will improve your temperatures some more. Case fans are pretty inexpensive and easy to install (if you have a place to add a case fan). Case fans come in different sizes, typically 80 cm and 120 cm if I recall correctly. You'll need to measure the size you would need for your case.

 

I would open the case again and look very closely for leaking capacitors. A Google on "motherboard leaking capacitors" will be enlightening as to how common a problem this is. See, to aid in identification, http://www.badcaps.net/ident/

.

 

as fixed as its gonna get

#1 thanks to everyone for your help

#2 no bad caps on mobo

#3 Idle temp of processor was 126 deg f

#4 I added an second case fan and the temps fell again I have not tried gaming again since the upgrade but I think that the reuults will be the same % as the Idle numbers here is the idle report with the new fan

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83697HF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S8X / K7S8XE / K7VM2 / K7VM4 / K7VT4-4X / K8Upgrade-760GX

Temperatures:
Motherboard 33 °C (91 °F)
CPU 48 °C (118 °F)
Maxtor 6Y120L0 29 °C (84 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 4561 RPM
Chassis 2961 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.62 V
+3.3 V 3.22 V
+5 V 4.68 V
+12 V 12.02 V
+5 V Standby 4.80 V
Debug Info F 25 39 FF
Debug Info T 48 33 255
Debug Info V 65 00 C9 AE BB BB BB (01)

 

Hi, Jeff. Thanks for posting your system-idle info. Those numbers look good to me!

Here are my current numbers (for the same CPU) so you can compare:

Temperatures
Motherboard 31 °C (88 °F)
CPU 46 °C (115 °F)
Hard Drive 31 °C (88 °F)

Cooling Fans
CPU 4441 RPM

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.74 V
+3.3 V 3.26 V
+5 V 4.87 V
+12 V 12.10 V
+5 V Standby 5.05 V

I notice my voltages differ a little from yours. I dunno what to say about the voltages. I have not researched to find what "typical" voltage values are for other people. According to the AMD specs Pete linked, the nominal CPU Core voltage is 1.65 V. Yours is a tiny bit lower and mine is considerably higher. Maybe such variance is typical.

 

Hi, Pete. Thanks for your suggestion.

My Everest "Computer" > "Overclock" report:

CPU Properties

• CPU Type AMD Athlon XP 3200+
• CPU Alias Barton
• CPU Stepping A2
• CPUID CPU Name AMD Athlon(TM) XP 3200+
• CPUID Revision 000006A0h

CPU Speed

• CPU Clock 2199.91 MHz (AMD's spec: 2200 MHz)
• CPU Multiplier 11.0x
• CPU FSB 199.99 MHz (AMD's spec: 400 MHz) I seem to recall reading once somewhere that the FSB freq. is identified as either 200 MHz or 400 MHz (for the same setting) depending on something. I don't recall what that "something" is though. (The "Memory Frequency" in my BIOS is set at 400 MHz. I am not certain whether this "Memory Frequency" refers to the FSB or something else.)
• Memory Bus 199.99 MHz

I do notice, as my CPU freq. varies slightly in this Everest report, my CPU FSB and Memory Bus freqs. also vary slightly. However, the CPU FSB freq. and Memory Bus freq. are always simultaneously identical.

Doesn't appear I have forgotton about any overclocking I may have tinkered with in the past with this CPU anyway.

============

My Voltage Values:
(Everest in Black, BIOS (during boot) in Blue, Asus Probe v2.22.02 in Red):

• CPU Core 1.74 V 1.62 V 1.744 V
• +3.3 V 3.26 V 3.26 V 3.264 V
• +5 V 4.87 V 4.83 V 4.865 V
• +12 V 11.97 V 12.09 V 12.032 V
• +5 V Standby 5.05 V N/A N/A

Would Asus Probe be considered 3rd party (even though my mobo is Asus)? What voltage values ya think I should go with as truth? I'm thinking the BIOS values because those are the values I WANT to go with.

However, my temperature values are a different matter.
(Everest in Black, BIOS (during boot) in Blue, Asus Probe v2.22.02 in Red):

CPU 48 °C (118 °F) 56 °C (132.5 °F) 56 °C (132 °F)

In this case, I'd rather go with Everest.

I wonder what the factors are that produce such varying results.

 

Hi mailman,

The probes/monitors will need to be calibrated for the BIOS to read them. You would hope that they would be correctly calibrated, but this not always the case.

The software programs will be "looking" at the readings through the motherboard drivers.

I have read that BIOS upgrades can fix faulty readings.

On this computer, Everest and the BIOS say the CPU is running at 9*C. The room temperature is near 20*C. It think the cooling system is running well, but not that well! . The system is running fine (maybe 9*C is right ) so I won't look for a BIOS upgrade unless I have any concerns.

Matt

 

Thanks, guys.

I appreciate your input. I'll do some more investigating over time and see what I can find about the variables (and who's supposed to be in charge of sensor calibration ).

BTW, I do have the latest BIOS available for my mobo. I'm not going to worry too much about it though because my system is currently running smoother than it ever has in the past. The only times I have troubles are the occasions I try playing Doom3. I don't game much though so that issue is low priority.

Hmmm... I wonder if PC Probe II will work for my machine.

The only thing I have in my BIOS that seems to be similar to yours is "Q-Fan Control ". I currently have it disabled. I will try enabling my "Q-Fan Control" and see if that makes any difference in CPU temp.

Okay. I'll take Asus Probe's info as "truth" for now.

Thanks again!