Off Topic PC Problem

[johnh]

Computer keeps shutting down after about 5mins, the fan works so it not overeating,anyone any ideas please.
John H

[Foot Tapper]

Have you tried starting it in Safe Mode?

[Deleted]

would help if we know what computer and OS your using

[johnh]

Hi it,s a ACER Aspire laptop running windows 7,I have tried safe mode,have tried restore,it just shuts down before anything can be done and when it restarts it starts doing a disc check and halfway through it shuts down.
Cheers
John H

[Tony Biker]

Hi John. This sounds like a hardware problem, most likely the motherboard. Have a look at this youtube and follow what the guys says. You may be lucky and you can fix it.



Tony

[twang46]

Try this John

Turn the laptop upside down...............disconnect power cables & ensure it is switched off.

Get the Dyson out & suck all the gubbins/dust out of the fan vents adjacent to the power plug

Then try it.............might just work

I run an Acer Aspire lappy & also have a couple of spares that I have for parts.............let us know the model details so we can better help you John

Dick.

[Recycled Rock Chick]

Definitely sounds like over heating due to a restricted air flow to me John, try as Dick suggests and have a feel at how warm the case is at various places underneath so you can identify where the heat sink is.

Then stick a few ice cubes in a plastic bag and, preferably in the kitchen or somwhere where it will not matter if a bit of water from the melting ice leaks onto the worktop or sink, then sit the laptop on top of the bag of ice cubes, making sure they are near the place that felt the warmest, and see if it lasts longer before shutting down then that will confirm that the heatsink, ducts or vents are full of gunge.

Its is usually fairly easy to get at the heatsink on laptops these days to be able to clear the vents out, unlike the ones from 12 or 15 years back when they were quite hard to get to.

[sixchannel]

I know I'm not a computer whizz but I once got a virus in my PC that did just what you are describing - a normal boot up that just shut itself down after a very few minutes. If it ain't the overheating, then is that a possibility?
Ian

[Deleted]

it takes a good few minutes to shut down because of overheating, i have an acer aspire as a backup laptop. and had to clean the vents on it ,it was shutting down after about half and hour , but i had to take the cooler out to do it consist of a little radiator type fitting, which you have to get between the fins , the easiest way is to blast it with the air cleaning attachment on a compressor , you have to strip the computer down to do it properly. but my have some success blasting the air through the fins at the back of the computer not underneath , and hoover won't shift it, it gets solid beteewn the fins

good luck ,dave

[twang46]

Different Acer models have differing ways of cooling with fans & h/sinks etc ... they are normally easy to get the bottom off though & should be cleaned out every few months anyway depending upon use before the "gunge" builds up to the levels Dave is talking about.

In the days when we used to repair TV's in peoples houses, the owners were usually shocked to see the amount of fluff/dust/gunge that had accumulated inside when you pulled the back off even after just 1 year or so's use.

If you can give more details about the model John & what you see on the screen it will be a lot easier to help you.

Dick.

[Deleted]

i never thought to ask, is the fan working ,

[Recycled Rock Chick]

He said it was working in his first post Dave, thinking that meant that it wouldn't be overheating, unfortunately the fan running on a laptop doesn't mean much as they tend to run after a few minutes even when things are OK as they are quite small and need to run faster and more often than a desktop one due to being smaller and having less room in the case for heat dissipitation.

[Deleted]

if you have had maleware loaded onto your pc it can as it did with me alter the remote protocol procedure to keep making your pc close down all the time. you may have to run the pc in safe mode to do this
the answer is go into the control panel then open up administrative tools, you will see a file that says services, open that up by clicking on it, now look for a file that says remote protocol call click on it to open it then in the tab that says recovery make sure you set it to take no action. you will prob see it says restart change it to say take no action in the drop down menu.. then restart you pc to save the settings.
hope this helps......ian

[johnh]

Thanks for all your tips, will give them all a go later.
John H

[Viv]

This thread got me wondering about my desktop PC's ventilation.

