PC powers off randomly

Drago:

PARTON1080:

I built a new pc, and put old components in a new case. The pc which is comprised of the old components in the new case powers off randomly and will not power on at all at times. Time before random shutdown varies from a fraction of a second to minutes to hours.

hmmm so the compy was fine till you put these old parts in a new case.  Just for grins, turn the compy so that it is layingon its side witht he mobo horizontal and pressing on the mobo tray behind it via gravity.  If you have some sort of weird short, i bet you the problem gets worse when the case is like this, flip it the other way so the mobo is hanging i bet it doesnt happen.  If this is the case, pull that mobo out and make sure you dont have a misplaced motherboard standoff, or something stuck between the mobo and the case to cause a short which will cause the pc to die of power.  You have nothing to loose by this, just unhook all the cables from your mobo and take it out and see, no need to pull the cpu cooler off or nothing.

 

He awesome thought Drago! You could also pull your computer out of the case and plug everything in on a non static surface and see if it stops.

I will try this right now

 Same behavior regardless of orientation.

I guess in the morning I should try pulling the whole darn thing and eliminating any ground faults, as you guys have suggested.

I will keep u posted.

Out of curiosity:  What are the temps of the motherboard/cpu?

Thanks everyone for all the help.

Power supply was bad. Replaced the mobo and had the same problem. Sent the EA430 back to antec, sent the new mobo back, installed a 430 W thermaltake. I tested all the voltages on the old PS before trying a new mobo. It seemed OK to me but apparently I don't know squat.

I had the same problem about a year and a half ago.  I realized the power supply was going because the rail voltages were dropping under load.  Replaced the power supply just in time as the computer was wildly resetting.  Found char marks on the connectors to the power supply and motherboard.  Been up and running since then.  Now I continuously monitor the voltages and temperature in case it happens in the future.

Good luck