My computer is acting really weird, black screens, restarting after pressing shutdown

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by wonderland, Oct 22, 2011.

  1. wonderland

    wonderland MDL Novice

    Oct 22, 2011
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    Hello,

    There are 3 problems I would very much like to solve:

    1. Screen just turns black, but I think system and windows is still working, because one time I was resizing windows media player window and screen just went black, but music continued to play. This has also happened when I open programs, more often with firefox, but other programs as well
    2. When I shut down PC most of the times it just restarts instead of turning off.
    3. Almost every time when I press sleep PC also restarts.

    Sometimes I can use PC for a long time and there won't be any problems

    I have just reinstalled windows, drivers are new, bios is up to date

    There is one more additional problem, sometimes when I turn on PC it will just be black screen and some floppy sounding sound for a while and then it will turn on.

    My specs:
    OS: windows 7 32 bit
    MB: ASUS M4A78LT LE
    Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 925
    RAM: 1x Apacer 2GB DDR3-1333
    VIDEO: Club 3D HD5750 1GB GDDR5
    HDD: WD Caviar
    PSU: Forton ATX 500W PFC 80+ SAGAII500
     
  2. evlad

    evlad MDL Member

    May 23, 2011
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  3. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

    Feb 13, 2011
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    Two things:
    1) As acrsn said check the Hard Drive SMART reading
    2) Might be an issue with the Board and the memory or just the board alone. Some Asus budget boards are absolute rubbish and have all sorts of queer issues.
     
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  4. gabris[LT]

    gabris[LT] MDL Senior Member

    Nov 6, 2010
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    main problem seems to be video card. strange noise could be bad cooler. check VGA/CPU/PSU coolers. if parts are out of warranty open PSU and check for blown capacitors near wires that go out from PSU case(a new problem with new PSU's... had about 10 ATX that worked less than 2 years.. they all were from good manufacturers, checked schematics, , schematics were the same, and problems were the same... PSU's were from 350W to 500W) also I would suggest older video card driver... If none from above reveal the problem - change mobo.
     
  5. wonderland

    wonderland MDL Novice

    Oct 22, 2011
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    #5 wonderland, Oct 24, 2011
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2011
    (OP)
    First of all I would like to thank you for all you responses.

    I just opened up PC case it seems that this sound comes from DVD drive (I wanted to add audio file, but my rep is too low to post link and zip file too large for attachments :( )

    And I also was mistaken, when this sound occurs I know that PC is turning on.
    The problem is that sometimes it's just black screen with no sound, no beeps before PC turns on.

    My PC isn't overclocked
    Both of those setting aren't enabled

    I've set BIOS to default state, will see what happens, but as I recall I didn't change anything in it in the first place.

    I'll try this software, and see what happens

    How can I check Hard Drive SMART reading ?

    It isn't issue with Mother bord because a month ago I changed MB to a new one but I had the same problems with old MB

    It's coming from DVD drive.
     
  6. Yen

    Yen Admin
    Staff Member

    May 6, 2007
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    Try another PSU. Also make sure the add on cards /CPU / RAM fit properly and all cables are properly attached.
    From my experience I can say (I build PCs by myself). Mostly it's the mainboard (you can exclude it since you have got a new one) or the PSU. One should not save money when buying a PSU. The PSU is besides of the mainboard the most important device at a PC.

    Try to borrow a good PSU to try it. Good PSUs are made by Corsair.
     
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  7. R29k

    R29k MDL GLaDOS

    Feb 13, 2011
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  8. gabris[LT]

    gabris[LT] MDL Senior Member

    Nov 6, 2010
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    #8 gabris[LT], Oct 25, 2011
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2011
    if it's coming from DVD drive then it means that the DVD chenking for disc(everything's fine). your BIOS responds quite slowly, that's not very good, but I have seen mobos with that, and they works for 3+ years by now.
    I still think that problem is in PSU or VGA card, I killed HD3850 in 3 days of use, without gaming, problems were the same, system is on, everything works, but no screen and strange system restarting...
    I don't remember if Windows 7 has event viewer, but if it has after each restart, error code/file should be indicated(In XP it's located in Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Event viewer).
    Easiest way to explain these restarts are that "Automatic system restart on system failure" is enabled on your system.
    To give more details, in my VGA GPU lost contact with VRAM(overheating issue), and as far as I remeber in my case problem was indicated in event viewer as some ATI dll error.
     
  9. wonderland

    wonderland MDL Novice

    Oct 22, 2011
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    Will try a new PSU when possible, cables ar all OK.
    Will keep in mind about PSU when buying a new PC.
    This was a budget PC

    Although I can remember that years back I had PSU that you'd probably ROFL about, but I had no problems at all with it, it was just loud.

    Thank you!

    I'm not sure that it's MB issue, since there was exactly the same problem with previous motherbord.

    I will definately check out event viewer


    BTW, I downloaded speedfan, and after some time I wrote down temperatures, but I think they are more or less ok ?
    Fan: 53 C
    HDD: 41 C
    CPU: 51 C
    MB: 34 C
    Core: 45 C
     
  10. stevemk14ebr

    stevemk14ebr MDL Senior Member

    Jun 23, 2010
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    Video card can be a source of black screen psu for the weird reboot thing and if you shutdown ur pc and the screen goes black but the pc is still on dont worry thats a bug with windows 7 not a problem with pc 3 brand new pcs in a row have done it to me every once ina while
     
  11. gabris[LT]

    gabris[LT] MDL Senior Member

    Nov 6, 2010
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    #11 gabris[LT], Oct 27, 2011
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2011
    Off topic, but it more seems to be problems with BIOS, ACPI command handling.
    As far as I understand computer logic, ATX PSU's(on/off commands) should be handled by ACPI.
    Or you haven't installed motherboard drivers, it's frequently seen problem because motherboard resources are very rarely seen in device manager as question marks, because windows uses generic drivers...
     
  12. stevemk14ebr

    stevemk14ebr MDL Senior Member

    Jun 23, 2010
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    I feel my post was on topic to his issues but if you say so just trying to help
     
  13. forkmartin

    forkmartin MDL Novice

    Jan 18, 2012
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    Hey i think that your pc has used for long time or your motherboard is getting to much of process load. This all thing could happen if your system contains virus but because you had cleaned it there could be another problem of only hardware. And this all could happen if your motherboard is not working proper or getting overloaded. Try to change it.