Cold boots and Random Reboots equal bad PSU?

karl26

Member
Apr 13, 2003
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I am having a problem with my Intel I865PE motherboard. It has cold boot and random reboot problems. I tested the memory and it was fine. I have checked everything in my system and it all seems fine. I'm thinking my power supply doesn't have enough power to start my system from a cold boot, is a Antec Truepower 430 watt PSU good enough for these system specs:

P4 2.8C
1024 Corsair XMS PC 3200 Ram
Radeon 9800 Pro
Intel I865 PERL Motherboard
Audigy 2 sound card
Lite on 52X CDRW Drive
2 Vantec Stealth 120 mm Fans (Which are plugged into the MB)
Western Digital 40 Gig 7200 RPM 8 mb cache hard drive
Coolermaster Silent Heat sink fan
Logitech MX500 USB mouse
Logitech USB Keyboard
Sony 19 inch E400 monitor

I'm wondering if I need a 550 watt PSU, and if so either a Antec or Enermax. Any ideas?

Thanks, Falcon26
 

Buz2b

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2001
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No experience with your particular board but I can tell you that your PSU is probably not the cause of your trouble: it has enough power. That is, if you are saying that your current PSU is the Antec 430. The only way it might be connected would be if it was defective or not producing the kind of power it is supposed to.
When you say "cold boot" problem, are you saying that it sometimes won't boot properly when cold? Does it start to boot and then restart? Details on the exact behaviour and what methods you have used to test your hardware might help others assist you.
 

DAVIDS

Member
Aug 17, 2003
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Have you tried plugging your Vantec fans into the PSU connectors instead of the motherboard? You may need adapters to do this. Also, if you haven't already done this, you might want to do a disk scan to see if there any corrupt files that need to be purged from your hard drive. Random reboots are sometimes caused by a driver your OS doesn't like. Hope you fix your problem.


 

Peter D

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2002
3,603
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Try unhooking all the periperhals you dont need (Case fans, CDROM's, etc) and see if it powers on. Check the PSU for a burning smell too
 

batmanuel

Platinum Member
Jan 15, 2003
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You didn't mention what OS you are running. If you are in XP, it is set to reboot automatically after a bad crash (i.e. resulting from a hardware issue). It doesn't even tell you it is rebooting, the screen just goes black and restarts. If you go into System>Startup And Recovery tab and uncheck the "automatically restart" box under the System Failure Options. Then, you'll get a proper bluescreen of death. If you get that, it is probably something not PSU related.

I ran into the same problem at the beginning of the year with my A7N8X-DX. My screen would go black, than it would reboot. I also had issues with it booting up from a cold boot, restarting a few minutes later and then running fine all day long after it was warmed up. Since WinXP just restarted itself without telling me it had seriously crashed (like all other prior versions of Windows), I at first thought it was the PSU not cold starting well and causing the system to hiccup.

It actually turned out that Asus' early BIOSes for my board had issues with my RAM. There wasn't anything WRONG physically with my RAM and it worked fine in other machines, but with the early BIOSes my nForce 2 board couldn't run the RAM 100% stable in Dual Channel mode. (of course, I was being cheap and not only forgoing the matched pairs, but using two different brands). Once I upgraded my BIOS to the 1004 version, my system has been solid as a rock (even with THREE different brands of RAM in my machine now). Maybe Intel is in the process of working out the same Dual Channel DDR issues that plagued the nForce 2's when they first came out. I do remember that for my board, there was a know issue with running Corsair XMS in DC mode. Maybe Corsair does something with their RAM that is not totally out of spec, but is just unique enough to throw off the board's ability to sync up the DDR timings. I haven't heard about any issues with the 865 motherboards, but a check on Intel's BIOS update page might help. (It is always a bit of a nail-biter to flash the BIOS on a board that isn't 100% stable though). I haven't played around with the 865 boards to know if you can do this, but it might be worth tyring to run on a single stick of RAM and see if it quits rebooting at random with the memory in Single Channel mode. That way, you might be able to isolate the problem, and hopefully stabilize the system enough to try out a newer BIOS.

