Single SSD drawing too little power for PSU to keep PSU power cable alive?

[crimson117]

I have a Corsair CMPSU-750TX, Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard, and Intel 520 240GB SSD.

When I have just a single Intel 520 SSD installed, running Window 8, it makes it through boot, flashes the log-in screen, then power cycles.

It doesn't seem to matter which SATA data port I use on the motherboard.

However, if I install an HDD on the same strand, then the computer works fine - it stays powered on, even after logging in to the desktop.

Also, even with the SSD installed by itself and no HDD, I can sit on the BIOS screen all day long without it power cycling.

Any ideas why this might be happening?

My suspicion is that once the boot process winds down, the drive switches to a lower power state, but it is too low for the PSU to notice, so the PSU cuts power to that SATA cable branch.

I have a new CMPSU-750TX PSU arriving today as RMA, but I'm concerned it's it's just a PSU design flaw and will have the same issue.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My suspicion is that once the boot process winds down, the drive switches to a lower power state, but it is too low for the PSU to notice, so the PSU cuts power to that SATA cable branch.

PC PSUs do NOT power each set of cables coming out of the supply individually; they do not "cut power to one of those branches".

 

[Mushkins]

Sounds more like a bad cable to me. Try a different strand of power connectors.

 

[Zorander]

Could be a bad SSD too. I'm thinking it's not 'stressed' enough when sitting idle in BIOS but will power cycle once it has to work harder in Windows environment.