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. :(
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?
Ohgod I have noidea what I am doing
I have extensive notes of which cables were connected before I pulled the old one out, but I have no Gnosis
Sylvhem@mcc I was terrified the first time I did this, but if you follow carefully the instructions, you should be fine.
Feel free to ask on here if you are unsure about something. That’s what I did and the Fedi helped me :).
Feel free to ask on here if you are unsure about something. That’s what I did and the Fedi helped me :).
?
Oblomov@mcc the upside is that usually you can't really plug things in the wrong way around so you're relatively safe as long as you stick to the cables that came with the new PSU. There should be at least a 24-to-24-pins cable going from the 24-pinhole on the PSU to the 24-pins slot on the mobo. Optionally some mobos also accept an extra 8-pin thing. Modern PSUs label these cables CPU/PSU. The PCIe ones go to the PCIe cards if you have an externally powered one (e.g. GPU).
C Sawula@mcc I have a small form factor PC that I go back and forth on upgrading and managing that cable nightmare again in a tiny space keeps giving me pause
slembcke@mcc So I’ve been told that modular power supply cables are not standardized or interchangeable. Dunno if that’s part of the confusion, but I figured was worth reminding.
@slembcke they're not, but they come with their own cable sets so that's fine.
The problem is you get a lot more cables than you need.
Kaiyalai@mcc it will be fine, just take it one cable at a time, one part at a time.
You got this!
@Kaiyalai I'm just afraid I'll fail to plug in one of the cables because they gave me more than I need
@mcc I think you may minimize the risk of that happening if you base things on the parts that need power, not starting at the power supply. When you run out of parts with unconnected power ports, you’re done!
Anything missed will just, not have power on startup, and not show up in Device Manager, so that should be an easy way to catch any oversights.
(Also I like to see the extra cables as ‘just in case’ replacement parts for down the line.)
Jo Shields@mcc ONLY USE NEW CABLES
Cabling is per-model. Your old cables, if they fit, will cause components to explode
@directhex I know, but thank you
@directhex What I mean is I'm worried I'll forget to attach to one of the many plug points on the motherboard
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.
ArneBab@mcc I also had random halts which took me a while to debug.
Turned out that with the new passive cooling tower on my CPU and setting the fans as silent (low speed), the RAM did not get cooled well enough and overheated under load.
I changed the fan setting to normal and the computer hasn’t crashed since.
The hint was that I saw memory corruption messages with two crashes (after the crash the hardware warned and I saw that in the scrolling text on startup — under Linux).
Maybe m.2 overheats?
@mcc most likely. I'd go with the 850 available now simply to avoid waiting, if it's not too expensive
DJ Tent Mode@mcc I absolutely had a power supply smoke itself. Thankfully the fusing worked correctly and it didn't damage my motherboard.
All of your recent troubles have only reminded me how unreliable my PCs have actually been in the last 15 years.
- 3 (three) dead video cards
- dead power supply
- dead heat sink/fan
- dead (spinning) hard drive
- dead (CRT) monitor
- dead motherboard
- too many dead home routers/gateways to count without getting very very angry
Jernej Simončič �@mcc I've had good experience with Corsair power supplies – I only replaced my previous one (RM650x) because it was too weak for new graphic cards; had it from july 2017 till january this year. Currently have a Seasonic Prime PX 1300.
moopet@jernej__s @mcc there's a lot forum thread which is like the goto for PSU reviews by model because so many brands are wildly variable from model to model.
I had the same issue and found an open box fractal PSU they rated highly on eBay for cheaps and it fixed my world.
@jernej__s @mcc *LTT forum
@mcc Oh, and as for what I had connected to RM650x:
GTX1070, 1TB SATA SSD, 4x 8TB SATA disks inside a hotplug cage, ARC-1212 RAID controller; originally I had Asus Z9PA-U8 motherboard, Xeon E5-1620 CPU, 4x8GB DDR3 registered RAM and a PCIe USB3 controller; later I changed to Asus Pro WS X570-ACE motherboard, Ryzen 5900X CPU and 2x 32GB DDR4 ECC RAM.
BTW, check the warranty for your Thermaltake – at least Corsair has either 5 or 10-year warranty (not sure which), while Seasonic claims 12-year warranty.
@jernej__s The Thermaltake (it was a GF1 not a GF3) has a 10 year warranty. I will be exploring this. But if I have to mail them the PSU I like… I have to use my computer in the meantime.
The store near me had Corsairs but none with ATX3 which I believe I need for my video card.
@jernej__s …but maybe I could order something off Amazon. I don't know.
@mcc The Seasonic I menitoned isn't ATX3, but does have the new power connector (though I believe only 1300 and 1600W versions have it).
@jernej__s what is the difference between "ATX3' and "the new power connector". I need whatever the 3070ti has
@mcc AFAIK, 3xxx series still uses classic PCIe power connectors. Only 4xxx series uses the new one – it's much smaller with 12 pins and supports up to 600W per connector (which has gotten reputation for being melty; the classic 8-pin PCIe power connectors are rated for 150W, which is why high-end cards usually have two of them).
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).
@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.
@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.