mccComputer just switched off at random, for the second time today. This time, it happened simultaneous with a power flux event (the air conditioner halting).
Maybe I need a UPS. :(
Just happened again. Third time today. Second time in an hour? No other electrical devices seemed to have any problems. I guess I should officially be worried. :(
Zeta SyanthisCould be an older power supply starting to give up the ghost too, depending on its age.
Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊@zetasyanthis @mcc
I've also occasionally seen random shutdowns caused by the mobo chipset overheating. A failing PSU is more likely, but if you're not seeing overheating on your CPU, that's something to look at.
Freaking VIA.
@theogrin @zetasyanthis I used to have this problem when I had a messed up video card but after restarting all my temperatures seem pretty low, cpu, gpu. If my mobo has a temperature sensor on it directly I don't know how to access it.
DJ Tent Mode@mcc My last PC died an ignoble death that I wasn't able to diagnose either. Windows "System Interrupts" would just grab 100% of Core 0 and wouldn't let go until I rebooted. Spent a ton of time trying to diagnose it and never did. Hope you have better luck than I did!
@DJTentMode Computers are terrifying :(
@mcc The more you work with them, the more you realize they are kind of a systems engineering house of cards!
Good luck!
Farbs
Tom Forsyth
Jesse Morris@mcc it’s probably just tired
anniethebruce@mcc Good luck.
Could be the outlet being flaky, which is probably your best case scenario. Cheap and generally pretty easy to swap out.
Kevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦@mcc has anyone mentioned the Markus chair possibility yet? I mean, it's a longshot that you'd have a Markus, but ... bizarrely ... it would explain things.
@kboyd it's Ikea
@mcc hmm - well, like i said, slim odds. But this is the issue i was thinking of: https://superuser.com/questions/1406140/monitor-screen-that-blanks-due-to-static-electricity-in-my-chair
Ha ha heehhhh after several days of no problems my computer just shut off at random while I was sitting at it using it, and then less than five minutes later, did it again. Is there a way to get Windows to tell me, after a restart, why the hell it just restarted
Like I understand it might not know why it shuts down but surely if it restarts there's somewhere a record of why
It's happening now at times it wasn't happening before
I eventually learned to get the data from the "real" event viewer instead of the fisher price baby and this is all it says.
Two references to "Power". I don't know if that means the problem is with the power, or if that's Windows' way of saying "I don't know?".
I did get a core temp log when the computer died last night. The CPU temperature was not high at all at the moment of the reset.
I am terrified of a near future where I spend hundreds of dollars on a UPS, it takes up a bunch of space under my desk, and it turns out not to solve the problem
Every time I buy an Apple computer I eventually have to replace it even though it works and I don't want to replace it, because of planned obsolescence, and every time I buy a non-Apple computer it eventually just breaks
The scariest possible thing that could happen in the next few months is I buy a new mac because Apple forces you to buy a mac to develop for the Vision, then my Windows machine craps out totally and I'm having to use a Macintosh as my daily driver
Okay so everyone has convinced me that probably the problem is my PSU, the computer is power spiking & triggering safeties
My friends who Know Computers say it's important to check review sites like tomshardware or cultist.network & pick a high rated PSU
My current is a ThermalTake GF1 750W gold, the store by me only had a Gigabyte for 850W replacements
Trying to decide whether to buy that, go to Amazon & wait, or contact ThermalTake to replace the old one
In the meantime I'm stuck in Linux
Like the ThermalTake has worked fine for just under two years, nothing obviously changed before the problems started except I swapped my SATA drive for a m.2 one on the motherboard, and that was like a week or two before, then boom problems
So maybe the ThermalTake isn't overloaded, just going bad?
Saffron🏳️‍⚧️@mcc IIRC Thermaltake doesn't have a great reputation for reliability. So it going bad is certainly a reasonable possibility.
@spinach Reeeeaallly
Would you trust the Gigabyte in the picture?
Review seems to suggest (?) it's a "reliability over performance" pick. I don't even know what "performance" means for a PSU. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabyte-ud850gm-power-supply-review
@mcc Likely, "performance" as it is used here means a combination of efficiency, thermals, derating, and noise. Which one is subpar? who knows! Based on the specifics of the teardown in the review, it seems like a good choice.
huesm@mcc I bought a used/refurbished Dell 2 years ago. Installed PopOS and (fingers crossed) has been working fine. I did up grade ram and bought a second monitor. Total out of pocket was less than $500(I think) Course I have some pretty low demand. (my other computer is a mac mini with Elementary OS on it)
@mcc The Mac mini I got 5+ years ago as a give away. (it has obsolesce issues so I do not use it much.)
