Dell Optiplex 3010 SFF shutting down..

[WarMachine]

So i've got 2 Dell Optiplex 3010 SFF's; one that i'm typing this on is my main PC, the other i bought to use for emulation/light PC gaming. The problem is my gaming PC. I just bought and installed 2 sticks of A-Tech 4GB ram sticks and it has a Zotac GT 1030 low profile GPU. For a few days i couldn't get it to stay on longer than about 3-5 seconds. I haven't given the PC enough time to see if maybe the ram was to blame so i've got it idling right now to see if it would shut off. Seems like it likes to shut off after around 20 mins to an hour of being on. I'm starting to think it may be my HDD going out. After i booted it today when i installed the sticks i got the normal windows 10 splash screen but this time saying it was doing a scan and repair to my C drive, which i let run full and made me think even more it could be the HDD. Since i've got the same PC here, i tried swapping out the PSU, even the CMOS battery with no changes. Has anyone had this happen and it turn out to be a bad HDD?

EDIT: To add to the list, it shut down since posting this. So i'm trying out unplugging my "games" hdd and letting it idle. It may not be a C drive issue but maybe the additional drive because i have batocera installed on a flash drive to boot off of usb and this pulls the roms from the game drive, not C, so i tried running that last night and it still shut down after about 30-45 mins of play. So now i wait..

 

[c7spheres]

Those issues shouldn't cause it to turn completely off, mayne just error. If it's turning off randomly that usually points to a power supply, though you already tried changing it out. It could also be a heat sink issue. If it overheats it could shut down too. Try booting it to the bios and just leaving it there for a while to see if it still shut off. When in bios disable all the hard drives and boot drives/usb etc, save changes, reboot again to bios and let it sit. If it still shuts off it's not a drive issue unless something is possibly electrically wrong with the connection, though unlikely if you've already double checked the connections. Could also be a bad connection with the power supply too if you got a criped wire or bad solder joint etc.

 

[WarMachine]

Those issues shouldn't cause it to turn completely off, mayne just error. If it's turning off randomly that usually points to a power supply, though you already tried changing it out. It could also be a heat sink issue. If it overheats it could shut down too. Try booting it to the bios and just leaving it there for a while to see if it still shut off. When in bios disable all the hard drives and boot drives/usb etc, save changes, reboot again to bios and let it sit. If it still shuts off it's not a drive issue unless something is possibly electrically wrong with the connection, though unlikely if you've already double checked the connections. Could also be a bad connection with the power supply too if you got a criped wire or bad solder joint etc.

Thanks man, i'm cheating a way of kind of doing that right now lol. I've got an emulation front end OS called Batocera that can boot from usb, so i've disconnected the main HDD and only have the other drive connected now. If it shuts down again i'll try out the BIOS check and see if it gives me anything different. I'm assuming it could be overheating even though i'm not feeling it on some of the components?

EDIT: Scratch that, it shut off again i've got it sitting in BIOS now, lets see what happens..

 

[WarMachine]

Sorry for the late reply...

No dice, nadda, zip. Hopefully my IT buddies at work have something for me to try out. I only gave 60 bucks for the PC so i'm not that invested if its something costly. I can always pull the GPU/HDD/RAM and put in this PC if i can't fix it for under that 60 lol. That's what i'm trying to budget any repair to is the 60 it cost to buy. I'll post back in the AM when i've talked to them.

 

[WarMachine]

Back to square one again...i got a response from my IT guy, he was surprised i had tried everything i had already lol. The only input he could give me is that he had the same thing happen to him a few years ago and it turned out to be a faulty/dying PSU. I explained how i had tried using the PSU from this PC to test it but remembered that i only did the button test on the back, i didn't boot it and let it sit until it would shut down? So i took this one back apart, put the other drive in my other PC and got the exact...same.....problem. Shut down after around 20-30 mins. I'm just about ready to give up and put all my components in this PC and just be done with it, but it was really nice having a "console" style PC setup and this for my work. One last thing i may try would be to format the smaller C based HDD and put a fresh install of windows 10 on it. Although i don't see any benefit, considering i tried both drives individually and combined with the same issues. But then again, using a different PSU should've made a difference if it were a power issue, and apparently it isn't so who knows. I also forgot to mention that i pulled the heat sink and checked the thermal compound, still wet to the touch so that rules out CPU overheating at least at that point.

 

[TedEH]

Seems to be like if you just added a bunch of stuff, then those would be the first things to try to rule out. I wouldn't expect a bad HDD to cause a machine to just power off. RAM and video cards though? That's a solid maybe.

First thing I'd be trying is pulling the RAM one at a time to see if that changes anything. If one or the other is failed, this should find it right away. You can do the same with the video card. If the video card is the problem though, there's the question of whether or not the card has a defect, or if it's drawing too much power and your power supply is struggling.

I'm not an expert in this kind of troubleshooting though, just firing out some ideas.

 

[c7spheres]

You should do what I originally said to try. Emulating something is not gonna work. YOu need to disable all the drives and boot drives from bios as I explained above. It also would help to pull the ram too. This is what will eliminate if it's a drive problem. Pulling the ram will eliminate if it's a ram issue too. If it still dhuts off then it's definitely hardware like a video card, heat sink, power supply etc. This stuff can look appear physically ok and even operate fine but then over heat or become intermittent over time. Heat sinks for example can get micro cracks which change their ability etc. Just pull the ram and the drives, use your good power supply, go into bios and disable all drives and boot drives, disconnect everything but the monitor, save new bios settings, reboot , go back into bios and let it sit. If it still shuts off then you need to get more serious diagnostics going that can't really be determined without changing out parts or scope/meter testing etc. maybe even try re-seating the processor too. This happens a lot when a computer is moved. If it's set down or the wrong way stuff can shift and cause connection problems. It's pretty rare any of this stuff stops working unless it just burns out or gets physically jolted/ damaged somehow.

