Random shutdowns leading to hardware issue

[rekrow22]

Hi I yesterday cleaned the dust out of my PC but after restarting it I seemed to have issues where the PC would just randomly kill itself. I was away from it at the time but upon returning had to restart. I did the same thing twice opening Firefox and running some videos. I was quite surprised this occurred twice. I then booted and did not run Firefox with videos but instead tried streaming some stuff. Everything was working fine until I again tried to use Firefox simultaneously with the streaming and again dead.

After rebooting again I got a boot error message from windows to either reinsert disk or start normally. I assumed it may be a psu issue. I tried the boot normal method it again killed the power. I tried this another time same result. I tried again but instead opted to insert disk. My DVD drive is busted but I just wanted to see what would happen. Got a little ways into the prompts then backed out and I believe I repicked boot normally and the system did boot normally to my surprise.taking this opportunity I tried to back up some things to an external drive while I grabbed another PSU. Upon arriving home she was dead again. I switched out the PSU and tried booting but nothing this time. Totally dead. So I did the paper clip test and the new Psu fan spun. Then the old PSU it also spun. I tried putting back the old psu and powering on to see if it booted. I hear a semi loud pop with an associated burning smell. Great. I sniff around but can’t really smell anything on the psu. There is a vague burn smell but I can’t pinpoint it.

Lastly I try new PSU attaching only motherboard CPU sata drive. Again no power. So I’m sitting there and I suddenly smell a vague but increasing burning smell with out the power being pushed and just everything connected. I Unplug the PSU.

Now I’m not really sure what my next steps should be. The PC is an older gaming PC put together late 09. It’s mostly used for browsing streaming and being a Plex server. I thought about trying a new case as I was having some issues with it previously where the power button would not register. Looked around at parts for a new PC etc but I’m not really sure how I should proceed. For the current purposes it doesn’t really make sense to me to buy all new etc when I’m doing only basic things any help going forward would be so appreciated. I’ve been having a rough go of it lately sigh.

PC parts are

GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 DDR3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X3 720 Triple-Core 2.8 GHz Socket AM3 95W HDZ720WFGIBOX Black Processor

CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9
Added another 8 GB ram couple years ago

SAPPHIRE 100283L radeon hd 5770 juniper xt 1gb gddr5 pci-e 2.0 x16 hdcp ready crossfire supported video card

Thanks in advance if anyone takes the time to read this.

[veeg]

Hello
Go back into it and make sure all of the connections are tight. What OS are you using? While you are inside the case check your capacitors and look to see where that burning smell might have come from..

Please post your complete psu spec’s.

@Bruce @phillpower2

[rekrow22]

Thanks for the reply vger. The connections should all be good. I rechecked them multiple times yesterday while trying to boot. I’m using win 7. I checked around again looking for areas where the burn could have come from like yesterday but I don’t see any areas on the motherboard that look problematic but I haven’t pulled it out and looked at the back of it. The capacitors all look fine no bulging heads or leakage. Heads are all flat and no areas where motherboard looks to be protruding.

The old PSU is a thermaltake smart 650w atx 12v 2.3 and eps 12v pin: sp-650p
Model sp-650ah2ncb-a 80 plus bronze

Ac input 100-240v
Input current 10a
Frequency 47hz -63hz

DC output
+5v + +3.3v +12v -12v +5vsb

Max output current
17a 20a 50a 0.3a 2.5a

Max output power
120w 600w 3.6w 12.5w

Total power
650w

New PSU

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/evga-600w-atx-12v-eps-12v-80-plus-power-supply-black/8511029.p?skuId=8511029&ref=212&loc=1&extStoreId=289&ref=212&loc=1&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6-zEiuT_4AIVARx9Ch2eXQXuEAQYASABEgIRm_D_BwE

[Bruce]

if you could smell something burning, even when connected but off, then there are issues with at least the PSU.
and if that let current through during it’s little episode, then there may also be issues with the mobo.
on a nearly 10yo rig, I’d be wondering if the effort is worth the cost unless it has a particular, necessary function a replacement couldn’t handle.

[rekrow22]

Hi Bruce thanks for the reply. Yeah I’m certainly not oppossed to the idea of a new rig but then I would not to figure out what level of hardware Would fit my needs. I might want to game again on a PC but since I lack time etc it would be hard for me to drop x amount on something I would not use or need for the foreseeable future. The thing hasn’t been able to output anything since I came home from getting a new psu. I’m not really sure what else I can do to test etc. The only things I ever had to change on it were the original psu and adding more ram. I was reading something about a bad cmos causing issues or maybe it’s the Psu or case itself or a combination of the 2 or a dead mobo. I removed the Mobo everything looks fine visually. Mainly just need something for entertainment and productivity. Would buying a new Mobo itself and testing be the best option? Is the idea of adding component by components silly and unreasonable? I totally haven’t paid attention to hardware stuff in a long time.

[Bruce]

I’d be getting at least a new PSU and as you say, a new mobo.
Issue is though, the latest mobo’s will force you to get new RAM and CPU as the ones you have no long ‘fit’.

[rekrow22]

Yeah I had already bought and tested the new power supply previously to no avail. Yeah the thing I was hoping to avoid was having to replace everything. If I’m buying all that I would need ssd too. It seems now I just need to decide what my needs are. I don’t know if it would make more sense to buy prebuilt if I’m not gonna game vs putting something together that could be improved if that idea comes along in the future. Odd thing was that when I tried to use a pci Mobo diagnostic tool the old PSU fan would start to move then die while the new PSU wouldn’t do anything.

[rekrow22]

So just to test it out again I tried putting a pci motherboard diagnostic tool in to check. The PSU fan powers up and so does the tool but I don’t see any numeric codes pop up.

[rekrow22]

I plugged in the CPU got code 25 and 24. I also checked the PSU with multimeter and voltages all were within range.

[rekrow22]

When I run the tool and just the PSU it runs fine no problem but when I plug it into the CPU it will run a while then shutdown and is very hot to touch. I’m assuming this is a cpu problem which was causing the original random shutdowns.

[rekrow22]

Tried different combinations oddly whenever I try to plug in the system fan the PSU and diagnostic will only power briefly then shut off. Everything else works but it won’t run with the sys fan plugged.

[veeg]

Any updates?

[veeg]

Any updates? After 48 hrs this thread will be closed.