unexpected shutdown

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 02 September 2013 06:16:46 Ric Moore did opine:

> On 09/02/2013 03:23 AM, Colin Law wrote:
> > On 1 September 2013 23:16, Ric Moore <wayward4now at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 09/01/2013 04:43 PM, thufir wrote:
> >>> On Sun, 01 Sep 2013 21:08:47 +0100, Colin Law wrote:
> >>>> Run memtest for as long as you can.  If it shows any problems, or
> >>>> if the machine shuts down then you have a hardware problem,
> >>>> possibly an overheating problem.
> >>> 
> >>> Ok, I'll try that later. I think it's a bad USB port.
> >>> 
> >>> Just a few minutes ago I plugged in a USB cable, *nothing* attached
> >>> to the cable, and the pc just shutdown -- boom.
> >>> 
> >>> Thanks for the quick response.
> >> 
> >> I'm getting a similar problem where the machine just shuts down, then
> >> complains of an IRQ issue, at times, during boot. Heh, I thought DOS
> >> was dead. :) Ric
> > 
> > In my experience if a machine just shuts down with nothing in the logs
> > immediately prior to the shutdown then there is a hardware problem of
> > some sort (by which I mean not software).  Often it is the PSU (power
> > supply) that has a fault.
> 
> Right, it's the failure to complete boot on an IRQ error that blows my
> mind. It's like trying to find an intermittent fault in a wiring
> problem. Damn machine is about 80 miles from here too. Ric

The list of usual suspects always starts with the PSU Ric.  And while you 
can buy an Antec for over a $100 bill, in a pretty &  slickly printed 
glossy box, the only thing I can admire about Antec is how precisely they 
fail exactly 3 days after the warranty expires. I have a Chinese no name, 
sold in 12 packs on a sidewalk in Singapore for $12.50 a copy, rated at 250 
watts in this box, with an early quad core 125 watt phenom, 8Gb of ram, a 
USB tree that looks like a weeping willow, and a total of 4 ea 1Tb drives, 
a dvd writer & a floppy, half a dozen fans.  Gkrellm says the 5 volt buss 
is still 5.09 volts, and its all of 5 years old now.

Cheers, Gene
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