is PSU too new?

[Brigdh]

My system is:
AMD XP 2100+
Asus A7V333 Mobo
1gb ddr ram
nvidia 6800 GT
250gb Seagate hd
40gb maxtor hd
dvd-rom drive
cd-rw drive

About 3 months ago my old psu died. In anticipation for the upgrade I plan on doing in November i bought a Thermaltake Toughpower 700W: described here

Ever since I put the powersupply in, the computer doesnt shutdown right, and sometimes won't reboot right. Typically windows will exit, and right after the monitor shuts off and the system will turn off, everything stays on. The drives and fans keep spinning until I press the powerbutton for a hard shutdown. I've swapped out the ram and the hard drive, but haven't been able to nail this problem down.

I figure either the power supply is dammaged (i only have a spare 200W generic one i could switch in, havent yet) or its just too new and conflicting with the motherboard. I don't have anything SATA, the mobo is a 20 pin connector instead of 24, and i run everything off of the 4 pin molex connectors.

Any insights?

 

[robisbell]

what killed the OLD PSU, that could indicate that whatever took out the old one may have damaged more than just it.

 

[Brigdh]

I noticed one of the capacitors on the old PSU was starting to bulge and "leak" when I was cleaning the case. I figured a replacement PSU was needed before it actually blew

 

[robisbell]

well, it may have damaged the mobo, cpu, ram, gpu, etc. would need to individually test each one to see if they are a go or nogo.

 

[Brigdh]

How would you go about testing each one? I don't have a spare processor, but I can probably scavenge anything else I need to test from friends. Thanks

 

[Brigdh]

Actually found out that my PSU is infact too new.

I was browsing through the manual of my motherboard and noticed a listing of the pins that make up the ATX 20-pin connector. I compared that to the same diagram in the PSU's manual, and found that two pins differed. One pin was suposed to be a com pin on the psu but was a +5vdc pin instead, and the other pin was absent on the psu end, but was a com pin on the mobo end. Clearly the PSU was not reverse compatable with my motherboard.

 

[robisbell]

okay, what brand of system is this and full specs, sounds like some overseas variant, or a old non atx-certified setup.

 

[Brigdh]

<thud> read the manuals again and I screwed up. They do match. Back to square one and testing everything again.

 

[Brigdh]

found this in thermaltake's fourms

ATX series 1.3 series is an older standard that will have a -5v rail on the power supply unit(PSU). This is -5v is required for older motherboards to operate as these older motherboards use the -5v rail.
Newer motherboards may have a diagram stating that a -5v pin is there but on any newer motherboard(last two years) the -5v rail is NOT used.

ATX series 2.o and above PSUs do not have a -5v rail and will not work on older motherboards that require a -5v rail. Be sure to check the motherboard specs to see if they use an ATX 2.0 or above or if they use ATX 1.3 PSUs.

Tried the PSU in several older computers at work today and none of them would start but their psus worked in my computer when it was striped down.

 

[robisbell]

I'd look for a newer mobo then, you've a great PSU, the Mobo is the issue, it's obsolete, and finding a newish PSU for it is not worth the time of replacing the mobo with something more up to date that can use the PSU.

 

[Gustavus]

I went through almost the same problem recently -- as reported in a query I posted here. I have an ABIT TH7II motherboard based system that rquires an auxiliary power connector that has been discontinued on all newer PS. In my case I had bought a ThermalTake 480 w replacement supply and then couldn't use it.