Sudden Power Off [Stiil Not Solved!]

[#1]

Quote from: AlaricAdair

My money is on an ageing component on the motherboard which is borderline on the edge of total failure.

After the ruddy thing cut out on me again, I opened up the case one more time. I've spotted one capacitor on the mobo which is starting to bulge at the top. This may be it.
Although the machine is long out of warrantly, the firm I bought it off are a good lot in my experience (and local), so I've e-mailed them for advice.

[#2]

People might be interested to know what happened next, and why it might have happened:
Back towards the end of last year - in a fit of Monday-morning fumbling before going to work - I cut the power from the surge protector to the tower unit before it had finished shutting down. It took me three hours to get it running again that evening.
I was determined not to have that happen again, so I put a sticker over the button on the surge protector to stop me from pressing it by accident.
What this meant, of course, is that (with the exception of power cuts and the two or three occasions where I've disassembled things to clean) the PSU has had power going into it the whole time since.
After the last episode described previously, I took the sticker off. Each time I've shut down the PC since, I've powered off from the surge protector (after the PC has shut down of course!) and also flipped the rocker switch on the back of the tower.
That was from Tuesday night. Since then, no problems at all. I suppose that the PSU finally threw a wobbler with having power to it all the time.
Famous last words, of course...

[#3]

I knew it!
It cut out on me again this morning. I'm going to buy a cheapish PSU to see if that's what's doing it.

[#4]

Perhaps your surge protector is cutting-in too often.
Why not run with no surge protection for a while?

[#5]

If it was the surge protector, I would have expected, a) the panel lights on the front of the tower to be affected, b) all the other things that are plugged in to the s.p. to show problems.
It cut out on me again this morning. When I tried to start it up again, it got to the second 'page' of the stuff it goes through when booting, then powered off again. Then it wouldn't POST
This evening, despite having had the power disconnected from it for about ten hours, it still wouldn't POST.
This afternoon, I went to our local branch of one of our fair land's big chains of computer stores (no names, but it ends in 'World'), to be told that they don't stock PSUs there, only in their 'megastores', the nearest one of which is at least a forty-minute bus journey away.
Tomorrow, I'm going to see if one of our small, local firms has got a PSU.

[#6]

I'm surprised they had ever heard of a device called a PSU!

[#7]

I don't want to think about what they might think it stands for!  
New PSU bought today (thank you, Maplin!) and I fitted it (my first attempt at a job like this) in about half an hour.
Running nearly two hours and no prob......


(Kidding!  ;))
dick:quote

[#8]

Now, why is there no 'fingers crossed' smiley thing?
Hope it stays fixed this time! 

[#9]

I had a cheapo PC once which had similar problems, it turned out the central heating water pump (on the same power ring main) was causing a spike in the power which would trip the PC. Other PC's were fine. Eventually I put in a better PSU and also a surge protector socket extension which solved the problem. The trouble was by that stage my daughter decided she deserved a new PC. Of course I resisted didn't I.