Computer "crashes," unable to shut off

Cryptex

Cryptex

EGO Is My Life!
=(e)=
Joined
Oct 17, 2006
Messages
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For the last few months I have this annoying problem where a few things will happen all at once:

  1. My monitor will suddenly go black and display a message saying there is no signal from the DVI port.
  2. My computer's fans slow down significantly, as if all the programs I was running suddenly shut off and there wasn't any stress on any of the components.
  3. I cannot shut the computer off using the button on the front, I need to switch off the power supply, turn it off, and wait a little bit before pushing the power button up front. If I flip the switch on and off and hit the power button immidiately, the computer will boot but the monitor will once again lose connection.
  4. A strange smell comes from computer, kinda like burning plastic but way less bad.

This all occurs at the same time, only when I am running a game. The games I have played where this has happened are:

CS:S
CS:GO
Skyrim
Arma 2 (playing DayZ)

It sounds to me as if something is overheating, like the GPU or motherboard.

Any suggestions or help?

System specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
SAPPHIRE 100312-3L Radeon HD 6950 2GB
12GB RAM (2 x 2GB, 2 x 4GB)
 
Y Not Check If All Ur Plugs R Plugged In All The Way (Monitor)... Who Knows.... It Might B Loose... Pop The CPU N Clean It With A Air Compressor Thing... Unplug N Replug All Things Inside CPU 4 A New Connection (Incase They Were Loose)... Mayb U Need Thermal Paste On Ur Hinksink... IDK What 2 Do... But This Is Wht I Do :P

Cryptex > All (CS:S Jail) =]
 
:You need better ventilation in your computer, clear out the dust, install fans. Something is overheating i bet.
 
I can guarantee it's an overheating issue, that can be caused by poor ventilation, im assuming you're on a desktop not a laptop.

But anyway just to confirm that this is an overheating issue, please download any temperature monitoring program, I personally use SpeedFan And post your temperatures here.

If it's determined to be an overheating issue, what you need to do is remove the sidepanel of your case, go in there with a can of compressed air (or even an air compressor if you have one) and just blow all the dust and crap out of your cpu heatsink, you may even wish to apply new thermal paste to the cpu while you're at it.

and then check your temperatures once more and post them here.
 
Sephiroth said:
I can guarantee it's an overheating issue, that can be caused by poor ventilation, im assuming you're on a desktop not a laptop.

But anyway just to confirm that this is an overheating issue, please download any temperature monitoring program, I personally use SpeedFan And post your temperatures here.

If it's determined to be an overheating issue, what you need to do is remove the sidepanel of your case, go in there with a can of compressed air (or even an air compressor if you have one) and just blow all the dust and crap out of your cpu heatsink, you may even wish to apply new thermal paste to the cpu while you're at it.

and then check your temperatures once more and post them here.
Click to expand...

My computer hasn't been cleaned in a good while, I will get some duster gas and spray the thing out when I get back to it (computer's at my dorm, I'm at home right now).

I also opened up my case and took a look at what was going with the fans. It seems the outtake fan at the top is no longer functioning, so I flipped the fan on the door directly over my GPU so it would push air out rather than in, this seems to have helped.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Sounds like that should have fixed your issue, make sure you dust everything well and continue to dust it regularly or else it will most likely over heat again even if your fans are functioning.
 
Cryptex said:
so I flipped the fan on the door directly over my GPU so it would push air out rather than in, this seems to have helped.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Click to expand...

Flipping one fan does not resolve your issue. It may take it away for a bit but your still taking one fan away from a comp overheating already. Fans need to be replaced not simply flipped. Also with a lot of overheating issues like this you can quickly cause serious damage to your comp. Check capacitors make sure that none of them appear popped out at the top. If they appear popped or bubbled out then your mobo is fried. This could also be a direct cause of the power supply going bad, so if cleaning and replacing that one fan doesn't fix the issue then it's most likely power supply.

Rule of thumb, clean out your computer at least every 6 months this will keep heat and blocked air flow from killing your computer.
 
I didn't flip the broken one, I'd like to think I'm smarter than that :P. I can't quite access that easily without removing the motherboard because 2 screws are covered by the CPU and the ports in the back (it's annoying).
 
Sprayed the whole thing out with duster gas, no dust to be seen. Blew out every bit of the GPU and CPU, no dust on RAM or HDD's.

Played BF3 for half an hour and it crashed, same symptoms as before. Time to RMA?
 
I agree that this is a heat issue. Many times a loss of signal to the dvi port means the card is shutting down, most likely due to heat.

See if you can check the temps in your system BIOS. If you notice they are reaching unusually high temps, it's a good start as to what the problem truly is.

You could also try removing the external case siding from your tower for extra ventilation and seeing if that helps.
 
check and make sure the power supply fan is working. The burning smell you have accounted quite possibly can be the power supply over-heating. This would also explain to a degree the power button/power supply switch issue you previously stated, aswell as the crash issue under load.
 
A big thing is can you PSU supply the power needed to run everything on your machine? If so then lets cancel the possibilities but still keep them open it could be a power supply issue.

Do you have a friends computer you can just plug the GPU in and see if it works on that? If so then it could be you arent getting enough power to the card or possibly a driver issue.

I suggest uninstalling all drivers for your GPU manually and reinstalling them from the providers website.

If it doesnt work on your friends computer I highly suggest to RMA the card as something has gone bad on the GPU board itself.
 
What I did to figure out if mine was a heating issue was a quick way.

Install Hardware Monitor. It will record your system temps, fan speeds, temperatures for each core in the CPU, as well as your Voltages being used and the GPU temp. My old cooler was a piece of crap and I'd hit 100 Celsius on my GPU and then my system would shut off and I discovered it was overheating. This can help determining if it's an overheating issue most likely.

Another is [ame="http://download.cnet.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10067444.html"]SpeedFan.[/ame] This allows you to control the speed of your fans, if it's not custom set via BIOS (at least for me it would let me until I changed my BIOS settings for my fans), and determinate how fast/slow you want the fans. It also reads temps and RPM, but I find HWMonitor is better for reading temps, and SpeedFan for RPM/control.
 
VP-77 said:
What I did to figure out if mine was a heating issue was a quick way.

Install Hardware Monitor. It will record your system temps, fan speeds, temperatures for each core in the CPU, as well as your Voltages being used and the GPU temp. My old cooler was a piece of crap and I'd hit 100 Celsius on my GPU and then my system would shut off and I discovered it was overheating. This can help determining if it's an overheating issue most likely.

Another is SpeedFan. This allows you to control the speed of your fans, if it's not custom set via BIOS (at least for me it would let me until I changed my BIOS settings for my fans), and determinate how fast/slow you want the fans. It also reads temps and RPM, but I find HWMonitor is better for reading temps, and SpeedFan for RPM/control.
Click to expand...

Agree you need to know what is going on, Also you said when you loose video you hear your fans slowing down that sounds like a PSU, Is this a custom or a over the counter PC?
 
Sounds like a video card is overheating, best to get as much air ventilation as possible. Some people leave the case open while playing. But if its already showing symptoms don't let it get to that point too much or you might be looking for a new card soon aswell as fans :/
 
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