Alienware X51 R2 Shutting off and restarting.

[Xaithia]

Since I received this desktop this has been an on and off issues.I bought it brand new. Past two months its 3-5 times a night. A night I mean between 5-11 pm. I play Runescape. Might hit eBay, FB or some other sight. It crashes turns off thinks about restarting. I have to pull the plug wait and then plug it back in. I have replaced hard drive, video card. I have looked into the event viewer and seen this every day 3-5 times since new harddrive kernel - power event id 41 critical 018 task category 63. Would this constant problem be from power supply unit? The power cords are fitted tight. And I have changed from back power units to power strips now to see if that is the problem. I am at 600 for a company to keep looking at this rig and not getting anything fixed. TIA

 

[MURRARI]

Have you tried reseating the RAM and/or CPU?

 

[Fil86ed]

Mine just started doing this last week and today it powered itself off mid game in Battlefront II and now won't turn back on; I'm running on the assumption that the PSU has just died. I'm trying to figure out how to switch it out, which is why i have just joined the forum today.

 

[Parmageddon]

I'm getting this problem too, event logger showing Kernel Power. Though in my case it was happening even when just idling on desktop. Here's what i've done so far to "try and fix it"

Limited CPU (i7 4xxx) to 90% via Control Panel > Power Settings > Advanced Power Settings
Limited GPU (760OEM) to 85% via MSI afterburner
Opened the case, removed Blu Ray drive.
Also whilst in case, reseated RAM, CPU, GPU, checked ALL Cables were secure.
Held Down power button for 20 seconds without PSU plugged in (to drain the system)
Setup CoreTemp and OpenHardware Monitor to log CPU and GPU temps & load so I can see their behaviour should it happen again.

Since doing this, i've been running Prime 95 and 3dMark as stress tests and no restarts yet.....Fingers crossed one of those things fixed it. If NOT then I suspect its either a faulty PSU, OR Faulty PowerBoard, OR Faulty Motherboard. OR could be that im still on Bios A02, which is very old.

Interested in seeing how you get on.

 

[Xaithia]

Good morning, The Ram and CPU have been reseatted numerous times. I have core temp on the comp and the temp never went hot. It always stayed normal. I dropped the tower off at a place who repairs computers and such. The intern had been playing Steam and within 4 hours of playing it shut off on them. And it happened a few times for the intern. The problem was the current video card Alien/ Dell had in it kept having memory dumps. The company switched to a different (new video card) and knocking on wood that problem has stopped. Now I am having issues of it not always wanting to turn on. Thanks again!

 

[Parmageddon]

Interesting - what was the original video card, and how did they diagnose that this was the problem?

 

[Xaithia]

New video NVIDIA GeForce GT 730Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
Old video NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Ti with 2G GDDR5

 

[MURRARI]

The GPU might need reballed or new thermal paste. Could be overheating, have you done any thermal testing?

 

[Gromz]

I have a area 51 R2 which is just over 1 year old and for the past 1-2 months I have been getting this exact same issue but not as often. Its event 41 a Kernal Power failure. I have done a lot of research and tried all basic things except reseating the ram and cpu but have done all the tests. It happens like 1 time every 1-2 weeks. I havent changed nothing in long time except windows updates and driver updates. From my research it is said that it is almost always a bad or faulty power supply.. The problem I have is I do not want to ever buy Alienware again and I do not want to buy another stupid Dell psu and want to buy EVGA or Corsair or something. The thing is it doesnt appear to be a normal PSU its all like 6-8 pins modular. Nothing normal about Alienware psu. I would obviously have to change out all cords which is not a problem I just still do not know if it would work or is indeed the problem.. Alienware pc is so abnormal its just stupid.. Its got a weird cord setup...

 

[Xaithia]

My problem was based on the original video card that Dell/Alien used. You will have to forgive me I forget what it was. I would have to look at the original info for the rig. If I recall the memory on the video card was bad. And I must add that this was the second video card for my rig. Oringal video card went That had to do with all the times the computer would shut off.It was assumed it was because it overheated from me failing to clean the video cards fan. Then failed to restart. Replaced with the same one. When playing a game it would just freeze and shut off. And then it would restart or try to restart. The person who helped me with this also thought power cord. But he played Steam steady and it crashed. Through a week of him playing Steam he reproduced the problem. He stated Memory on video card was the issue.

 

[SWAT_Glock]

Really sounds like components were overheating. I remember reading a leaked AW internal memo about heat issues. Could be a reason why they discontinued it. I had the X51R2 and that thing was a heat box and sounded like a jet taking off.