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View Full Version : Is my PSU dying on me?

dph1077
06-18-2008, 08:35 AM
I am curious if my power supply is dying on me, or if it could be some other component. I have a thread on anandtech here. (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=32&threadid=2197407&enterthread=y)

Someone there thinks it may be my power supply and I'm starting to think they may be right, but I don't want to replace anything until I am very sure it is it.

From my post there:
I have an odd problem that I think is due to the power supply, but I'm not 100% sure yet. Temps are fine, monitored with Everest & Speedfan. The problem is that on some boots, the system gets stuck at the Abit splash screen for a few minutes, then takes another couple before it reaches the desktop. When it boots like this, I can surf the web fine, but if I try to play Battlefield 2, it loads frame by choppy frame, super slow, including the audio "EA Games, ....". In order to correct it, it seems that I have to turn off the power to my power supply and wait about 5 minutes then boot again.

I have loaded up Everest Home Edition and the voltages it shows threw me off at first:

ACTUAL
3.3v 3.30v
+5v 5.54v
+12v 9.18v
-12v -8.79
-5v -4.74v

I thought this was the nail in the coffin, until I turned on my wife's pc which uses the same mobo, cpu, and ram but hers listed almost identical numbers (but her pc works fine).

SPECS - 2gb PC6400, Abit IP-35E, E2180 currently @ stock, 640mb 8800GTS, Aerocool 620w psupply

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Smirnoff
06-18-2008, 09:03 AM
Try measuring voltages with a DMM. Software values can often be off by quite a lot in a few cases. Just to confirm that the PSU is or isn't the source of the problems. If your wifes PC is showing the same values, but hasn't got the same problems, it's possible the mobo sensors are just reading the voltage levels wrong.
jonnyGURU
06-18-2008, 10:28 AM
Like Smirnoff points out: software is often, if not always, wrong.

And your symptoms don't sound like a PSU related problem to me at all.
dph1077
06-18-2008, 10:41 AM
Thanks for the input.

I've run memtest for hours and passed. I've run orthos for 45 minutes without errors stressing ram & cpu and passed. I'm running out of ideas of what it could be. Does it sound like the video card? Could XP service pack 3 be the culprit? (I've only this morning remembered that I installed it around the time this happened).
Smirnoff
06-18-2008, 03:49 PM
Not sure SP3 would cause you trouble during the POST process since Windows hasn't even loaded then.
PedroDaGr8
06-19-2008, 04:02 PM
Have you checked your harddrive? I know that a sick/dying hard drive can behave like this. The reason, it tried to access info from the pagefile and if that sector is corrupted or the read head errors, then it keeps retrying slowing the whole system down.
dph1077
06-19-2008, 06:48 PM
Problem seems to be solved. I swapped CPUs with the wife's pc (both had same cpu and mobo) and now this pc is smooth while hers died in boot once and at windows desktop 2 times. Time to get a new processor and rma this one. I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade and I just found it. :lol:

Thanks for all the troubleshooting help.
Hutch
06-20-2008, 02:18 AM
Sounds to me like your psu killed your cpu.
doglips
06-22-2008, 10:01 AM
I would still check PSU with a DMM.
Quiksilver
06-22-2008, 02:16 PM
Sounds more like a hard drive or motherboard issue to me.

If it was your power supply it would be turning off when you tried to run games and at boot it wouldn't even want to turn on more than a few seconds.
Bun-Bun
06-24-2008, 11:36 AM
Sounds more like a hard drive or motherboard issue to me.

If it was your power supply it would be turning off when you tried to run games and at boot it wouldn't even want to turn on more than a few seconds.

Not nessessarily. I had problems arise with a rig of mine that I could not pinpoint the problems. Sometimes it would work fine, others it would be slow or give errors or sometimes it would restart for no reason. Turns out the 5v rail was fluctuating a little too much and as soon as I replaced the PSU everything worked fine.

If a PSU is just plain shutting off that means its either being overloaded or its tripping its overload circuit for some reason ( which could be many). There are many other things that can go bad inside that box and even more symptoms to go along with them.

@OP

I would check into that PSU and make sure it wasn't the true culprit to your CPU failure... it all seems very fishy to me.