Windows 7 - Power problem

I am having a power problem with 32 bit windows 7 pc. It shuts off randomly and when I check the event log it says error 41 I was looking on the back of my pc and saw a little slide button that says 115v-220v. I know 115v is standard house voltage. would it hurt my pc if I changed it to 220v? and would it increase my wattage output?

Hiya and welcome to the forums

DO NOT CHANGE THE VOLTAGE !!!! It could blow up

all i needed to hear. thank you

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I'm not 100% certain of that, but my instinctive reaction is: bullsh!t.

The power switch is to choose between the power standard used in the US (110V) and that used in a lot of the rest of the world (220V).

If you changed that switch to 220 (in the US), it would reduce the internal voltage in the PSU by half. Whether or not it damaged anything, it wouldn't help.

If you could contrive to find a cable to connect it to 220V while leaving the switch at 110, I wouldn't be surprised if something disastrous happened.

Some of the more elegant PSUs don't have that switch; they automatically set themselves to accept any wall voltage over a broad range (90-250 V).

Believe me pal I've seen a couple blow first hand ... not like an explosion or nothing but a serious loud bang and a techie that needed to change his underwear, we had one customer who changed the voltage (he wanted to see what the little red slider did ) not only did he fry his PSU but also his motherboard

I had this problem once before during the summer. I thought the PSU was bad so I bought another one but it kept doing it. I moved to another house and it stopped. Now its back again. Do you think the heat outside is affecting the power lines therefore affecting my PC?

I believe you. But you're in the UK (220V). Moving the slider to 110 sounds like a bad idea.

In the US, with 110V mains, I doubt that moving the slider to 220 would be spectacular. I admit that I don't really know what's in your average switching PSU.

Most PSUs are supposed to operate within spec over some range of input voltage. Maybe 100-240V, 50-60Hz. Is your AC power dropping below 100V?

Are you up-to-date on Windows 7 patches? SP1 and follow-up patches? If not I would do that first. It is possible it is your power supply - DELL uses low-end supplies and typically under-power the system, but in my experience with them they have never dropped power.