stinkin' desktop suddenly reboots for no good reason

[Tom_ZeCat]

I'm nearly certain this is a hardware issue. It did this with Kubuntu 14.04 LTS and now it continues to do it with 16.04. Without warning my HP Slimeline desktop suddenly cuts power and reboots. It's extremely irritating. It did so today during a Skype call. It's totally unpredictable when it does it. It doesn't do it super often, thank goodness, but it does it out of the blue, which is very irritating.

I'm thinking it must have some kind of power supply issue. Maybe it's not well connected or the power supply has some kind of short. How do you think I should go about fixing this?

[sithlord48]

your machine could be over heating are you watching the temperature of your cpu while the machine is running. add a temperature widget and keep an eye on them.. if you notices its getting hot and turning off you know its time to clean your compuer and check all yoru fans are spinning good.. if its not temperature related then i would check all your cables are nice and snug . then look in to trying a new Power supply if those fail.

[oshunluvr]

I had this problem when my PS was barely powerful enough for my system. As the room warmed up, the PS lost efficiency and shutoff momentarily, causing a restart. A new more powerful PS solved it. I have had a PS that shorted internally somehow, but only had that happen in one case.

Have you added any components since new? Is the room the PC is in warm?

IMO, the problem with off-the-shelf desktop PCs from HP. Dell, etc. are they always use the absolute minimum components. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a new more powerful PS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ply&Submit=ENE

[Rod J]

Other than checking connections and presuming your household power is good it's almost undoubtedly a power supply fault. Replacement of the PSU is the best way. The most likely cause is bad capacitors in the PSU but it could be anything. Normally you don't repair them and it's better to just replace the PSU if it's more than a few years old. The replacement PSU might be more expensive for that Slimline PC though as I guess you would have to get the genuine HP part.

[whatthefunk]

Are there any other symptoms? I had some bad RAM a while back and one thing that often happened was random spontaneous shutdowns. A lot of programs also had issues for various reasons.

[acheron]

An old laptop of mine used to do the same. I never did track down the exact cause, but eventually a kernel update seemed to fix it.

As said, it could be overheating, but it could also just be randomness/bug that your particular hardware hits every so often, causing it to bail.

[Snowhog]

Desktop PC. First thing to do is open the case and clean out the insides; get all the dust out. Then, check all the connectors to ensure they are all fully seated. For flat cables, ensure that the connector is firmly clamped (they do loosen). Third, remove any plug-in boards and clean the contact surfaces (a simple pencil eraser does the job nicely). Fourth, carefully remove the memory chips and reseat them. And lastly, look closely at the CPU; particularly the cooling sink/fan to ensure that it is in complete contact with the CPU.