Christmas weekend not good time to have computer issues

Mine was making odd noises and shut itself off. I took to a local shop. they said all it needed was a good cleaning, But it still shuts off. But since it was the holiday weekend they can't work on it again until Tuesday (tomorrow). Its okay just reading and posting on forums but I can't play games or run videos cause that shut it down. I hope its just the power supply going bad because anything else will cost more to replace (ie graphics card, mother board, hard drive).

The processor will shut down in self defense if it gets too hot. So if a fan isn't working or the heat sink has come loose from the processor and isn't making sufficient contact, the computer is apt to shut down.

There could also be a problem with the fan on the video card, causing that to overheat.

There could be an problem with the power supply, though power supply problems are often seen at boot, when components are being initialized. Your problems seem to happen after the computer has been running, when it's working extra hard. That it shuts down when playing videos suggests it's a heat-related problem.

If you want, and assuming it's a desktop, you can open the case and check that all fans are working, including fans on the video card and processor. Be sure to ground yourself on the case before touching the insides of the computer.

Hope it's a simple fix... and thank you for the reminder to get out my little compressor and clean mine out today. It is in dire need.

If you had power supply issues , I doubt you would even get it past boot . The fact that you can't do anything video intensive , says your problem is either video or cpu related . As has been suggested , if you have a desktop , open the side before you start up , & watch both the cpu & gpu fans , see if they work . Video is easiest , & the least expensive , to replace . As a general recommendation , I'd go ahead & have the cpu fan replaced .

The place I took it to thought it was the graphics card and ordered me a new one, but when the PC shut down again they concluded it was actually the power supply. The tech did say it was odd. But without a graphics card the computer ran fine, but even with the new graphics card it shut down. So they replaced the power supply and put back the old card and let it run for a couple hours.

I agree that its most likely a heat problem due to a fan problem (includes power supply). Being mechanical gadgets, they do wear out and start making noise. I'd try downloading and installing CPUID HWMonitor. Its free and will give you a lot of useful info on temperatures and voltages and other stuff.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Albert