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Damn PC


Brad

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Okay guys I have an annoyingly strange problem with my PC. I'm really trying to avoid rebuilding it so have been diagnosing problems left and right and am hoping for some obscure suggestions here. Note I have made NO changes to this machine in weeks and the problem only started about a week ago. The machine can go anywhere from several hours to 5 mins before locking up.

 

Issue:

 

Machine keeps dropping the display output randomly. Essentially windows also just locks up and there is nothing to see. The monitor assumes loss of signal.

 

Clues:

 

No new software installed in weeks

All fans working as expected with no faults

The machine does not lock up when in safe mode

When in normal mode the machine can lock up even when not in use again, timing will vary

 

Tested and Passed

 

Fans, Hard Drive, Ram

 

Suspects: Video Card, Power Supply

 

 

Any clues or tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Brad

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Do you have Windows automatically apply updates?

 

Does this happen to you only when the computer is idle, or right in the middle of using it? Does it happen faster if the PC is under heavy 'load' (ie in heavy use, running a game, or lots of apps, etc)

 

Safe mode is an interesting clue... first try to replicate the problem (eg by stressing the system with a game). If you can reliably replicate it, remove your video drivers and run windows in 'normal' mode but with just generic video drivers... see if anything changes.

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I've tried updating the Video Card Drivers AND rolling them back to an older version. No change to issue.

 

Generic drivers being loaded as we speak just in case. In saying that when I suspect video card I switched to using onboard video with no change to issue. Although I had NOT uninstalled the old card :unsure

 

Further to this I use a router with NAT and have up to dat AV and malware scans have come up empty. Also ran hijack this with zero results.

 

Brad

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Check the capacitors in:

 

Power Supply

Mainboard

Video Card

 

We had a video card come in earlier this week with dead caps, resulting in flakey video card / signal.

 

If any are bloated, time to replace..

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This may sound really odd, but check the hex nuts on the gfx card socket are tight, my gf's PC many years ago would do same thing, finally tracked it down to the slightest touch on the video chord would cause it to lock up and drop the video. One of the hex nuts was very loose after it was tightenned it never did it again.

 

I had already reseated the gfx card and unplugged the cable a few times so its not like I simply disturbed the fault when I found the loose nut.

 

Cant explain it tho - ground to case issue?

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Okay......cannot find any loose nuts or connections. No bloated capacitors...nothing. It's driving me nuts so went to msy, bought a new GFX card and new power supply.

 

Couldn't really afford the card but I didn't want to make another trip if the power supply didn't fix it.

 

Currently running for 1 hour.......I 'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the tips guys.

 

Brad

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Well the power supply and new gfx card seems to have fixed it. One or the other or both were the culprits.

 

Jas, my CPU is an AMD64 4200+ AM2. It runs fine and I have the mainboard monitoring temperature with a shutdown should it get too hot. Never had a problem yet :unsure

 

Cheers,

Brad

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Gives you the shits when it's like that - you KNOW what is causing the issue within 1 or 2 components but you can't "fix" it. It's why I gave up building PCs for friends/relatives using ANY 2nd hand bits - I won't even recycle the case any more I'm so dis-illusioned with 2nd hand parts. I reckon if Windows can find anything that's not brand spanking or current gen it conspires to shit itself at any opportunity :)

 

Good to hear it's fixed Brad but sux that it always seems to cost $ to do it :rolleyes

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LOL I know the feeling. Thing is I can usually diagnose issues damn easy. I've been a techie for 15 years and I have a shitload of parts. The problem is I had no more appropriate power supplies OR a PCIE video card =( Plenty of others though lol

 

Brad

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