Hiya folks,
I'd appreciate any insights you might have about this.
I built a mini ITX htpc a few months ago, and last week started having some trouble with it. My wife first reported that when she started watching netflix it would reboot. As a typical husband I ignored the problem until it affected me. A few days later it happened to me, I can't remember if it was netflix or hard drive video I/we was/were watching. No shut down, an immediate off and reboot.
It has been unseasonably warm here and this computer usually stays on 24/7 so I reckoned it was probably overheating. I cleared the area around it a bit better (some DVD cases had migrated closer to it than I had ever intended them too) and propped up the front edge of the case with a lego technic beam to let air get under the case and cool it better.I also positioned the living room fan to blow at the case.
Things got much worse. Instead of rebooting once or twice a day, it started to reboot 5-6 times a day.
My google-fu suggested that random reboots could be caused by RAM that needs to be reseated. So the next day before I went to work I opened up the case, dismounted the PSU, and flipped it up out of the way (mini ITX, everything is in the way of everything), carefully removed and reseated the RAM, reassembled the computer, and threw the switch.
Nothing happened. What. the. hell. No BIOS no anything, check power connection, check power bar, everything looks fine.
"maybe I accidentally disconnected the power switch while reseating the RAM", open up the computer again, connector looks fine, but I guess I may as well reseat the switch connector while I've got everything open. TRAP SPRUNG. That connector which combines power switch, power light, HDD light, is actually 3 connectors and now you can't tell which ones go on which pins. Time to leave for work.
Get home, 12 hours later, guesstimate which pins power switch connector should be on, re-assemble computer (no screws yet).
It works. ~48 hours no problems.
What's going on?
Overheating? (weird that it would reboot and not just shutdown and stay off, and that improving airflow aggravated the problem)
RAM? (maybe tilting the computer back on that lego brick worsened the problem because it put a non perpendicular load on the chip?)
PSU? (maybe tilting the computer back on that lego brick worsened the problem because a fan was not resting on its bearing properly?)
Any thoughts/experiences appreciated. Although frankly I'm skeptical this will ever be thoroughly explained.
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[–] pfroo40 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Does it have a standard ATX PSU or one of the tiny ones for small mini ITX cases? The smaller PSUs are notoriously bad... It could be heat related, otherwise. Your bios should have some thermal monitoring for the processor at least. What is it running at? Is it an integrated CPU, or socket with separate HSF? If it's separate, it's possible the heatsink isn't seated well. Did you use thermal paste, or thermal grease?
[–] Modarn [S] ago
update: So this weekend I went to rearrange the components to improve airflow. I was not successful (thing's didn't fit the way I'd hoped) but in the process I noticed that the MOBO power connector wasn't fully inserted/clipped. I think this explains all the symptoms, as every time I've had to open the case, I also had to dismount the PSU I would have been slightly shifting the positioning of the cable, giving it better or worse connections, which would be more or less susceptible to disruption.
[–] Modarn [S] ago
it doesn't have a full size psu. same sort of aspect ratio as ATX but a bit smaller. It's an i3 not overclocked cpu, with a stock fan, I put it on myself but it already had a thermal paste (or something) applied. it's running ubuntu, so I can use 'sensors' to get temps, I don't recall what the labels are, but the first two temps are (now) 28-29 ish and the next three are mid 40's, although I do recall seeing them up at 60. high temp threshold set at 85, critical at 100.