Legit Reviews

I have this problem... everytime i starting my computer, and it finishes loading windows, it will suddenly turn it self off (in random period). But i can't directly turn it on again, i must also turn off the stabilizer, and wait for a while until i can turn on the pc again. First, i thought my pc was virused, but after i did a thorough virus scan using 2 anti virus (antivir and ansav), no virus is reported.Anyone know the cause of it? And how to solve it?
My prediction:
1. Remote-controlled? or
2. Unknown Virus? or
3. Motherboard defect? or
4. Stabilizer defect? or
5. Don't have any idea.

stabilizer?????

It sounds like a power problem, or possibly an overheating situation.

You'll have to explain what you mean by stabilizer....is it a UPS?

Does the computer boot into Safe Mode at all?

I'd check out the PSU, if you have to wait a while, then usually thats an indicator that the caps are taking a long time to charge up (or at least was for me) due to the fact one could be leaking and/or blown.

Stabilizer is a device that used to stabilize electric current that come from the electricity provider, it is commonly used in my country, usually along with pc’s, tv’s, and dunno many more.

To change a newly replaced PSU? (about 6 months old) … hope that could solve the problem.

After it shutting down, it really really off, no re-booting activities, no activites could be done, including pressing the CPU power button. I have to disconnect all power lines that connected to the pc (powering off stabilizier), what for a while, and then stabilizer power on, finally CPUpower on.

Addition : the shut down thing happens faster when I goes online, and longer when offline.

i havent seen one of these stabilizers before, but could that have gone bad? It could be that it is not stabilizing the power properly and the PS on your system is shutting down the system because of it.

Sounds like a Surge protector or UPS to me.

yukanti, what brand and model number is this stabilizer?

http://www.kropla.com/electric2.htm

i'm betting it is just that, a power stabilizer to keep the current stable, and i wonder if its malfunctioning because his description of whats going on with the system doesnt sound like a common problem.

yukanti wrote:Stabilizer is a device that used to stabilize electric current that come from the electricity provider, it is commonly used in my country, usually along with pc’s, tv’s, and dunno many more.

Stabilizer = power conditioner.

yukanti wrote:To change a newly replaced PSU? (about 6 months old) … hope that could solve the problem.

Do you have sufficient PSU power for your hardware config? But by the symptom below it isn't insufficient PSU power failure but insufficient or complete lack of incoming AC power.

yukanti wrote:After it shutting down, it really really off, no re-booting activities, no activites could be done, including pressing the CPU power button. I have to disconnect all power lines that connected to the pc (powering off stabilizier), what for a while, and then stabilizer power on, finally CPUpower on.

It meant the stabilizer dectected non-compensate input power conditions and shut down, only you can manually reset it back to normal operating condition by doing this --> "But i can't directly turn it on again, i must also turn off the stabilizer, and wait for a while until i can turn on the pc again".

You need a UPS to avoid this problem, all UPSs can compensate for insufficient incoming power, stablilizers or power conditioners stored very little energy... just enough to condition, they can't compensate for huge lack of incoming power or large time duration of zero incoming power.

You should follow up on this thread.

a stabilizer stored no energy or current... it doesn't work like UPS

okey.. i just looked up the stabilizer i have, mark: MATSUGAWA
and what written below is : AUTOMATIC AC VOLTAGE REGULATOR...
geez... just seen it

so... what's better... replacing the stabilizer or PSU?

the psu i recently bought has a wattage that is a little bit larger than the original one that come from the cpu casing (SIMBADA ATX), and i think i have to solve this problem quick, or i will damaged my harddisk, isn't?

yukanti wrote:the psu i recently bought has a wattage that is a little bit larger than the original one that come from the cpu casing (SIMBADA ATX), and i think i have to solve this problem quick, or i will damaged my harddisk, isn't?

Yeah you need to fix ASAP.
My thoughts are
1}REALLY low ac input.......Do your lights dim alot?
2} stabilizer problem.......maybe, but unless you are drawing too much current, it's unlikely that it would recover, perhaps you could borrow one or take your PC to a house with one the works and see if the PC fails there?
3} PSU problem?......maybe........calculate the load vs the specs.......does the problem happen after a big draw? (heavy gameing ,burning CD/DVD, etc

4} a intermitent short in the case/MB/etc.............this one gets my vote, what happens is a short/overload cause the safety "autofuse" (self reseting circut breaker in the PSU) to cut out, and it resets when you shutoff/unplug/powerdown the PSU as it is supposed to. Any severe overload or over heating on the PSU will cause this.

Carefull disassemble, clean and reassemble the computer, If that doesn't fix it the psu would be the next thing to replace.

yukanti wrote:a stabilizer stored no energy or current... it doesn't work like UPS

okey.. i just looked up the stabilizer i have, mark: MATSUGAWA
and what written below is : AUTOMATIC AC VOLTAGE REGULATOR...
geez... just seen it

No, they don't work like a UPS, a lot more like a PSU.

yukanti wrote:so... what's better... replacing the stabilizer or PSU?

