I crashed my desktop so hard the reset button didn't work. That's probably not a good sign
It crashed again, I rebooted, it got to the login screen, and I typed nearly 6 letters of my password before it crashed again. Uh oh
So I have reason to suspect the case is fucky (grounding problems with the USB), and this feels like either a motherboard or cpu problem.
The cpu is like 5 years old, the motherboard only 2.
Could also, in theory, be ram?
So I'll need to memtest it, and also try watching the temperatures while it runs. I've never had cooling problems before, but the way it kept getting worse when I rebooted it smells like cooling.
@foone Hope it does better than my Thinkpad... Opened it a week ago to a BSOD, and now it won't boot into hardware diagnostics, though I sometimes get BIOS.
@foone
The most common failures are power supply and ram, followed by CPU, and finally motherboard. Motherboard failures are typically damaged components.
A damaged power supply would have a similar signature to what you're seeing. Damaged motherboard typically results in the board not booting at all (you'd never make it to a login screen). Same with CPU.
(I spent years repairing motherboard engineering samples)
@foone last time I had an issue that had mostly similar symptoms it was indeed the RAM.
@foone I had literally this exact problem and it was a failing cooling system. Once I replaced the water cooler unit, everything worked again
@foone I had a desktop PC that spontaneously powered off when it got a bit cold (~65F, not that cold). After fearing all sorts of dire and expensive problem sources, it turned out to be the case front panel, and disconnecting everything solved it.
(I set the PC to 'always power on when power comes back' and got a little power button on a cable, just in case. Fortunately I didn't use the other front panel stuff, although much of it is probably safe.)
@mia this is a water cooled system but the temperatures didn't look that bad when I checked them. I'll have to look more into that
@stephlahs certainly possible! I haven't changed the PSU in a while, so if it's glitching and crashing my motherboard, it'd explain a lot