My computer powered itself off .. any ideas?

[KyRoS]

I had a weird issue last night where I left my computer running and woke up this morning to find it powered down. I am running Windows XP and checked the event logs, which mention no abnormal system shutdown. One strange occurance was the system log was stopped at about 12:15 am, but the pc was still powered on till, I would guess 5am or later. I believe it rebooted itself the other day, but I thought this may have been some sort of crash as I had fast writes enabled on my video card and had a game running all day (everquest). I have since disabled fast writes.

My system specs are:
480w power supply
Asus P4PE motherboard
P4 2.4b processor
Radeon 9700pro video card
Corsair pc2700 ram

I have it OC'd to 2.7ghz with a 150 fsb and ram clocked to 400mhz. I have never had a problem or lockup during a game. In fact it has run quite flawlessly. Could it be a problem due to overclocking? Perhaps not enough power somewhere? Also I have Asus probe running. Does anyone know if this software will power off your pc in the event that it gets too hot. I have all the tolerances set very, very low so that if it gets hot at all, it should warn me.

[Nightstalker]

I think that heat was my first guess. Intel has a safety built into the P-4 that Could cause it to shut down if the core temp gets too high. The CPU fan Might not be getting enough air flow across the sink. I would check the temp, heat sink for proper mounting, and look to see if there is enough thermal compound on the CPU.

[Wiggo]

Most likely ya had a break in ya power which caused the PC to shut down.

[theyneverknew]

what manufacturer is ur power supply from? I used to have a similar problem using a crappy generic 400W PS, once I got a nice Antec one all the problems went away :D

[Mr. C]

Was the display on the VCR flashing as well:?:

[KyRoS]

I'll have to inspect the power supply tonight when i get home, as I'm not sure what brand it is. I read a nice article on firingsquad.com regarding power supply and how many power supplies don't supply enough amps to the 12v connection, which is what p4's and athlon xp's use.

As for the VCR, that was the first thing I thought of haha, but no clocks were flashing or any signs of power outage, although I read it could be a power surge that could cause the problem.

[Mr. C]

As we are talking about a PC, and not something which is an exact science, or even known to work properly - I wouldn't get too shook up over a single incident.

Worth keeping an eye on, yes. But I wouldn't go throwing money at a problem which hasn't even presented itself.

I say that, because other than this unscheduled "feature":rolleyes: it sounds like you've had no complaint.

If you don't have a surge protector at a minimum, I would however reccomend that everyone have them. They aren't expensive and do offer a degree of protection against surges and such.
And yes, I do mean everyone - a UPS is better:thumb:

[Nightstalker]

well has it done it any more?

[KyRoS]

I'm happy to say I have not had it happen again. I recently bumped my ram up to 1gb from 512 and had to drop the ram from 400mhz to 375mhz.. with the p4 oc'd from 2.4 to 2.7, fsb at 150 mhz and ram at 375 mhz, it is running very fast and stable.

[ZEROKOOL]

maybe ur outlet strip (if ur using one) reset itself?? i had that prob when i ran my PC on a POS cheap outlet strip...(just an idea) also i knowticed at work sometimes pc's will turn off if the power flickers, you know not quite turns off but in the heat of summer in california thats a big prob itll cut power for a fraction of a second...just another idea