Neither would do, stabilizers stored only enough energy for input power conditioning into regulated AC output, PSUs only stored enough energy to convert AC input power into usable DC power... Neither would store enough energy to handle loss/lack of input power. A UPS can do that and made specifically for that.

In the case that you do want to get a UPS, you should then follow up on this UPS thread.

1}REALLY low ac input.......Do your lights dim alot?
1. My lights rarely dimmed

2} stabilizer problem.......maybe, but unless you are drawing too much current, it's unlikely that it would recover, perhaps you could borrow one or take your PC to a house with one the works and see if the PC fails there?
2. i'll try it

3} PSU problem?......maybe........calculate the load vs the specs.......does the problem happen after a big draw? (heavy gameing ,burning CD/DVD, etc
3. i rarely do such big drawing, it just shuttingdown although i online, or typing, or just idle-ing it.

4} a intermitent short in the case/MB/etc.............this one gets my vote, what happens is a short/overload cause the safety "autofuse" (self reseting circut breaker in the PSU) to cut out, and it resets when you shutoff/unplug/powerdown the PSU as it is supposed to. Any severe overload or over heating on the PSU will cause this.
4. it does sometimes getting hot, i think 50-70 degrees Celcius occurs sometimes


In the case that you do want to get a UPS, you should then follow up on this UPS thread
UPS? I might use it, although i must calculate my expenses to by one, cause it cost not cheap



By the way, at this time i write this thread's reply, i have replace the the stabilizer (automatic ac voltage regulator) and the PSU with the brand new ones, but the problem still happens.

yukanti wrote:1}REALLY low ac input.......Do your lights dim alot?
1. My lights rarely dimmed

PSUs usually are more responsive to power than most lighting. Most PSUs are guaranty to have a hold up time of 10-20 msec, your typical lightning won't ever blink nor dim even with 30 msec power blip durations.

yukanti wrote:2} stabilizer problem.......maybe, but unless you are drawing too much current, it's unlikely that it would recover, perhaps you could borrow one or take your PC to a house with one the works and see if the PC fails there?
2. i'll try it

Try it in a far away neighborhood instead of your next door neighbor. Though this power problem is very common everywhere except for places like Japan, Singapore... In those places they usually don't know anything about "stabilizers" any more than typical people in the USA or Canada.

yukanti wrote:UPS? I might use it, although i must calculate my expenses to by one, cause it cost not cheap

I usually don't suggest extra hardware to people especially extra hardware they don't really need, but you actually need the UPS more than most people do.

yukanti wrote:By the way, at this time i write this thread's reply, i have replace the the stabilizer (automatic ac voltage regulator) and the PSU with the brand new ones, but the problem still happens.

Since you don't have a UPS or may not plan to have one in the near future, THERE IS one thing you can do to help preventing your PSU from blowing up so frequently LIKE THIS. Make sure your mobo BIOS setting is set so that the computer don't auto restart on power outages.

Yeah these reboot frequently errors seem to have many causes. Unfortunately you won't really know without trying them.

But you mentioned you had a 50-70C range. I would check the CPU specs out to see what range it should be running in and see if overheating is the issue, that's a really simple way of checking it.

Usually if it is overheating your PC will work for a short while when it hasn't been used, but will then have the problems after it sufficiently heats up in use.

Hi guys... thank you for all the help...
After few trial and error... the problem is only one : "HEAT"
I dunno which one is overheated, my system or (worst) my processor.
I'm using AMD Athlon XP 1800 1,8GHz, 768 MB of RAM, and Win XP SP 2. Profesional V2002. I think ihave heard somewhere, that AMD is unstable with heat than Pentium. Is that true?
All the shutdown thing ended when i put an air conditioning at my room

thanks anyway guys!

yukanti wrote:Hi guys... thank you for all the help...
After few trial and error... the problem is only one : "HEAT"

Power supplies are more efficient, reliable, and more stable when not subjected to heat, there is more TDP headroom.

yukanti wrote:I dunno which one is overheated, my system or (worst) my processor.

Generally you get reported error messages when the processor overheat, assuming the OS did get proper processor driver support installed. When the power supply overheat, there might be errors but none would ever be reported by the OS, normally there's no OS driver support for power supplies.

yukanti wrote:I'm using AMD Athlon XP 1800 1,8GHz, 768 MB of RAM, and Win XP SP 2. Profesional V2002. I think ihave heard somewhere, that AMD is unstable with heat than Pentium. Is that true?
All the shutdown thing ended when i put an air conditioning at my room

thanks anyway guys!

Not true at all, Pentium 4 series are inefficient, sucked more power, and generated lots of heat for the mediocre performance provided when compared to the Athlon XP series of the same generation.

BTW...

50-70C is normal for Athlon XP unless you've the newer or lower power versions such as the mobile series.

Properly specified power supplies have typical hold-up time of 20ms or more, this also applies to stabilizers/power-conditioners. When subjected to excessive heat, the actual hold-up time would drop below 10ms and the power supplies became much more sensitive and even more susceptible input power failures.