is my power supply dieing?

[Ed]

If you are looking at thermal paste, you should check that none of your
motherboard's capacitors have swollen up - they can go out of spec. If they
are new, or little cubes then this won't be a problem. If your motherboard
is older and has cylindrical capacitors, there was a batch that would age
poorly. They swell and the top domes up - good caps from this time have
flat tops. Replacing the dozen or so bad caps can be done if you have mad
soldering skills - a new motherboard might be a better option. This is an
unlikely problem to have with current motherboards, but if you're looking
at the thermal paste, it's a thing to also check.

stay grounded & good luck

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 9:48 AM Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> This is a good point too, I actually just did this on my xps15 as well as
> they are known to be badly thermal pasted from the factory, and some years
> later, same thing as Stephen described.  That wasn't too bad, redid the cpu
> and gpu with high quality stuff, and allowed me to do some mods with
> thermal tape some of the mosfet chips to the case others found works well
> too.
>
> This could be your cpu or gpu here that use large heatsinks.
>
> I also had a heatsink once pop off a southbridge on my mobo too that
> caused some havoc, and once on my dell server raid, thinking about my
> adventures in computing over the years.
>
> Moral of the story, heat kills.
>
> -mb
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 7:09 AM Stephen Partington via PLUG-discuss <
> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>
>> I just had to partially rebuild a friends computer because the thermal
>> compound used in their system had petrified. they went from 89C down to 30C
>> after I cleaned and replaced the compound. (Partial disassembly was
>> required to unmount the HSF *String of expletives censored*
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 7:07 AM Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <
>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Agreed, and even more so, I have seen internal PSU fans die too, so make
>>> sure to check that.
>>>
>>> -mb
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 10:41 PM Brian Cluff via PLUG-discuss <
>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Are you sure all your fans are running, including in your power supply?
>>>> If you CPU fan secured properly and has good (Not dried out) thermal
>>>> paste on it.  If you took your CPU fan off and it had some of that
>>>> thermal waxy stuff on it and you just put it back on, it's probably not
>>>> conducting heat very well.  I would take it back off and scrape all
>>>> that
>>>> stuff off and put some proper thermal compound on it in it's place.
>>>>
>>>> In my experience, if your computer is randomly locking up, it's usually
>>>> heat related.  Although it CAN be the power supply, usually power
>>>> supplies just tend to outright die and will refuse to turn on your
>>>> machine when they go bad.  The other things are bad RAM and bad
>>>> software.... but if you've tested your ram and you haven't changed
>>>> anything software wise, I would look for a heat related issue.
>>>>
>>>> Brian Cluff
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 7/12/20 7:49 PM, Michael via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>>>> > OK.... well, I ran stress and gearsglx and the computer ran fine for
>>>> > about 5 minutes and then it froze. so this means it is the hardware?
>>>> > so I guess.... is it the power supply? what else could it be? how can
>>>> > I verify or else is it a shot in the dark?
>>>> >
>>>> > On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 10:17 PM Michael <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >> thanks for shaaring your experiances with me!
>>>> >>
>>>> >> On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 10:58 AM Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss
>>>> >> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>> >>> That is about how my laptop was acting using the i915 driver vs.
>>>> the intel kernel mode driver...  Maybe make sure you're not using that, by
>>>> default you shouldn't. I ended up with it trying to make prime gpu
>>>> switching work.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> It could be gpu related still, most browsers use hardware
>>>> acceleration that could be hitting it.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Try running glx-gears for a while in full-screen to see how it acts
>>>> if it dies when heating up.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> I also had an older system that was locking up seemingly whenever
>>>> I'd hit the graphics.  Turns out the gpu fan went bad, with ambient case
>>>> fans keeping it cool enough off the heatsink, but watching a movie or
>>>> something that hit the gpu, it would crash.  Tearing it open it was then
>>>> obvious the fan wasn't working.  Of course I couldn't find a fan that fit
>>>> the stupid thing, so I ended up buying a new gpu for it, all was well.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Only ever had one PSU that got wonky on me to crash intermittently
>>>> in some 25 years of building pc's, but it happens...
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Also, boot up and in grub run memtestx86 on it, bad memory sectors
>>>> can cause grief too with intermittent locks, usually the more ram you
>>>> invoke, you'll hit the bad spot.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> -mb
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 9:36 AM Michael via PLUG-discuss <
>>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>> >>>> you know.... it seems that the first time of the day I start it it
>>>> >>>> runs a few minutes and then freezes. but upon subsequent restarts
>>>> >>>> everything is good.
>>>> >>>>
>>>> >>>>
>>>> >>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 8:18 PM Michael <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >>>>> I have ssh installed on my system but to ssh into another system
>>>> you
>>>> >>>>> need ssh-server installed on your computer but I can't find it. I
>>>> >>>>> guess I'm wrong. What else do you need installed?
>>>> >>>>>
>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 8:03 PM Michael <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >>>>>> I think my issue might also be grafix related because when it
>>>> first
>>>> >>>>>> started doing this the dark areas on my desktop picture would
>>>> turn
>>>> >>>>>> blue when it froze. I do have another system. Could you walk me
>>>> >>>>>> through solving the problem?
>>>> >>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 11:11 AM Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss
>>>> >>>>>> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>> >>>>>>> It really could be about anything, hardware or software.
>>>> Unplug everything unnecessary, even usb things, and just see if it locks up
>>>> then.  I've had psu's do this, video cards, ram, even usb devices cause
>>>> weird hardware-ish problems.  Check dmesg and /var/log as well for
>>>> errors/events, could indicate a flaky device.
>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>> Also software - upgrading ram recently, I also updated my
>>>> system since I had to reboot anyways, and my pc began locking up every 2
>>>> days.  I thought the new ram perhaps was bad, but memtest looked ok.  It
>>>> took some digging, but guess I picked up a bug in using an old intel
>>>> graphics driver inadvertently, removed that driver, and I've had 70 days of
>>>> uptime since.
>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>> I had to get a bit creative to diag this, including sshing into
>>>> it from another system when it did lock up.  Turns out it was graphics
>>>> related, just the display froze, but the system worked otherwise headless.
>>>> This led me to investigate graphics as a source of the lockups to fix at a
>>>> driver level.  If you have another system available, I'd suggest that.
>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>> -mb
>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 6:36 AM Michael via PLUG-discuss <
>>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>> >>>>>>>> sometimes my computer freezes. is iut the power supply?
>>>> >>>>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>>> --
>>>> >>>>>>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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>>>> >>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>
>>>> >>>>>> --
>>>> >>>>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>>> >>>>>
>>>> >>>>>
>>>> >>>>> --
>>>> >>>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>>> >>>>
>>>> >>>>
>>>> >>>> --
>>>> >>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >> --
>>>> >> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
>> rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
>>
>> Stephen
>>
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