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HTPC shuts down after few minutes, why could that be?

post #1 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:10am
Thread Starter 
Hi guys, I was hoping to see if anyone got a similar problem or knows what to do in my situation. I've had my computer build for over a year now. Recently I decided to upgrade to a new video card Radeon 2600XT. It was working fine for few days, but because I couldn't figure out why I only have sound from the card and not from the MB (stupid me, I did figure out afterwards though) I was playing with the new and old video card by switching them back and forth. Well I probably switched back and forth 3-4 times. I don't know what I could possibly do, but now my PC shuts down after working for a few minutes. It looks like a definite case of overheating, because if I keep my case open it works few minutes longer then when I keep my case closed. So I thought its got to be the new video card overheating my PC. I took it back to the store and replaced it with my old card - NVidia 7600GS and have the same issue. Only now on top of shutting down problem my PC does not recognize the old NVidia card and don't want to install driver for it. Any ideas of what is wrong here? I checked all my fans and they spin out just fine.

Here is what I have:
Asus P5N SLI MB
Core 2 Duo 6400 CPU
2G of RAM
350W PS

P.S. Neither one of the card required power connection to the power supply.
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post #2 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:13am
Could you have inadvertently knocked your CPU's heatsink and fan loose? My bet is that your CPU is overheating causing the automatic shutdown; to prevent damage.
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post #3 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:13am
PCI-e slot damaged possibly?
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post #4 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:24am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheKingsOfMS View Post

Could you have inadvertently knocked your CPU's heatsink and fan loose? My bet is that your CPU is overheating causing the automatic shutdown; to prevent damage.

That was my first thought as well, but I checked CPU fan and it stays very solid, nothing unusual in its behavior.
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post #5 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:25am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kapone View Post

PCI-e slot damaged possibly?

If I would've damaged PCI-E slot would it keep shutting down on me?
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post #6 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:27am
north bridge/ south bridge overheating? how is that nforce chip cooled?
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post #7 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SFBayArea View Post

If I would've damaged PCI-E slot would it keep shutting down on me?

It may if you were thermal shorting the power and return lines in the PCI-E slot. I say "thermal shorting" as it appear to be caused when the system is heating up, and possibly parts are expanding causing the short. What you could try is don't install any video card and power on the system. Though it will most likely beep at you for failing the POST (no videocard installed), you may be able to verify if the slot has been damaged and using a card to short it out. Sound funny, but I recently had a short on a new motherboard. The short ended up being in the CPU socket, and would only rear its ugly head when clamping down on a CPU. Luckily it was under warrantee.
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post #8 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:49am
I'm going to say the PSU just can't quite handle the load. You say it's a 350W PSU, but that's PEAK POWER.


I'd try something a little more powerful.
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post #9 of 19
4/11/08 at 9:53am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rgroves View Post

I'm going to say the PSU just can't quite handle the load. You say it's a 350W PSU, but that's PEAK POWER.


I'd try something a little more powerful.

That same PSU was handling the same set up for over a year now. Like I said I came back to my old video card that I had in case for over a year, so no changes there to cause it any damage on PSU.
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post #10 of 19
4/11/08 at 10:02am
Try this. Remove any cards from the PCI-e slot, disconnect the Power supply cable from the PSU. Completely. Locate the CMOS reset jumper on your board, and plug it into the reset position. Remove the CMOS battery and leave it removed for a good 15 minutes (allowing any capacitors to discharge).

AFter 15 minutes or so, put the reset jumper back into normal position, connect the battery, plug in your old video card into the PCI-e slot, connect the power cord, and fire it up (in that order).

Let's see if Windows recognizes your Video card.

If it does, start monitoring your temps using Everest or something, and see where you are. See if the CPU/NB/SB/Board is overheating, and check the voltages as well to make sure they are in nominal range.
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post #11 of 19
4/11/08 at 2:10pm
I had a similar problem before with my HTPC. Mine was shutting itself down randomly while playing DVD movies. I tried replacing with bigger power supply, replacing video card, but it did not fix the problem. Then I fixed it by replacing RAM. I think the memory was defective in my case.

You may want to make sure your RAM is in good shape.
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post #12 of 19
4/11/08 at 2:34pm
Are yor sure it is the PC that is shutting down and not just the video card.
You can check this by using only the keyboard to attempt a system restart when your screen if frozen
Do I also understrand that you can not even n safemode with the 7600 card installed?
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post #13 of 19
4/11/08 at 2:43pm
I'm voting for PSU as well.
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post #14 of 19
4/11/08 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stevesong View Post

I had a similar problem before with my HTPC. Mine was shutting itself down randomly while playing DVD movies. I tried replacing with bigger power supply, replacing video card, but it did not fix the problem. Then I fixed it by replacing RAM. I think the memory was defective in my case.

You may want to make sure your RAM is in good shape.

I've had the same thing happen.
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post #15 of 19
4/11/08 at 3:27pm
Jump into the BIOS and see how long it runs, if you have monitoring in the BIOS, watch the temps. Also check the temperature at which the computer will shut itself off in the BIOS, too.

Personally, I'd rip it apart and reconnect everything, take off everything extraneous, just test with a single drive, RAM, and CPU, then go up from there if it works.
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post #16 of 19
4/11/08 at 5:12pm
I had a similar issue in the past when I upgraded a video card. I fixed it by removing my memory and placing it back . I must have jarred the memory when swapping out the video board.
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post #17 of 19
4/12/08 at 1:49pm
Thread Starter 
Hey guys, thank you for so many great advices. Following some advices I took the Video card out and ran PC without video card in it and it was running good for whole nigh. So in the morning I shut it down disconected it from the psu cable, turn the battery out to reset it completely put in video card back in and turned it on (well ofcourse after putting battery back in). It runs ok now without shutting down abruptly, but I cannot install video driver. Every time I try it keeps telling me "Nvidia setup program could not locate any drivers that compitable with your current hardware. Set up will now exit."
So what do you make of it? Is it bad video card, or still bad connection on the MB?
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post #18 of 19
4/12/08 at 4:19pm
Make sure that you have the correct NVIDIA driver for the OS you are running as well as the correct one for a 7xxx card. It is easy to download the wrong one and the error you are seing somtimes means the wrong OS and not the wrong card.
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post #19 of 19
4/12/08 at 10:48pm
Thread Starter 
Actually to be all correct I think the problem with the shut down was partially to the loose CPU fan (one of the clips on the fan was loose). However, I don't understand why Video card is not working. I use the same old driver that this card came with , it is on CD, and I also tried the new driver from the Nvidia site, both gives me the same result - "cannot recognize hardware". It is like my video card is bad, however, it gives out vidio feed but offcourse the qulity is poor because it does not have driver installed. So not being computer wiz I kind of stambled. On one end card does work, meaning that it gives the video out (off course of poor quality/resolution), and on the other end the driver(s) cannot be installed.

P.S. Oh and I did check there is no video driver installed on this PC (that is I deleted it before trying to install the new driver).
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