KayDub@mcc I'm replying to this on a perfectly good MacBook Air from 2013. EOLed by Apple, so I'm running Linux on it, and it's great. I stopped writing software for Apple when they started charging for the development kit.
Luigi 
@mcc I second Linux on mac. Asahi Linux works reasonably well on Apple silicon now
Equinox Deschanel@mcc I sympathize. My old 2010 Mac(!) still runs fine but is forever trapped on Catalina because it has a firmware password that I lost; otherwise I'd just crossgrade it to Linux and not care.
Fortunately(?) in the layoff they let us keep our machines, so I have an M1 with not enough disk, but it's current.
Duane Johnson 
@mcc This isn't an Apple option per se, but have you considered a Framework laptop for Windows? (I use it for Linux, but reading the comments that's not for you).
slembcke@mcc I dunno… I’ll give Apple crap for a lot of things, but not planned obsolescence. They support phones “forever” in Android terms, and they support older desktop machines than MS now too…
@slembcke It is possible I am experiencing this more with OS versions than with devices. Not so sure about the phone thing tho D:
@mcc I still use my iPhone SE from 2016, and the most recent update was ~2 weeks ago. In a month it will be seven years old. >_>
The iPad 2 I still sometimes use for reading in bed got updates until 2019. 8 years!
@mcc Though yeah… I’m currently using my 2013 Air that’s still in nearly perfect condition because my newer laptop died (again). >_<
Mike (no not that one)@mcc A UPS, at least a small one, even if it doesn't solve this specific issue, is rarely a bad investment.
Kevin Karhan 
Alex Zandra
Farce Majeure@mcc somewhere there is telemetry: proper shutdowns vs improper shutdowns.
🍂Evan Balster🍂@mcc — is the syncope alert system, you have just experienced a —
LimaBeanHoagie@mcc I am reminded of The Simpsons regarding the police looking for a missing car: https://youtu.be/oNb93FE36Uo
Car Gone
Leo@mcc Late to this but Windows will (sometimes) write a kernel-memory crash dump to `C:\Windows\Memory.DMP` when it has some kind of memory error. If you open this file up with `windbg` and run `!analyze -v` you will get a very detailed output including the bugcheck reason and a stack trace.
Jernej SimoncĚŚiÄŤ ďż˝@mcc It's even better on Server, where you get a dialog at startup asking you to type in the reason Windows did not shut down properly.
@mcc oh yes actually, there should be a log for that, let me see if I can find it...
@mcc I think this article or one like it explains the process? That looks like how I found it last time it happened to me.
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/160855-shut-down-view-details-last-shutdown-computer.html
@mcc Digging through the events in the Performance Monitor is where I found out my router was sending wake on LAN magic packets when I was trying to understand why Windows wouldn’t stay asleep. Good luck. 🫡
Omega Jimes@mcc Windows should have a program called "Reliability Monitor" that might give you a clue what's going on. You can search for it in the start menu. It might also give you no information or esoteric error codes that look like a cross between warnings from an ancient temple and alien communications. YMMV.
Erin@mcc In Event Viewer, the folder Windows Logs / System should mention what's happening if Windows knows
Ell 🏳️‍⚧️@mcc Assuming they haven't removed it, there's definitely a log for that. Somewhere in the control panel there should be an Event Viewer? Event Log? with a bunch of different logs, one of which includes system startup/shutdown events.
I want to say it's somewhere around Device Manager? You used to right-click on My Computer to get there I think, but probably if you search for "Event" in the start bar and/or control panel it'll pop up. Has a little triangle error symbol iirc.
Meg@mcc when something like this was happening to me recently it turned out to be because the video card needed to be reseated.
Mg Avaris Clari@mcc Nah, they're apparently getting ready to strike right now. A battery backup might be a good idea though. (Sorry, I still find it weird that it's both a battery backup and a global delivery service)
@avarisclari What always really messed me up when I was a kid was that APS was a hard drive company, UPS was a backup power supply, and APC (1 letter off from APS) was a UPS company
Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs@mcc @avarisclari ⚡ And you called the UPS that can go on strike the United Parcel Service?
@ellenor2000 @mcc @avarisclari the one with the trucks is pronounced “oops”; the one with the batteries (that are not part of a truck) is pronounced “U. P. S.”
(Mom always used to point out the “oops truck”, which is silly and fun childhood memory; now it sounds like a reference to the condition the packages might arrive in)
Jason Petersen (he)@mcc just put some chunky ferrite cores on that bad boy (I have no idea what I’m talking about)
Gentleman Programmer@mcc yes you need a UPS