PC rebooting on it's own. Question about electricity/ power, etc.

Walking Man

Walking Man

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I have two electrical wall outlets by my PC, my PC is plugged into one (actually into a surge protector, with my monitor, printer, etc.), and my space heater into the other, they are about 6 feet away. Is it possible that the heater causes power loss and an occasional random reboot from time to time?
It seems like when it's on my PC reboots randomly from time to time.
Thanks.
 
I had a problem for a while that my computer would shut down from overheating. This only happened in the summer. Is this a possibility?
 
It could be heat, is it a newer PC, say less than 3 years old? Do you live in a dusty place or have animals?

Open up the case and look at the heat sink. This is the Aluminum or Copper block that is on top of the CPU. There will be a fan screwed to it most likely.

If the vanes are clogged with dust and junk just take off the fan and using a dry paint brush clean out the heat sink. Check this if you have a perfomance video card too that requires a seperate power supply (the same size as a floppy drive usually)

Heat is generally the biggest problem with PC's.
 
Could be a ton of things. your pc's power supply could be getting ready to take a dump, your motherboard or memory could have a problem , your OS could have a problem , your hard drive etc etc lol.
Sorry I know thats a big list but any of the above and more could be your problem.
What Temper said is where I would start first , if you havent opened up that badboy in a few years you'll be greeted by dustbunnies from hell. Grab a can of that compressed air and clean her out good, especially the heat sink fan for your processor and your power supply , both of which atrract dust and so forth. See if the problem continues.
At work here when a pc shuts down on its own it is almost always an issue with the power supply but we start with the simple fixes first and work up.
Hopefully it's just dust and good cleaning that's in order.
 
Well I'm no computer expert but there was a time when the battery in my ups needed to be replaced and so, while I had surge protection, random brown outs would cause me problems or when the vacuum cleaner was plugged in and turned on.
 
I replaced my power supply and had my PC in the shop just a couple days ago, and it was tested for lots of stuff, I told the technician about this issue, but he said it never happened to it while it was in the shop (total time about 2 days). It really seems like it reboots more often when the heater is on. Is this a possibility or my imagination?
 
It really seems like it reboots more often when the heater is on
Click to expand...
Can you plug it into a different outlet ? like run and extension cord and a power strip to an adjacent room , see if the problem persists.
I guess it could happen if the heater sucked so much power but , not knowing much about home wiring/electronics... hmm....:confused:
 
Download MBM (motherboard monitor, google for it) and check your voltages (core, 5V, 12V) and temperatures. Write them down, post them here and I'll give you my opinion. What power supply did you put in that computer, and what processor has it on?
Another posibility is that virus that walks arround since a couple of years and reboots your computer ... Nimda or Worm-something. Do you have an antivirus? If not, you can do a free scan from McAffe's site (if they still offer it).
 
Thanks for the help. I do that. My power supply has 500W, which, I was told should be plenty for just about everything and then some.
 
Yes, the heater could be drawing too much current which can cause reboots. It doesn't matter what sort of power supply you have if this is the issue. Space heaters can draw a LOT of power, in fact they should really have their own dedicated outlet. Try an extension cord as rebeltf said.
 
Ryan8 said:
It doesn't matter what sort of power supply you have if this is the issue. Space heaters can draw a LOT of power, in fact they should really have their own dedicated outlet.
Click to expand...
It does have it's own outlet, but it's only six feet away from where the PC is attached.
 
Walking Man said:
It does have it's own outlet, but it's only six feet away from where the PC is attached.
Click to expand...

But it still may be on the same circuit. You need to run an extension cord to another room for either the heater or the power strip to see if the heater drawing too much current. If it's causing enough of a drop in power, it could be enough to cause your computer to shut down for a second- reboot on it's own.

Get a long extension cord and run it to a room two rooms away, or to an outlet that you KNOW isn't on the same circuit. You can best check this by plugging in a light and checking if it goes out as you flip the breakers/pull the fuses. (Turn your computer off and unplug it before doing this!). If the outlet with the heater goes out, but the light in the other room doesn't, then the outlets are on different circuits and you'll know where to plug in at.
 
another possibility is to buy an ups (uninterrupted power supply) (comp usa sometimes has them on sale for about $60). Has a battery that will come on when the power drops or goes off. I wonder if you are having this problem now because you just changed your power supply to a bigger size which needs more electricity????
 
Do you notice that the reboots happen when the heater turns on and off via it's thermostat? A yes would point toward the power issue.
quote "they are about 6 feet away". Do you mean the outlets are 6ft apart or the heater and PC are 6ft apart? How warm do you keep room at? If you like it really toasty, then check for crud inside the box, as others have suggested becuase you could be overheating the box.
 
I just had this problemw tih a desktop, and found it was a bad stick of RAM. You might check that just to be sure.
 
Does your computer continue to have the reboot problem when the space heater is turned off and/or unplugged? I've also heard that overheating can cause spontaneous/mysterious reboots, as others have. If the computer only has the reboots when the space heater is running, it may be a combination of the heat from the space heater along with the electrical draw of the heater.

You might have to do your computing in a cooler room....

GeoThorn
 
1) clean the fans inside your computer (it has probably already been done in the shop, but just in case)
2) Do you have a new powerfull graphic card?
3) Do you have USB things (camera, external stuff, etc) plugged on your computer?
4) did you recently install any new program
5) How many RAM do you have? could you remove one and check if you still reboot, then do the same with the others

but i would say that most probably your space heater is taking too much power from your system, making it "unstable"
Otherwise you should check your chip heat, if you are playing long time, might get hot and your system shut down automatically.
 
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