a picky power supply

[MichaelZ]

If anyone has any ideas why something like the below happens, any advice is appreachiated.

I just got an enermax 470W noisetaker. it worked fine for a couple of days and then suddenly this happened...

I go to turn my comp on one night and it turned on for a split second and turned off. I was thinking surely it didn't burn out. After some fiddling, I've located the problem. My Aerogate II. (P.S. The Aerogate II is a rheobus by Coolermaster and it's essential as I use it to control all the fans in my case and reduce the noise)

I tested it with nothing plugged in except the motherboard and the Aerogate II. Pressed the power button and it just will not boot up. I thought I had a buggy aerogate so I went to work and picked up a spare Aerogate II we had lying around and tested that brand new one. Exact same thing happened. Split second boot up and a safety shut down.

The computer boots up just fine with ANYTHING else plugged in, I even tried extra hard disks and fans just to see if there is a lack of power or some fault. There is absolutly nothing wrong with the Aerogates I tried, they both work in my spare system. The Enermax simply refuses to boot with that part plugged in.

Ok, now what the hell is going on here? It worked for a few days no problems then suddenly it decides not to boot now when this rheobus is plugged in...

 

[HippyWarlock]

Seeing as no-one else has answered, here's my tuppenceworth....

Maybe the extra component is drawing just that bit too much power on startup. As startup is Max-Amp time, due to Flemings Left Hand Motor stuff, can you not either increase your PSU rating or maybe put some type of delay on the Rheo-wotsit - a few seconds should be enough.

I know you put extra fans in to test the PSU was capable but it all depends on how the Rheo(sounds like rheostat?)wotsit pulls power from the PSU. The other PC maybe worked as it had a bigger safety margin twixt Rated Power and Power drawn by the system.

btw 2 Identical PSU's can have quite different tolerances - spesh' the cheapo ones.

HTH

WooHooo my second Post (let's see if this one screws up)

 

[MichaelZ]

Ah exactly what i was thinking, but not quite...

I tried to turn it on without anything plugged in except the motherboard, the ti4200 and the aerogate. Unplugged all the opical drives, the hard disks and even the 56k modem. The exact same thing. So... that pretty much rules out going over the saftey tolerance. There's hardly anything that draws power