Late last night something weird happened. Suddenly my PC shut off. After several attempts to turn it on with nothing happening, approx. 1/2 hour after it started when I tried again. But nothing at all happened except the power was on so O decided to shut it off. I rebooted about 1/2 hour later and all went as per normal. Today all is fine as well.

Any ideas what could have happened?

Looking at the front of the pc take the left panel off and blow out any dust, especially around the heatsink for the cpu, in fact blow out any and any all dust!

Sometimes static builds up in the system so remove the power cord then depress the power button for 10 seconds then replace the power cord and power up.

Cleaning the dust bunnies is also a good idea:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11319_7-6240575-1.html

Thank you Humpty. I did what you suggested and actually it was fairly clear of any major dust "bunnies" (to quote YoKenny).



Thanks for the tip, I haven't heard that one before....I'll try it if it happens again.

Wouldn't hurt to run ChkDsk on all the hard disks you have after a bad shutdown:

I think the 'dust' in my PC is actually vital for everything to stay connected and working properly. It's like I climbed inside of it and smoked a truckload of Camel cigarettes for a few years.

Today I realized that I had not posted that my sudden shut down problem was solved a short while ago. I repeated the procedure Humpty had mentioned but this time I removed the fan installed over the CPU heatsink and there it was...dust just pasted all over the heatsink. Dust and crap I could not see without removing the fan. I cleaned as much as possible off with a Q-tip and then blasted air at it to finish the heatsink clean. I also removed ALL fans and cleaned each fan with a wet Q-tip. After blasting all over with air and having everything spic and span I decided that since I had everything open I may as well replace the power supply with a new power supply (this was even after removing the cover from my old power supply and cleaning the fan and blasting air to remove all dust/dirt). My reason for replacing the power supply was because I found out how cheap they are (I paid $29 Canadian) and thought it would be a good idea since my other power supply was about 5 or 6 years old.

I'm glad to report that all is working great now....no more sudden shut downs. At least now I know how to do a thorough cleaning job which I plan on implementing as an annual event.

Thanks again guys for all your time spent on my various questions!! You have all been very helpful.

That's how I found my avatar.

I like to do this on my Birthday because it is usually cold, snowy and bleak with nothing better to do it makes me feel better.

When I get a system to look at the first thing I do is remove the dust bunnies then work on whatever is ailing the system.

I now know how important keeping on top of having a clean PC is. Live and learn. So YoKenny, you fix PCs as your occupation or as a hobby?

I fix PCs as a hobby as I am thankfully retired and I can watch the boring election results for as long as I can stay awake.

LOL Just clicked your 2KB link. Hilarious! I love it!

BTW, how do you accomplish these links. I know its very simple if you know how.

Do you mean:
http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=117444

Or my clickable image in my signature where I copy the image to my hard drive then use MWSnap to capture the image then use the same process to update my signature.

I meant the clickable image in your signature. I'll have to try that procedure sometime. Thanks.

Click to view attachment Test to see if image transfer worked.

Hmm. didn't work, just shows as regular link :-( I'll try again someday.