Intel has a repuation for making good boards, but the only board manufactured by them that I've ever owned was a 815EEAL. Straight out of the box that board had MAJOR issues running a GeForce 2 MX in the AGP slot. Every game would lock up after a few minutes of play. It took me trying every other option before I went ahead and flashed the BIOS to the newest version, which wound up fixing the issue. So from my experience it is not unknown for even Intel to ship a board with a not-quite-done BIOS.
 

karl26

Member
Apr 13, 2003
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Ok did what you said about unchecking the restart thing in advanced options and then I rebooted and I got the following blue screen:

Bad_Pool_Caller
Stop : 0x000000C2 ( ox00000041, ox864EE000, ox000064EE, ox0003ffzf

Ok so what the heck does "Bad_Pool_Caller" mean?

Anyone Falcon26
 

Killrose

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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Simple check for PSU problems. Download MBM or some other motherboard monitoring utility, and take note of the PSU readings and look for any out of spec. While watching the readings on screen, start up some applications (like SiSoft Sandra benchmarks) and see if there are any changes. I'd specifically watch the 5+ rail for drops below 4.7+volts while under load.
 

Buz2b

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2001
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Doing a quick Google search on your Stop error message brings up some good points:
This page has several suggestions if you scroll down.

Scrolling down this page about a third way brings up another list of possible causes and fixes.

I also ran into this page which has a wide variety of hardware and software test programs that could help you narrow it down a bit; or not.

Bottom line; you have some homework to do. See if anything in those lists corresponds to your situation in any way. If not, one suggestion is to try the Windows Recovery/Repair option by booting to the XP CD. You might also try a simple "quick fix" by just going into System Restore and restoring back to a point before this started. Keep in mind the things (programs) that might have to be reloaded and do this carefully. You might fix the problem and then restart it by loading the faulty drivers again. However, I kind of doubt the System Restore will work very well in this case. Might be worth a try though.
 

Big Lar

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 1999
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Its the exception, not the rule that bites you. according to the problem, I would take a Hard look at Power, or how its hooked up.
 

batmanuel

Platinum Member
Jan 15, 2003
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Originally posted by: Killrose
Simple check for PSU problems. Download MBM or some other motherboard monitoring utility, and take note of the PSU readings and look for any out of spec. While watching the readings on screen, start up some applications (like SiSoft Sandra benchmarks) and see if there are any changes. I'd specifically watch the 5+ rail for drops below 4.7+volts while under load.

I tend not to trust the motherboard sensors a whole lot (especially temp. sensors, since there is a rather large difference in the idle CPU readings I get from my system BIOS, MBM and Asus Probe). The only way to be sure is to test it out with a voltmeter or get a Antec PSU tester.

I've never seen a PC refuse to boot just by disabling the automatic reboot option. That is odd, but it does seem to confirm (based on the info buz2b posted) that there is a hardware failure somewhere, but I don't see a Antec Truepower causing crashes. When Antec PSUs fail it usually seems to be in a more spectacular fashion, with lots of smoke and fried components. I don't know what the consensus is on the 865 chipset here on the forums, but a few reviews I have read mentioned issues with running dual channel with the 865 on modules that are not perfectly matched (like the Corsair Twin X parts). Keep in mind that the 865 memory controller is widely rumored to be a 875 part that failed the tests for running PAT properly and has known compatability issues running DC at 400 MHz. Once you get things up and running again, you might try relaxing the memory timings in BIOS or underclocking the RAM and see if it stops crashing. Have you used Prime 95 to check and see if the memory is running 100% stable, or did you use memtest (or both)? Prime95 seems to pick up on subtle instabilities and compatability issues better in my experience.
 

jiffylube1024

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
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Originally posted by: Killrose
Simple check for PSU problems. Download MBM or some other motherboard monitoring utility, and take note of the PSU readings and look for any out of spec. While watching the readings on screen, start up some applications (like SiSoft Sandra benchmarks) and see if there are any changes. I'd specifically watch the 5+ rail for drops below 4.7+volts while under load.

You can even monitor the PSU from the BIOS screen to see if anything is fishy. The problem will, however, express itself much more in Windows in a high stress situation. Low voltages on the 3 main rails are a dead giveaway.

I had a faulty Enermax 350W PSU that would read 4.5V in the BIOS for the 5V, 2.7 for the 3.3V and 10.5 for the 12V. It was so bad it couldn't even boot Windows without crashing! I returned it and got another one that worked perfectly. That was the only faulty Enermax PSU I've ever encountered.