Antec TruPower 430 causing major system problems

[dukdukgoos]

The supposedly high quality Antec TruPower 430 PSU is making my life miserable. When running my Seagate 200gb drive and Radeon 9500 at the same time the HD continually shuts down and starts up, causing extreme system instability. I switched the Radeon out for an old Ti200 I had lying around and the problem stopped.

I'm thinking the Antec isn't delivering enough power for both the vid card and the HD; the Ti200 uses less power so it's working ok. Note that the 430 worked fine with the Radeon for about a year; it's only recently started to develop this problem.

Should I return the power supply? Is it perhaps a problem with the Radeon? Anyone else had problems with TruPower 430s not delivering enough power?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I bet you either have a defective PSU, a defective mobo (overvolting the agp slot perhaps?), or a defective video card (drawing too much power?).

Do you have a multimeter?

 

[dukdukgoos]

No multimeter. Motherboard is pretty old (EPOX 8KHA+), so it going bad could be a possibility. I first a thought it was the HD, but the problem persistent after swaping in a spare 120gb WD drive.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Your link indicates you softmodded the 9500 to a 9700 - any chance something somewhere went wrong when you did that?

 

[imported_Kensai]

You should buy a multimeter. It's the most useful thing in the world for PSU chekcing and it's only like 20$.

 

[dukdukgoos]

The softmod has been in place since I bought the card; it's all been working fine for over a year before the problems starting happing, so something must have gone bad, either the power supply, video card, or MB.

Using SpeedFan to check my power setting I get the following:
+3.3V: 1.54V
+5V: 4.57V
+12V: 11.86V

 

[dukdukgoos]

Well, now I'm getting the same HD shut down/start up behavior now with the ti200, although not as bad as with the Radeon 9500, so it's gotta be the PSU or maybe the MB. Interestingly, the problem is much worse after I shut down the computer for a while and do a cold restart; if I leave the computer on 24x7 it's less of an issue.

Very weird...time for a system upgrade anyway.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: Kensai
You should buy a multimeter. It's the most useful thing in the world for PSU chekcing and it's only like 20$.

 

[Nexworks]

My Antec 430W was defective. The 3.3v rail was doing 2.9 to 3.0

 

[FlyingPenguin]

5 volt rail seems very low. It should be no lower than 4.75 volts (5%). That's unacceptable if it's accurate. Either a defective PSU or something is loading down the 5 volt line.

Onboard voltage indicators are also notoriously unreliable. You should buy a digital multimeter at Radio Shack.

Disconnect EVERYTHING From the PSU except the mobo, turn on the computer and check the 5 volt rail with a multimeter (measure acrosss the black and red leads on any spare HDD power connector). If it's still under 4.75 volts send it back.

I swear by Antec, but anybody can make a few lemons.

I've also come across a lot of Epox mobos lately with bad capacitors. See if you have any bulging or leaking capacitors (the tall ones near the CPU). Some examples here: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195

Hope this helps...

 

[Reapsy00]

Using SpeedFan to check my power setting I get the following:
+3.3V: 1.54V <------ That seems very low to me if it is accurate
+5V: 4.57V
+12V: 11.86V
[/quote]


I would suggest not using your pc until you get another power supply incase you damage something.

 

[rhawk79]

Originally posted by: Reapsy00

Using SpeedFan to check my power setting I get the following:
+3.3V: 1.54V <------ That seems very low to me if it is accurate
+5V: 4.57V
+12V: 11.86V

I would suggest not using your pc until you get another power supply incase you damage something.[/quote]

agreed. he should try a high quality homemade psu made by "Bob's power supplies."