[Wall Socket] Was unable to give electricity to PC

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Hello!

My PC went into sleep mode today, and turned itself off. At first i thought something major had broken because the PC wouldn't turn on anymore. Then i took the Power Supply cord and removed it from a wall socket to then put it in a extension cord. It worked again. I am not 100% sure what the start up sequence of my PC is but i could swear it was different this time.

Coupled with this i have had a lot of Firefox freezes, and the fan in the ceiling of the case makes a lot more noise, which it did not when it was new. I also had to install a new Adobe flash player update today and i felt it was kind of suspicious, i also could not scan this update file because it was protected. (Which i read is normal for these kind of things) Last to mention is i had the idea i was infected with some kind of virus because i had occasional popups of "Scorecard Research" which many sources at Google tell me is a malicious program/browser hijacker.

Is there anyone here with knowledge of wall sockets, or know any reasonable explanation for what happened? Something must have gone very wrong if the PC turns itself off. I tried putting a hair dryer into that socket and it worked just fine. That's why i suspect the fault lies in the PC itself. Thanks a lot!

P.S. Meanwhile the wall socket works again but Firefox is tripping. Very frequent crashing, when i restarted the PC and clicked on Firefox it opened 8 pages, 3 or 4 of which were pages i visited some minutes before. Oh and i don't have the latest Firefox version because it wasn't compatible with a addon, but i will try the newer one. For now i am most worried about the shutdown though.

Have you tried plugging another appliance into that wall socket. If it works, the problem is not with the socket, but with your computer OR there could be an intermittent break in the power cord. Try booting your computer up on battery only.

ruveyn

I did, a hair dryer and it worked. Meanwhile the PC works with the socket again. I was really gobsmacked because i had never encountered this before, so even now that part of my problem is fixed i would still love to know what caused this and how to prevent it. I tried Google and i read about the intermittent thing but its hard to make sense of, perhaps this was it. What do you mean booting up on battery only?

It may still have to do with the socket itself. Something loose or whatever. I have a similar problem, and I know the source of the problem in my case. Just can't be bothered with getting it fixed.

Could be the receptacle or the line itself could be shorting out. PCs will sometimes act real funny if there is an interruption in power. How many other devices are on that circuit?

IF other appliances perform normally, then id start looking at the power supply, if this is a desktop.. if its a lappy,, see if it works okay on battery,, it sounds like either overheating or a ps issue.

3 or 4 things, but they did not lose power because then my clock would have reset. For some reason my PC was the only thing hit. Then i tried a hair dryer and no problems there. Overheating is possible.. i do suspect to have a faulty top case fan. But every time since purchase i put my hand on the case, it's always cold. Even after intense gaming, that means something must be working well.

It's a desktop PC, i'm not sure you can put that on a battery Anyway it would not say anything because my PC always worked except this was the first time it shut down by itself. It has worked fine since it happened fortunately.

When i bought the PC many people recommended me to to take a cheaper lower voltage power supply. However i read about this kind of thing and i wanted to make sure i had good stuff so i bought a nice one. A Seasonic "S12 II Bronze" 520W, i think that it's sufficient

If your still having problems with he outlet you can purchase a "Plug Tester" for around $10 US from any hardware store (or online). they have 3 lights and the combination they light up will give you a good idea if the outlet is functioning properly or not. They're no replacement for a good multi-meter but, electricians use these to quickly test and trouble shoot outlets all the time.

Its sounds like by switching plugs you just hard rebooted your PC.
It is possible you have a wall receptacle that is loose and not making a good connection with your plug. Changing the wall receptacle is easy but probably not your problem.

Its ether hardware or a software problem. The easy fix for software - do a clean install of your OS and reload your apps. By your description you have problems in this area.

Check your CPU heat sink and clean out built up dust.

What kind of PC - brand and model.
OS?
How much memory?
Space on hard drive?

Best way to test for a bad power supply is to replace it with a different power supply. A broken fan would be unrelated. Could also have memory issues, which you can test for. What other components are installed in your PC? You could be drawing too much power from the power supply. Though the firefox issues would probably be unrelated.

Sounds like an intermittant flaw. Damn! I hat intermittant faults.

ruveyn

Thanks i will keep that in mind.



I did not do a hard reboot, the PC was on when i left, and off when i came back. I tried multiple times to start it with the start button but it did not work even though it was connected to the wall. I don't understand how moving the plug from the wall to a extension cord would reboot my PC even though it was already off. I am doubtful about putting the blame on the wall socket. It has always worked like a charm, and even after the shutdown it seems thing are back to normal.

I am not a expert on computers but i have been wanting to reinstall my OS. I am a avid cleaner and organizer when it comes about my PC, to the untrained eye it might seem like there is nothing wrong but there probably is. I do have the occasional problem with software, but not often.

CPU heat sink? I assume you simply mean the temperature of the CPU? When do i need to measure this? While i play games, hear increased noise from the case, end of a day or start? Yes, i should clean out the dust again, but i am really scared of breaking something. I usually blow the dust out of the case with my mouth and finish with a very thin paint brush, do you think even a soft paintbrush could damage some parts?

My PC is basically made of loose components, so i can't give a name or model.

Video Card : AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 1GB memory
Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 32 bit
Processor : AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 960T 30000 MHZ 4 Cores
Power Supply : Seasonic "S12 II Bronze" 520W
RAM : Corsair 4GB DDR3
Case :Antec Two Hundred
Memory : 260gb free out of 465gb
OS : Windows 7



It is something to consider. Is it safe though? I can't remember why but i see this as very dangerous, i think it was because of some past experiences. I definitely have memory issues, countless of crashes saying "Not enough memory allocated", "The PC has run out memory" even a blue screen saying something about dumping memory. I could post the screen here if it would help.

What do you mean with other components? I think i have the bare minimum for a working PC.

Ruveyn, perhaps it's just a plain old intermittent fault then, i sure hope so