Help Please! PC "clicks" and powers down

[PeteM]

I built my PC about two years ago and all was fine for a year and a half. Then, suddenly, I heard a “click” and my monitor went dark. I checked and the PC had powered itself off. I restarted it and all was fine.

More recently, this problem has occurred with increasing frequency. To make matters worse, I have to turn off the power supply then turn it back on in order to successfully restart. And, even following this procedure doesn’t always work… and I have to repeat the power-off/power-on/restart several time before my PC restarts successfully.

I have no idea of how to diagnose this problem and would really appreciate some assistance!

Windows 10, Intel i7-7700K (not overclocked), nVidia 1080, 32 GB Ram

[jmarket]

Have you got a spare Power supply unit PSU you can try? or can you beg, borrow, or steal one?

[PeteM]

I will borrow a power supply. It will take a few days before I have it. (Stealing might be quicker. :LOL Thanks for the suggestion!

[jmarket]

There may be other issues at play, and others may suggest something else, but it’s a good place to start. Will leave this thread open pending your response.

[PeteM]

Great, thank you Gus. I’ll provide an update as soon as I obtain/install the new PSU.

[PeteM]

Well Gus, this morning I was able to start my PC but after about 10 minutes it “clicked” and went off again. I tried turning off the PSU and then turning it back on again before trying to restart. This approach has occasionally worked in the past, but not this time. (I tried about a dozen times, unsuccessfully.)

Since I now had another PSU available, I switched it with the old one. Once this was done, the PC ran again for 10-15 minutes and then “Click”! My process of powering the PSU off and then on prior to trying to start doesn’t work.

ANY SUGGESTIONS of what to try next would really be appreciated!

Thank you!

[jmarket]

Shall see what others have to say?

[PeteM]

Sounds good. Thanks.

[jmarket]

The only other thing I can think of that can click is a failing hard drive. Is it possible for you to take the cover off and see if you can hear the location of the clicks? A piece of short tubing held close to your ear may help with this?

Again others may have ideas.

[PeteM]

A good thought and I’ll try your tubing idea to see if I can locate where the click is coming from. However, it can’t be a hard drive since this build has one M.2 drive and two SATA SSD drives. Ironically, I went with SSD’s for reliability.

[jmarket]

No it wont be an SSD, was presuming it may be a mechanical drive.

[jmarket]

I have a theory. I want to test that theory.

Let’s stress test your GPU. Download Furmark and install it.

FurMark Setup:

• If you have more than one GPU, select Multi-GPU during setup
• In the Run mode box, select “Stability Test” and “Log GPU Temperature”
  Click “Go” to start the test (Looks like it’s “BURN-IN test” now)
• Run the test until the GPU temperature maxes out - or until you start having problems (whichever comes first).
  NOTE: Set the alarm to go off at 90ºC. Then watch the system from that point on. If the system doesn’t display a temperature, watch it constantly and turn it off at the first sign of video problems. DO NOT leave it it unmonitored, it can DAMAGE your video card!!!
  If the temperature gets above 100ºC, quit the test - the video card is overheating.
• Click “Quit” to exit
  What you are looking for:
• excessive heat from the GPU (report back with anything over 90ºC)
• problems with the video display (picture is distorted or jumbled, picture turns black, etc)
• problems reported by the program (I haven’t seen this, but “just in case”)

[PeteM]

I only have one GPU.

Your suggestion triggered an idea… I’ll see if removing the GPU (temporarily) resolves the issue. That will be very interesting!

We’re visiting family over the holidays so I won’t be able to try it until I return. But, THANK YOU for your suggestions!

[PeteM]

Well, I pulled the PSU out from the pc and found that the “Click” sound came from the PSU itself. So, I assumed that the PSU was detecting a short and was tripping its internal circuit breaker. Thus, I began removing all the PSU cables, one-by-one, testing to see if the PC would power up after each cable was disconnected. I removed EVERY PSU CONNECTION except the MB itself and it still gave a click and wouldn’t power up… sigh. Thus, unless anyone has another thought, it appears that I have a short somewhere on the MB. I’m not sure how to proceed at this point.

[veeg]

Any updates for us?