Random computer reboot

[Monkeyman]

Hello!

You can verify your power situation by removing your laptop's battery, plugging in the power adapter, and firing up both 'puters. If they BOTH die at around the same time, round up some dogs to hunt down your electricity provider with.

Many modern BIOSes have a screen that displays power supply voltages and the RPM of the fans (including the CPU fan) and the temperature of the CPU. Fire the PC up, go to that BIOS screen, LET IT COOK, and look at the readings on that screen every now and then. THAT should give you a better idea of what's going on, such as voltage issues, fan failures (however, before they die, they usually get noisy first), or CPU overheating.

If you haven't blown the dust out of it in a while, try that first. Concentrate around the CPU heatsink. I use a leaf blower to do this, but a vacuum cleaner that blows air or compressed air works, also.

While you have it open, inspect the electrolytic capacitors, which look like little vertical cylinders. If the tops of any of them are bulging or have split open and leaked electrolyte out, think about a new motherboard.

After what you can do for free has been done, the heat sink paste on the CPU could have broken down, reducing its ability to move heat from the CPU to the heat sink. The CPU has built-in thermal shutdown protection, and will shut everything off if it overheats.  Ranging from $5 to $15 per tiny tube, this paste is cheaper than a power supply.

Before buying a replacement power supply (roughly $40), at that price or less, another cast-off PC might be a better idea.

I think THAT covers all the bases, but if not, somebody speak up...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

Thanks for the suggestions.  I work today (well, tonight) but I'll try that test with the laptop and PC this weekend.  The PC hasn't died in a while so maybe it was a fluke (or a number of flukes).  I've installed LL on my SSD so, if just the PC dies, I'll try running the SSD (with nothing extra added) to see if it's HDD/OS related.

My BIOS has a separate program that shows all that stuff.  Unfortunately, it's Windows based.  Not sure if I trust it to run in Wine.

When I installed LL on this PC, I blew the dust out.  I can't say it's squeaky clean but it's pretty damn close. 

I'll also check the electrolytic capacitors this weekend.  The mobo is a few years old so it's possible they're going/gone.

I hadn't thought about old heat sink paste.  Good idea!  I'll probably buy a tube of that and use it even if it's not a problem.  It certainly can't hurt.

If I need a new PSU, I'll buy one as well as a new mobo, CPU, RAM, etc and just build a new rig.  I'm not made of money but I'm on the computer all the time so it would be worth it to me.