power supply causing computer crashes??

[somethingfishy12]

I just put together a new build and i've been getting alot of freezing/crashes. computer remains on, but screen blanks out and HDD activity stops.

just now looking at speedfan voltages, -12V: is showing up as -7.34V. i'm assuming that is possibly the problem.

the power supply is an OCZ Stealth Extreme 600W

can some one verify that is whats wrong so i can replace the psu if i need to.

 

[Quiksilver]

Software is always 100% inaccurate, use a Digital Multi-Meter to test PSU Voltages.
More about that here.

Anyway, I also assume you tested the rest of you parts right?
Set all the memory timings and voltages to what they are rated for in the BIOS?
Test your RAM using memtest?
Also whats your PC spec's?

 

[mindless1]

It is normal on some PSU for the negative rails, being unused by the system, to be out of spec. This is not a problem that will cause instability because, umm, nothing uses that voltage. If you wish to test for proper regulation of that -12V rail, you might temporarily place a load on that rail, something like a 100 Ohm, 2W resistor between it and ground, then recheck the voltage (preferably with a multimeter). The PSU datasheet might give specifics of how much load is necessary on that rail for it to regulate properly, or they might've rounded it down from 0.nnn A to 0A since it shouldn't need even half an amp.

We can't know anything based on the HDD activity stopping as that might simply be due to the system hardware (or OS) crashing, but to rule out the drive you can run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics. Also check Windows' Event Viewer for problems, run memtest86+ for a few hours, Prime95's Torture test for at least 30 minutes, noting errors in either.

Is it possible the screen blanking coincides to idle time, that power management put it in a sleep mode that it just isn't waking up from? If not, also check the video card, CPU, and chipset for overheating, that the fan(s) are working.

Beyond that, if you have spares of any parts, swap those in and check the rest of the voltages with a multimeter. As with -12V, if the PSU provides a -5V rail that may also be out of spec due to no load on it.

 

[somethingfishy12]

System Specs are:
Biostar TA790GX A2+
AMD Athlon X2 4200+ 2.2ghz (overclocked to 2.64ghz stable)
250gb Seagate HDD actually a bit over 2 years old (i'm using it in this build because all my files are on it)
2gb DDR2 of Really crappy 533mhz ram. (4gb 800Mhz XMS2 coming in later this week)

there are 5, 80mm case fan that all work, and the heatsink is a scythe kama cross with a 2590rpm 120mm fan, so cpu idles at 29C-30C. its not a temp problem. I don't have avid card yet, the onboard HD3300 graphics seem to be doing a decent job till i do.

freezing has nothing to do w/ being idle, it just happen very randomly. the screen goes black with a few blue edges.

could it be an OS problem? i repaired the XP installation already on the HDD when it wouldn't boot from an ECS 8200 board that i had for a few days. it wouldn't let me OC any cpu that wasn't black ed. so i decided to get the biostar instead.

I'm really not sure whats causing the freezing. =/

 

[mindless1]

First, it seems ironic you wrote "overclocked to 2.64GHz stable". Put it back at stock speed until you get rid of the problem.

It could be an OS problem, a clean install done after you have the parts back at stock speed and have tested with memtest86+ for a few hours would be a good thing to try. I'd probably do that on a different drive or partition so if it's still crashing you didn't wipe out your existing Windows installation for no reason.

 

[somethingfishy12]

my bad, i forgot to mention that i disabled the overclock. r It hasn't been crashing like it did before, but yesterday i was opening and closing speed fan to up/down the fan rpm, and about the 4th time i opened it, i got another crash.

i also ran memtest for about an hour, with no errors. i'll leave it to run overnight and see

the overclock seems to be the problem. once my ram comes in i'll try again, hopefully that fixes the problem

 

[somethingfishy12]

Originally posted by: mindless1
First, it seems ironic you wrote "overclocked to 2.64GHz stable"

the reason i say that is because i ran OCCT for a few hours and got no problems whatsoever

 

[mindless1]

If it was overclocked when you installed any applications like Speedfan, the app itself may be corrupt and need reinstalled. Same for the OS. Speedfan might just have a bug instead, where opening it several times causes this on certain systems, if possible try to find some commonality between all the apps which crash, including things running in the background at the time.

 

[somethingfishy12]

i'll keep an eye on it.

overall the number of crashes has in fact gone down. would you recommend a fresh install, or would repairing the OS installation suffice? theres way too many huge programs like adobe flash and after effects that i'd prefer to keep intact.

 

[mindless1]

That depends on whether all these apps in question were installed while the system was stable or not, and/or whether the o'c was the cause of instability so you know when that point of instability may have started. It would be easy to say "do the least possible then wait and see", and that may work, or you may have wasted that time and have to start over from scratch. If they aren't crashing, I'd focus first on reinstalling or repairing was is crashing. However, if things are still crashing there's still the question of whether the original instability is gone or if it's more than just file corruption.

What I'd do is a clean OS installation on a separate partition, see if that remains stable. Add on any apps that crash, see if it's still stable. I don't know how much you have to rely on the use of this system but that way you have an operable OS while you do whatever needs done to the original OS installation, or of course if you have a viable backup of that OS you could simply restore that to same or different partition after backing up data.

It's hard to advise given the number of variables involved and the uncertainty of whether only the software and OS may be corrupt at this point.

 

[somethingfishy12]

i'll leave the current HDD intact for now, but i do have a couple spare of HDDs so i'll format and install a fresh copy of xp on one of those then boot from it while the other one remains in the system so i still have access to my files.