System crashing for no reason, full description given!

[Firepanda]

Setup:

i7 920 not overclocked with coolermaster v8 cooler
HIS 5850
Asus P6T
OCZ Gold 4GB ram
Corsair TX 850W PSU
WD 500GB Caviar Blue

Timeline:

Past 6 months ever so often my computer would switch off for no apparant reason, with no error report

Last week this accelerated big time, up to a point where I couldn't boot past BIOS anymore as it would switch off before I got that far

I noticed in BIOS it said I had 4GB ram, when I should actually have had 6GB ram tri channel

Clearly a stick was broken, I found which one it was and then configured my RAM into dual channel config, and it gave me life in windows for a little while until it shut off again with the same problem

I then tried single channel 4GB in the A1 B1 slots, and this gave me more life

A day later I couldn't boot again past BIOS, with most of the time the PC just booting for a second

I then took out and put back in the CMOS battery, this gave me a tonne of life, I went through the whole of that day thinking my problem was solved

The next day the same thing started happening as before

I bought new CMOS batteries and replaced it, this has given me more life as I'm posting from my PC in this condition, but every 15 mins or less I get the same crash

All this time the motherboard has given no beeps or any different colours, I've also sat in the BIOS and sat on the desktop watching CPU temps, it's all stable, I've also used 'WhoCrashed' to see any crash dumps and there is nothing there

I appreciate any help! This is my only computer so I need it working

Many thanks

 

[M_Strickland]

Hmm I would suggest you check your event log in administrative tools, that will show any serious hardware failures, and also give you a 0x code that could help us.

also how did you work out which stick it was? I'd recommend putting one stick at a time in and running Memtest (search google for ultimate boot CD).

you can also run a hard disk surface scan from this (seatools is as good as any) . That should give us some data to play with at least.


Regards

 

[smorizio]

also download open hardware monitor and see if the gpu or cpu is over heating. also open the case and check that all the fans are moving. also check the ps to see that it fan is moving. pc will shut down with an over heat issue. if the ps is not holding the pc will shut down too. the last hard part that cant be tested is a bad cap on the mb. you need some tools like a o-scope and meter to see if it was the mb.