I took the covers off this morning and blew all the fluff and dust out.

The intake vents on the case were pretty well blocked as well as the fan assisted heat sink on the mother board. Other fans were pretty gunged up as well.

I wouldn't say it had reached a critical stage, but given the summer temperatures we have here it was probably a good thing to do.

The PC is only a year old so it was quite a revelation.

Viv

[twang46]

Jan 3, 2015 10:01:25 GMT Viv said:

This thread got me wondering about my desktop PC's ventilation.

I took the covers off this morning and blew all the fluff and dust out.

The intake vents on the case were pretty well blocked as well as the fan assisted heat sink on the mother board. Other fans were pretty gunged up as well.

I wouldn't say it had reached a critical stage, but given the summer temperatures we have here it was probably a good thing to do.

The PC is only a year old so it was quite a revelation.

Viv

Might be worth looking at filters for your fan intakes Viv .........

If your "tower" doesn't have one already, an exhaust fan on the top of the case is very helpful also

Water cooling for the cpu will reduce the need for large volume air flows when the ambient temperature is high & reduces the amount of dust being sucked in as well.

Finish all this off with the biggest fans you can fit that have temp sensors (or can use the mobo sensors) slower moving blades = less noise & should help to reduce dust disturbance as well

Cheers

Dick.

[Viv]

Jan 3, 2015 12:57:33 GMT twang46 said:

Jan 3, 2015 10:01:25 GMT Viv said:

This thread got me wondering about my desktop PC's ventilation.

I took the covers off this morning and blew all the fluff and dust out.

The intake vents on the case were pretty well blocked as well as the fan assisted heat sink on the mother board. Other fans were pretty gunged up as well.

I wouldn't say it had reached a critical stage, but given the summer temperatures we have here it was probably a good thing to do.

The PC is only a year old so it was quite a revelation.

Viv

Might be worth looking at filters for your fan intakes Viv .........

If your "tower" doesn't have one already, an exhaust fan on the top of the case is very helpful also

Water cooling for the cpu will reduce the need for large volume air flows when the ambient temperature is high & reduces the amount of dust being sucked in as well.

Finish all this off with the biggest fans you can fit that have temp sensors (or can use the mobo sensors) slower moving blades = less noise & should help to reduce dust disturbance as well

Cheers

Dick.

Thanks Dick,

Filter is a great suggestion, I'll definitely look at that.  I actually saw what you said earlier about dust and dirt in one year old TV's, which also led to me to doing the clean out.

There is a fairly big exhaust fan at the back near the top.  The CPU has a temp monitor which is now showing a lower reading. Stable at 25 C. Was at 28 C this morning before I cleaned out the dust and fluff.

I'll keep a good eye on it in future. Like I said it was not critical yet but could have got there.

I think also mounting the tower higher up on a stand may help reduce the dust problem. What's your take on this?

Cheers

Viv

[twang46]

Mounting the tower a bit higher up & as far clear from other stuff as reasonable will certainly help Viv.............not to high though

The cpu core temp you have at the moment is good, what's the ambient temp at your place today ?

Dick.

[Deleted]

i leave a side off mine , it never overheats , and extra system fan on the side of the case helps a lot if its fully enclosed ,

[Viv]

Jan 3, 2015 14:30:54 GMT twang46 said:

Mounting the tower a bit higher up & as far clear from other stuff as reasonable will certainly help Viv.............not to high though

The cpu core temp you have at the moment is good, what's the ambient temp at your place today ?

Dick.

Hi Dick,

Today we only have 20 C, so in the house about 15 C.

Next week will be the test. Forecast of high 30's early 40's.  Freaky weather in this part of the world, you never get used to the temperature fluctuations.

Cheers

Viv

[Deleted]

Jan 3, 2015 15:58:09 GMT Viv said:

Jan 3, 2015 14:30:54 GMT twang46 said:

Mounting the tower a bit higher up & as far clear from other stuff as reasonable will certainly help Viv.............not to high though

The cpu core temp you have at the moment is good, what's the ambient temp at your place today ?

