# Random power down



## pofigster (Jan 24, 2007)

I'm not 100% sure this is the right forum to be posting on but...
A couple months ago I built myself a white box with a MSI 880GM-E43 motherboard paired with an Athlon II X3 445. I used the built in core unlock features to unlock the fourth core and L3 cache. Everything was great, had wonderful stability - I was able to play a variety of games including CoD: Black Ops no problem. Then, recently, I started ripping some TV series we have on DVD and converting them to .avi files so my wife and I can watch TV in bed. Did this for four seasons of a show and then, suddenly, on the fifth, when I used AutoGK to convert the files the computer just shut down. Like what would happen in a blackout. I restarted the process and it happened again. Now, I should mention that it wasn't right away - it was after some time had passed (I didn't time it - I usually set it up to work while we're asleep). I tried it again, but I set the affinity of AutoGK to cores 0-2 so it wouldn't try and use the potentially unstable 4th core - no shut down. Been doing that for a while (games still run fine on all 4 cores) and today my wife was publishing a movie from Windows Movie Maker and the same thing happened (we've done this before with no issues). At the same time on a different user account, AutoGK was working on more conversions (affinity set for 0-2).

We have a modular, 500 watt 80+ Power Supply manufactured by OCZ, three SATA drives (1 7200 rpm HD, 1 5400 rpm HD and 1 DVDRW) and a 9800GT video card. Based on my math, 500 watts ought to be sufficient for the system, so I don't think it's the power supply. Also, while playing Black Ops the computer gets way hotter than when the video conversion is happening, so I don't think it's an overheating issue.

Is this just the fourth core's instability acting up? And is there any reason why it wouldn't rear its ugly head until a couple months in?

Any help is appreciated!


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

A good possibility is the 500W OCZ PSU. OCZ are "OK" but not top quality and we suggest a minimum 550W quality brand PSU for any PCI-E GPU.
Do you have or can you borrow a good quality 550W PSU to try?
How much RAM and what are the specs?


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## pofigster (Jan 24, 2007)

I have 2x2Gb PC3 10666 G.Skill RAM.

I don't have a spare 550W PSU available for testing. Still, with the computer just shutting down, no BSD or anything, does that suggest an inadequate PSU?

Thanks for your quick response.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Yes, an underpowered PSU can cause the problems you are experiencing.


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