Computer shuts down after 7/8 minutes?

[tight fart]

Any thoughts?
Old Packard Bell desk top, I thought I'd leave it in the garage and use it for diagnostics.
Not started it for around 4 years but I think it was intermittent beforehand.
Once it has shut down it doesn't want to boot, the power light going amber and nothing happens (should go blue)
I've unplugged a few unnecessary bits from the board, card reader cd drive etc, not made any difference.
On the occasion it boots fine, all seems to work fine then it shuts off.

[sgrimshaw]

Have you tried hoovering out the case?

Could be overtemp shutting it down.

More likely though is a stuffed PSU.

[QuartzDad]

CPU thermal shutdown? Install a temperature monitoring utility and watch the temps?

[tight fart]

Yes first job was a good vac.
Happy to change the psu as long as its that.
I don't think it will stay on long enough to add another programme.

[Mr Pointy]

Blast the CPU or the PSU with a heat gun on cold to see if you can get it to stay on longer. That might give you a bit of a clue to where the issue lies.

[Dogwatch]

Fan working?

[tight fart]

Yes fan works.

[maccas99]

Buy a new one? Oh wait, username....

[FourWheelDrift]

Take the CPU cooler off, clean the heatsink out thoroughly, use isopropyl alcohol or just a dry tissue to clean the old thermal paste off the CPU, it's probably gone hard and isn't doing anything now and apply new thermal paste to the CPU, put the cooler back on.

[blackscooby]

FourWheelDrift said:

Take the CPU cooler off, clean the heatsink out thoroughly, use isopropyl alcohol or just a dry tissue to clean the old thermal paste off the CPU, it's probably gone hard and isn't doing anything now and apply new thermal paste to the CPU, put the cooler back on.

I had exactly the same issue with an old AMD. Would run for a period and just shut down.
Took apart, cleaned the heat sink and applied new paste.

Job done.

[tight fart]

Never heard of heat sink paste, tube ordered thanks.

[durbster]

Common wisdom is to never use a vacuum in your PC as they generate static electricity which can discharge if you get the nozzle too close to a component. Use a can of compressed air instead.

https://www.pcgamer.com/should-i-vacuum-my-pc-ask-...

[Jinx]

durbster said:

Common wisdom is to never use a vacuum in your PC as they generate static electricity which can discharge if you get the nozzle too close to a component. Use a can of compressed air instead.

https://www.pcgamer.com/should-i-vacuum-my-pc-ask-...

Or one of these - better for the environment.

[tight fart]

Just cleaned the heat sink past off and given it a good blow job with the air line.
It then ran for15 mins by far the longest since trying to bring it back to life.
Hopefully when the new paste arrives it will sort it.

Edited by tight fart on Thursday 18th June 12:00

[Jinx]

tight fart said:

Just cleaned the heat sink past off and given it a good blow job with the air line.
It then ran for15 mins by far the longest since trying to bring it back to life.
Hopefully when the new paste arrives it will sort it.

Edited by tight fart on Thursday 18th June 12:00

Wow - AM2 though so you could drop in a better cheap CPU

[S6PNJ]

Jinx said:

tight fart said:

Just cleaned the heat sink past off and given it a good blow job with the air line.
It then ran for15 mins by far the longest since trying to bring it back to life.
Hopefully when the new paste arrives it will sort it.

Edited by tight fart on Thursday 18th June 12:00

Wow - AM2 though so you could drop in a better cheap CPU

Check your Motherboard and BIOS support it, but I 'upgraded' my old AM2 with an AMD CPU Phenom X4-9500 2.2GHz Socket AM2+ for a massive £5.95 from eBay last October! Managed to get hold of some cheap DDR2 memory, so now running at 7Gb (out of a possible max 8Gb). Also fitted with a cheap 128Gb SSD and it works reasonably well on Win 10!

[tight fart]

S6PNJ said:

Check your Motherboard and BIOS support it, but I 'upgraded' my old AM2 with an AMD CPU Phenom X4-9500 2.2GHz Socket AM2+ for a massive £5.95 from eBay last October! Managed to get hold of some cheap DDR2 memory, so now running at 7Gb (out of a possible max 8Gb). Also fitted with a cheap 128Gb SSD and it works reasonably well on Win 10!

Now that’s just teasing, where do I start to look to upgrade?

[S6PNJ]

On your MB, there should be a make/model - google it and find the manual (assuming you don't already have it) or web support pages. It should tell you within there the fastest processor it will support. Also, whilst on the MB support pages - find the BIOS update and make sure the latest they offer is what is on your machine.

I have 2 old AMD MBs, one is Dell and the other is a 'normal' manufacturer. The Dell won't support Phenom processors but fortunately the other one does, so that's the one that got the upgrades! Previously I was running an AMD X2 64 6400 and a 3200 (or something like that - can't really remember!)

[tight fart]

OK thanks, I believe it's a ASUS M2N-NVM/S, I'll start googling

[FourWheelDrift]

tight fart said:

OK thanks, I believe it's a ASUS M2N-NVM/S, I'll start googling

If so an Athlon 64 X2 would be the most recent and fastest CPU that would fit, but you may need to update the board BIOS using the chip you currently have installed first.

By cheapest in the UK - https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_n...

So cheap to experiment.