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Sep 09
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I switched on my pc and then between 5 and 30 seconds later, before it booted into windows, it would shut down again. It would do this continuously. I disconnected everything from my pc (hard disks, usb devices, all but 1 memory module etc) so I had the bare minimum running. It still happened. So I narrowed it down to cpu, motherboard or power supply.
Doing a search revealed others with similar problems and the most common problem was power supply failures.
I decided to buy a new power supply and the motherboard and cpu upgrade anyway (mine was 3 yrs old). Swapped cpu and motherboard first and the problem was still there. So definitely the power supply. I swapped that, and the problem was resolved.
I then put the old motherboard and power supply on the bench and ran the system from there. I had the power supply fan side down (yes this is bad) – and noticed the system shut down a lot quicker. So I had deduced that it could just be an air flow problem with the power supply overheating. I opened up the power supply (they recommend you not to do this, so be careful!) and there was a lot of dust in there. I vacuumed it all out, ran the system again and the problem hasn’t returned!
So, after all that work (and £250 later) it was dust causing the problem. However, that’s 3 years of dust. I sent back the new power supply and now have put the old one back in and my system has been fine for weeks.