Dick.

Hi Dick,

Today we only have 20 C, so in the house about 15 C.

Next week will be the test. Forecast of high 30's early 40's.  Freaky weather in this part of the world, you never get used to the temperature fluctuations.

Cheers

Viv

if i was you Viv I'd put it in the fridge

[Recycled Rock Chick]

I put 5 x 92mm fans plus a 120mm fan in my case connected to a triple switch 3 position speed controller that does the 3 x 92mm fans blowing in across the hard drives and 2 x 92mm fans on the opposite side of the case blowing towards the motherboard components and the CPU cooler, plus the 120mm blowing out at the back of the case. I found a large roll of cleaning cloths in a poundshop one day that looked very similar to the fine fibre glass sheets that you can get for car body repairs and have a fine weave that did not seem to restrict the airflow so I cut a couple of those up to fit where the 5 x 92mm fans suck in and at other places where air and dust could get inside the case to act as filters, a few dabs of superglue were sufficient to hold them in place.

I have never had to clean the CPU heat sink and just replace the cloth "filters" about every 12 months and as there were about 20 pieces of cloth in the bundle and I only use about one and a half pieces each time they should last me a few years yet

Leaving the side off as Dave does is another good way to keep things cool in our climate, not sure how good it would be in one like Viv enjoys and you have to be careful that inquisitive little dogs like my Benji doesnt decide to poke his nose in to see what those thngs are that are whizzing around and smell and look good enough to eat or at least need to have a good lick of to see if they taste good enough to eat

[Viv]

Good idea Dave, but aircon will definitely be on.


Next week Wednesday will be 12C minimum and 37C maximum. Can you believe the massive fluctuation.

[Recycled Rock Chick]

I would appreciate your minimum at the moment Viv and am really envious of the maximum to come

I have heard of people who live in such nice climates as yours leaving the case side off and having a small desk type oscillating fan set in its fixed position, blowing in to the PC to kee temperatures down.
I think as a long term solution I would go with Dick's idea and go for water cooling.

These seem to be a fairly cheap option without going overboard and getting watercooling for all the different parts of the PC :

Cooler

[Viv]

Jan 3, 2015 16:33:25 GMT Recycled Rock Chick said:

I would appreciate your minimum at the moment Viv and am really envious of the maximum to come

I have heard of people who live in such nice climates as yours leaving the case side off and having a small desk type oscillating fan set in its fixed position, blowing in to the PC to kee temperatures down.
I think as a long term solution I would go with Dick's idea and go for water cooling.

These seem to be a fairly cheap option without going overboard and getting watercooling for all the different parts of the PC :

Cooler

I'll keep the options open on the water cooling. I respect that Dick is pretty clued up in this regard.

As for leaving the side off;  that could be a problem with my daily visitor. A wild Shrike (Butcher Bird) seen here sitting on top of my monitor, and eating from my hand.

If he doesn't get some cheese he kicks up a racket.  Maybe even fancy some of the colourful components in the tower.

[Recycled Rock Chick]

Looks like a nice visitor to have, have you given him a name yet ?

[Deleted]

That bird reminds me of the Robin we used to have in our workshop every Winter. He would wait for us to light up the old pot bellied stoves then, swoop down to the hand of whoever had a titbit for him. He loved it when I had a handful of gentles, left over from fishing.

R ger

[Viv]

Jan 3, 2015 18:12:12 GMT Recycled Rock Chick said:

Looks like a nice visitor to have, have you given him a name yet ?

Haven't thought of a name but he has a dark side.

Here he is with a small snake impaled on an Acacia thorn. Breakfast time.

[Deleted]

well that's one way of using a makeshift knife and folk,

[johnh]

I timed the pc and it only stays on for 3mins so not long enough to do anything, and it also made funny noise when certain keys were depressed.it is my daughters laptop so is buying new one.thanks once again for your help.