Motherboard problem?

[Monty]

Stu, unplug everything you can possibly unplug - fans, sata cables, usb devices, all of it - have only your keyboard and screen attached, see if you can get in to bios.

If you can, try running Mem test or another stability test from a memory stick and see if that runs sans issues.
If it does, keep adding things until it shuts down again.

Oh, and try different ram slots

[StarBound]

Ram slots or sticks should keep the system off for an hour or so?

[Monty]

Ram slots or sticks should keep the system off for an hour or so?

I had to RMA my board as one of the slots was faulty - with a stick of ram in it, board wouldn't boot half the time, the other half it would crash after a while.

[StarBound]

The wonders of a console, if something doesnt work you take it back and don't ask questions

Had an incident where my one ram stick had a fault on it but would only pop a problem every now and then.

[THE_STIG]

The wonders of a console, if something doesnt work you take it back and don't ask questions

consoles That is true but where is the fun in that, you cant upgrade or compare specs with friends....all consoles are just the same old boring plastic boxes

Ram slots or sticks should keep the system off for an hour or so?

I had to RMA my board as one of the slots was faulty - with a stick of ram in it, board wouldn't boot half the time, the other half it would crash after a while.

mmmm, you might have a point there. But you will sill have to get a new mobo either way

[Sojourn]

The wonders of a console, if something doesnt work you take it back and don't ask questions

[Sojourn]

At this point I would just swap out or replace the mobo.
Seems the next logical step.

[SykomantiS]

Stu, I think I found your problem

[Stuart]

Ram slots or sticks should keep the system off for an hour or so?

Would faulty RAM cause a shutdown? Doesn't it normally just reboot?

For what it's worth, here's the screenshot of HW Monitor after the machine ran successfully for several hours yesterday.

[Stuart]

Stu, I think I found your problem

Oh, are you supposed to REMOVE that plastic?

[Ron2K]

I'm late into this thread (I'm only around when I get a mail notification about posts in the forum complaints/comments/suggestion areas and the mod lounge), but I'll throw my two cents worth anyway. (Disclaimer: I have only read the original post in any depth; while I've only briefly parsed through the replies, they do echo the points that I am about to make.)

The problem description in the original posts is remarkably consistent with prior experiences of motherboard shorting or a hairline fracture somewhere on the board. The only thing that doesn't really make sense to me is the time window being experienced -- six hours is way too long; these sorts of problem typically manifest themselves around 20-30 minutes after a cold boot. That being said, the rest is entirely consistent with the typical symptoms, especially the stated fact that rebooting doesn't solve the problem whereas a prolonged power-down does.

I think we can discount overheating, because that would either happen a lot sooner, or when the system is under significantly higher load. None of those appear to be the case (especially given that the machine crashed when left idling overnight).

My best advice would be to get the suppliers to test it, and replace it under warranty if it indeed turns out to be broken. I will be extremely surprised if it turns out not to be the motherboard though.

[Stuart]

I plan to take it to Rectron on Tuesday (unless Rectron's support/warranty place in open on a Saturday morning--anyone?). I just hope they test it thoroughly enough to determine if there is, in fact, a problem.

[SykomantiS]

One of my colleagues tells me Rectron is not open on a Saturday.

[Stuart]

One of my colleagues tells me Rectron is not open on a Saturday.

Ah, didn't think so. Thanks for confirming.

[Stuart]

STIG also touched on the issue of PSUs switching off and putting themselves into protection mode, in protection mode the PSU disconnects itself from the AC input, to reset to normal operation you have to unplug the AC for about 30 seconds.

This.

It switched off on me on Friday around noon. I left it till last night and it still wouldn't start. Left it till this afternoon and it was still dead. Unplugged the PSU for 30 seconds and tried starting thereafter and, voila, joy first time.

[Stuart]

Motherboard tested and replaced by Rectron.

Sweet.

[SykomantiS]

Cool.
Did they say what caused the problems?

[Stuart]

No, they didn't. And I didn't ask.

[CapNemo]

So you followed the console way as described by SB?

[Stuart]

Purdy much.

[StarBound]

Looks like Stuart is back on-board.