Bad power supply?

[Kenrou]

So yeah, my computer reboots itself after running from within 5-10 minutes. I guess I should give a little history of the problems of my computer... like 6 months or so ago, I tried putting in a 4th hdd into my computer. It didn't like it for some reason. It kept rebooting. So I removed it and it was running happily ever since, until I moved to my new house. I started having the same problems again. So I disconnected my 2 extra hdds, and it ran fine... until last night. Last night, I tried connecting one of my other hdds to retrieve some data, and after retrieving the data, low and behold, my computer rebooted itself. So I disconnected my extra hdd, and it still reboots itself. I disconnected my DVD drives, still reboots. This morning, when I was fiddling around with it more, I even got a winlogin application error when it was trying to bring up the password prompt for winxp. When I hit OK, the computer rebooted again... And then it ran fine... But then that's when I gave up and went to work.

So I'm thinking... bad Power Supply?

Keep in mind, I've left my computer on for over a month or so and have been playing Final Fantasy 11 without any crashes, etc. So I don't think it's my RAM...

It might also be my MOBO... Meh... Anyone's thoughts?

 

[DetroitSportsFan]

Post your voltages from all 3 power rails ..... and your vCORE voltage. That should give us insight. It could very well be dying PSU! Or a PSU thats getting clogged up with dust/animal hair and such. Dust/gunk is a "wonderful" insulator and can easily contribute to an overheating PSU .... which will reboot/shut your system off.

 

[Kenrou]

Its an Antec 500 (or 550?) volt PSU... Although, I'm at work right now, so I can't verify. But it's a pretty good PSU (or so I was told). To come to think of it, I had problems of rebooting before, but it was because my GFX and CPU heat sink were full of dust. I'll try cleaning out my PSU fan when I come home tonight.

 

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally posted by: Kenrou
Its an Antec 500 (or 550?) volt PSU... Although, I'm at work right now, so I can't verify. But it's a pretty good PSU (or so I was told). To come to think of it, I had problems of rebooting before, but it was because my GFX and CPU heat sink were full of dust. I'll try cleaning out my PSU fan when I come home tonight.

While you're cleaning .... might as well clean your GFX and CPU heatsink too. One word of caution about the PSU though .... if its still under waranty, you'll void it by taking its case off. They all come with a sticker that says "void if removed or damaged." They also say "no user servicable parts inside." However, I've replaced fans in power supplies, cleaned them, etc .... so thats just to scare you into not taking it apart. Still, if there's still a warranty on it .... use the warranty instead of taking it apart.


EDIT: ANTECs have a great reputation but that doesn't mean there's never a bad one in the bunch.

 

[Kenrou]

Okay, I cleaned out my 550 volt psu, gfx card, and heatsinks, and it still rebooted itself after like 10 minutes. So I went out and bought a new antec 400 volt psu. I installed it and blam same problem... reboots itself after 10 minutes. Now I'm thinking it might actually be the power running into my room. I vacuumed my room earlier today and left the vacuum in the socket, when I came home, I tried hitting the power button... it wouldn't turn on. I had to take out the plug and replug. Bad power? I tried plugging in my computer into the same power strip that my laptop uses. My laptop has been running fine without any problems. So has my TV.

I'm crossing my fingers that this works. If it doesn't, I'm going to have to do some testing at my old house, because my computer was fine there. If it's still messed up.... I think it might be something worse... mobo or harddrive problems I'm guessing... *sad*

 

[Kenrou]

Well it still reboots itself when i plug it into a different strip....

 

[beltani]

Are you sure it's not a heat issue? What's your cooling setup look like?

 

[Kenrou]

I have 4 fans attached to the computer, 1 directly to the harddrives, 1 in the front, and 2 in the back. The heat sink on my processor... i dont remember unfortunately.. and i cant seem to find the receipt or box and stuff for it...

I also leave my case open... it maybe a heating problem I guess, but I have had my computer on for like over a month... and just when I shut it down to turn on another harddrive, it just goes crazy on me.

This isn't the first time it has gone crazy on me. First time it was because there was too much dust on my processor heat sink... but cleaning fixed that. And since I moved to this new house, the condition of my computer seemed to have worsened...

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP. It has this DPS2 thing... Dual Power System. I remember I ran my computer without realizing that it had fallen out before... So I'm testing my computer without it in it. Let's see what happens..

 

[Kenrou]

Oh yeah, I did a total disk check on my system harddrive, and it still reboots. I tried installing winxp on a small 15 gig hhd I have but it gave me NTHDR is missing errors when trying to boot xp off cd... So I scrapped that idea for now....

 

[Kenrou]

OMG I think taking out the DPS2 fixed it... I think I also have Corsair memory. It was just **** luck too... http://www.motherboard-forum.c...thout_dsp2__43377.html I just found this site...

I'm in my video game and running around A-ok! But it's still a little too early to tell but so far so good.

 

[Kenrou]

Yup, I left my game over night with all my HDDs connected, and it didn't reboot once. Seems that the DSP2 was the problem the whole time.