Maintenance, Repair & Operations

Electrical Troubleshooting Quiz — Sept. 3, 2019

Sept. 3, 2019

How to solve for random process line shutdowns

A complicated process line has been experiencing random shutdowns late in the afternoon, often several times a week. It relies on a desktop PC, which was replaced in an attempt to solve this problem because the PC was experiencing Blue Screen of Death and random reboots. The replacement PC is doing the same thing.

After being left on the branch circuit for a week, a portable power analyzer showed no significant anomalies.

How would you solve this problem?

This is almost certainly heat-related, the biggest clue being the time of day. Do the following:

Clean/replace the air filters on the control cabinet that houses the PC.
Add intake fans to the control cabinet (blowing air in removes heat more effectively than blowing air out).
Replace the RAM (it's probably damaged), choosing RAM with large dissipaters.
Add as many 120mm cooling fans to the PC case as you can.
Use the motherboard's admin UI to set the fan speed control to “performance”. This will keep fan speed ahead of the heat curve.
Ensure any hard drives are SSD; the older Winchester technology generates far more heat.
Replace the video card with a gaming quality card; these have massive heat handling ability. If there is no card, the motherboard is doing too much work.

About the Author

Mark Lamendola

Mark is an expert in maintenance management, having racked up an impressive track record during his time working in the field. He also has extensive knowledge of, and practical expertise with, the National Electrical Code (NEC). Through his consulting business, he provides articles and training materials on electrical topics, specializing in making difficult subjects easy to understand and focusing on the practical aspects of electrical work.

Prior to starting his own business, Mark served as the Technical Editor on EC&M for six years, worked three years in nuclear maintenance, six years as a contract project engineer/project manager, three years as a systems engineer, and three years in plant maintenance management.

Mark earned an AAS degree from Rock Valley College, a BSEET from Columbia Pacific University, and an MBA from Lake Erie College. He’s also completed several related certifications over the years and even was formerly licensed as a Master Electrician. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and past Chairman of the Kansas City Chapters of both the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Mark also served as the program director for, a board member of, and webmaster of, the Midwest Chapter of the 7x24 Exchange. He has also held memberships with the following organizations: NETA, NFPA, International Association of Webmasters, and Institute of Certified Professional Managers.