Fixed my random shutdowns after I took my PC to a LAN party in Detroit

Last month I went to a LAN party at a friend's place in Detroit. My PC kept shutting down randomly after 20 minutes of gaming. I thought it was driver issues or a bad PSU. Turned out my CPU cooler was mounted wrong and the thermal paste was barely making contact. I repasted it on a folding table there and it ran stable for 4 hours straight. Has anyone else found a weird fix like this after moving your rig somewhere unexpected?

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2 Comments

ninas702mo ago

That thermal paste thing is a classic road trip fix. But just to be picky, Detroit has a lot of dust and old buildings. Could also be your PSU was getting choked on dust from the drive over. I had a friend whose rig kept crashing at a LAN in a basement and it was just the intake fan caked with carpet fuzz. Repasting works but checking your air filters after moving a tower is usually a better first step. You might have fixed a symptom instead of the root cause.

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the_anthony2mo ago

Bet you'd still be crashing if you didn't repaste though.

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