 

[WarMachine]

You should do what I originally said to try. Emulating something is not gonna work. YOu need to disable all the drives and boot drives from bios as I explained above. It also would help to pull the ram too. This is what will eliminate if it's a drive problem. Pulling the ram will eliminate if it's a ram issue too. If it still dhuts off then it's definitely hardware like a video card, heat sink, power supply etc. This stuff can look appear physically ok and even operate fine but then over heat or become intermittent over time. Heat sinks for example can get micro cracks which change their ability etc. Just pull the ram and the drives, use your good power supply, go into bios and disable all drives and boot drives, disconnect everything but the monitor, save new bios settings, reboot , go back into bios and let it sit. If it still shuts off then you need to get more serious diagnostics going that can't really be determined without changing out parts or scope/meter testing etc. maybe even try re-seating the processor too. This happens a lot when a computer is moved. If it's set down or the wrong way stuff can shift and cause connection problems. It's pretty rare any of this stuff stops working unless it just burns out or gets physically jolted/ damaged somehow.

Thanks dude, actually i had tried every bit of what you mentioned in this post also, sorry if i forgot to mention it, i've been posting on a few different forums so i'm sure i've left some shit out lol. So the last thing i was going to try before completely giving up was rolling back my nvidia driver. I updated it about 2 weeks ago. Don't ask me how or why, but knock on wood i've had it idling since about 9 tonight and it's still running, no shutdowns at all. Hopefully this fixed it! What i find odd about it is that i've pulled the card before and it still shut down, you'd think a bad driver would've been bypassed after unhooking the GPU, but i'm guessing it was still in a registry file somewhere trying to execute? Either way, i'm going to leave this on when i leave for work tonight. If it's still on this morning when i come home then i'm gonna call it good, shut it down and give it a rest lol.

 

[c7spheres]

Thanks dude, actually i had tried every bit of what you mentioned in this post also, sorry if i forgot to mention it, i've been posting on a few different forums so i'm sure i've left some shit out lol. So the last thing i was going to try before completely giving up was rolling back my nvidia driver. I updated it about 2 weeks ago. Don't ask me how or why, but knock on wood i've had it idling since about 9 tonight and it's still running, no shutdowns at all. Hopefully this fixed it! What i find odd about it is that i've pulled the card before and it still shut down, you'd think a bad driver would've been bypassed after unhooking the GPU, but i'm guessing it was still in a registry file somewhere trying to execute? Either way, i'm going to leave this on when i leave for work tonight. If it's still on this morning when i come home then i'm gonna call it good, shut it down and give it a rest lol.

That would be weird. A driver should have nothing to do with it, but if the driver is actually updating physically the Nvidia hardware then it could possibly have something to do with it if the Nvidia is setup to hard boot even when only in the bios, so it is possible. Nvidia stuff has always been a bit of a pain, imo. I'm not a gamer or anything but I've dealt with tons of other computer stuff. If it seems like it is the NVidia driver first thing to do is hunt down the update settings and shut them all off for it so you don't get auto updated ofr something and run into the same problem again.

 

[WarMachine]

That would be weird. A driver should have nothing to do with it, but if the driver is actually updating physically the Nvidia hardware then it could possibly have something to do with it if the Nvidia is setup to hard boot even when only in the bios, so it is possible. Nvidia stuff has always been a bit of a pain, imo. I'm not a gamer or anything but I've dealt with tons of other computer stuff. If it seems like it is the NVidia driver first thing to do is hunt down the update settings and shut them all off for it so you don't get auto updated ofr something and run into the same problem again.

That seems to be the culprit dude. The computer is still up and running, this is the longest it's been on for the last week lol. I'm with you, i would've figured especially after pulling the GPU that something like the driver wouldn't cause it but it did. All i can say is i'm happy as fuck to have finally tracked it down and fixed it! And i'll definitely check the driver update setup on there. This one was on me though, i checked to see if there were any updates for it, just so happens there was so i'll be staying away from these for a while lol.

 

[c7spheres]

That seems to be the culprit dude. The computer is still up and running, this is the longest it's been on for the last week lol. I'm with you, i would've figured especially after pulling the GPU that something like the driver wouldn't cause it but it did. All i can say is i'm happy as fuck to have finally tracked it down and fixed it! And i'll definitely check the driver update setup on there. This one was on me though, i checked to see if there were any updates for it, just so happens there was so i'll be staying away from these for a while lol.

Good to know. Glad it's working. So it seems the Nvidia probably does update the firmware of the actual video card on whatever update was in it. That's a good thing cause it's not relying on the software exclusively. Dedicated chips for the video acceleration probably. Bad news is that if Nvidia didn't fix the issue for that chipset in the later/latest driver update then you are stuck with what it currently is, which is no big deal if it works how you want. Hopefully you know what version was on it and what version is currently on it. I'd get a copy of the driver that's currently on it as an offline file so you always have it in case you ever need it again for some reason.