Computer randomly dying
Computer randomly dying
Thanks for checking the thread, any assistance is appreciated! My computer after 3 years in service starts to randomly die when the system is loaded. I have my own workstation that is physically separated from me (stationed at my parents on the other side of the country). Systems contains Ryzen 9 5950x on B550 Aorus Elite. Last week after connecting to it via SSH it randomly decided to die on me. After some time, the computer just randomly turns off (or rather freezes?). It seems that the motherboard is still powered (RGB lights on the water cooler together with the mobo light). When the monitor is plugged there is no visual output. After powering it down My friend was able to clear the CMOS, which solved the problem and the system booted up. Unfortunately, after boot problem still persisted and there was a need for another round of clearing the CMOS. This is unacceptable and to be honest problematic as the computer contains the data that I need to show at the conference next month. I decided to take care of the problem myself but do not know where to start. There was a particular situation in the past where I spilled liquid metal on the motherboard which I believe could impact the motherboard (it was 3 years ago). As the system worked flawlessly for 3 years I believe that some part of the PC just died on me and needs replacement (I suspect the motherboard). I would really appreciate any suggestions on what might be the cause for those problems and which part can be problematic.
Liquid metal is quite powerful and mishandling it can cause problems. Electronics often fail unpredictably, so clearing the CMOS might help temporarily. However, since data is critical, it’s better to store it securely and investigate if possible. If you can, switching the motherboard could be a practical first step.
Overheating or faulty hardware might be the cause. Past spills of liquid metal could have slowly damaged traces or a capacitor if not fully cleaned, though problems typically appear long before three years. Monitor temperatures and proceed accordingly. If readings are normal, replacing the motherboard seems a reliable solution.
I checked the temperature readings but it doesn’t seem to be the main problem. In fact, the computer stopped working right after the single day-long computation that ran at full processor capacity. I believed this caused the issue (usually systems are water-cooled, so I thought refilling might help), but later discovered it failed in idle mode. The second failure happened during the backup process. Using liquid metal was definitely a mistake, thankfully everything has been functioning properly since then.