Signs a PSU is going bad?

[Rob94hawk]

Would it be spontaneous rebooting during games? Or a video card having problems at stock speeds?

I'm trying to trouble shoot my x800xtpe but I'm not convinced it's the card but the PSU.

 

[Mojoed]

Those are indeed classic signs of a dying power supply. Try running Prime95 to isolate stress on the CPU. If it still reboots, your card is fine and it's most likely the power supply. (Could be the CPU, but in my experience, power supplies die much more often than CPU's)

Good luck.

 

[Duvie]

Make sure you have the automatic restart in winxp turned off...With that feature on fatal errors ranging frm hardware issues to software issues can be masked as something else....

Spontaneous reboots can be a sign but should be easy to duplicate...shouldn't be so random....Just do some copying from the hdds...playa dvd...burn a dvd...run prime...etc...Load it and as many devices as possible up...And see if it reboots.....

 

[Rob94hawk]

Update: Can't get through Prime95 on stock settings. Error within 30 seconds.

I thought Antec was a good brand? I wouldn't expect the PSU to flunk out within 3 months!

Also, just played Dawn of War skirmish and before I got kicked out of the game I got voice studdering like a CD skipping.

Any tests for a PSU?

 

[Mojoed]

Antec is a decent brand. I've found that power supplies will either: fail relatively quickly, or last several years.

I just noticed in your sig, you've got a FX-53. These things can be very picky about power. What's the model number of your Antec?

 

[Rob94hawk]

Originally posted by: Mojoed
Antec is a decent brand. I've found that power supplies will either: fail relatively quickly, or last several years.

I just noticed in your sig, you've got a FX-53. These things can be very picky about power. What's the model number of your Antec?

Antec 480 True Blue

I would have to say that I would be very happy if it was the PSU because I would upgrade to a 500watt modular.

Better the PSU than a $600 graphics card or $800 CPU! A mch cheaper option to replace.

 

[Rob94hawk]

Update:

Good news,
1. It's not the X800XTPE! Whew! It's running just fine in my daughters rig. (I swapped her 9600 for my xtpe)
2. Just picked up a 500Watt Modular Ultra PSU. NICE! I'm ditching the Antec 480 for this!

Bad news,
1. Prime95 still crashed after the install of the 9600 and the new PSU. So it's either the CPU or the mobo.
2. So now I'll have to return this X800Pro I just got from CompUSA for $399. Unless I find a reason to keep it... 😉

I'm going to give the BIOS a reflash because I spotted a CPU voltage of 0.9 on the nvidia utility! I'll see what happens. At least it's not the XTPE though! CPU's and mobo's are a dime a dozen.

Thanx for listening.

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

A lot of the time ram can be responsible for prime 95 failing , I'd say it's probably the most common reason.

Don't assume that because you bought some highly expensive Corsair ram that it can't be the source of the problem. If possible I'd try a different stick and see if Prime still fails. I just mentioned this since I didn't see any mention of RAM as the possible culprit.

 

[Rob94hawk]

Thanx. I'll check it out.

Come to think of it, I was examining some game dump files and it looked like some memory locations.

But would the memory fail after 4 months?

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

Originally posted by: Rob94hawk
Thanx. I'll check it out.

Come to think of it, I was examining some game dump files and it looked like some memory locations.

But would the memory fail after 4 months?

It's a possibilty. Was everything running fine until recently ? What's the stock speed on an FX-53 ? 2.5 GHZ seems a bit high , if you are o/cing . run at stock and run prime then. Overclocking adds another factor into the mix.

 

[2Xtreme21]

True. The RAM definitely plays a critical role in this sort of thing. Check to make everything is synced in the BIOS and make sure you're not pushing your timings too low. I'd try upping the CAS by .5 or 1 and see if you still crash.

 

[TJones2]

Run MemTest ver 1.3 on it for 3-10 hours first and see what results you get.