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View Full Version : Need your help in guessing which hardware is falling.


Dragoon
03-16-2009, 07:31 AM
Hello,

I am suspect that either my PSU or my mainboard is faulty. but I can't tell which.
So instead of buying both parts new I thought to descripe the problems I have, and maybe you guys could express your opinion which part is more likely the cause.
Than I will first try to replace this part first.

The parts in question are a Gigabyte Mainboard GA-EP35-DS3R (http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2743) and a LC Power Silent Giant 550W LC6550G rev2.0

Now to the symptoms:
When I got to restart my computer everything works fine. Windows saves everything, shutdown and finally the power is turned off. To this point everything works as expected. Than the Power goes on again, as expected, after all I commanded a reboot, but then like I said power goes on and I can hear how my GPU fan once blow through on full throttle like always, my 4 case fans with build in LED's turn on, but at the point where my screen should turn on and show the BIOS screen, the system turn off again. A second later the power goes on again, tries to initialize, again, but with the same result as before. That would go on forever if I would not manually switch off the PSU directly. After I switch on the PSU again the compute initialize successfully, boots windows and works for weeks stable, as instead of shutting down I use S3 Standby from which my computer wakes up smoothly.

To make things even stranger, if I instead select Turn Off in Windows or use the case button instead of doing a restart, my computer would turn off trouble-free, but a second after turning off he turns on again but with the same result like when I do a restart, forcing me to manually flip the power switch on my PSU.
It get's even funnier, that when my computer ran a while (and I guess the capacitors are fully loaded), I turn him off and immediately switch off my PSU I see how my CPU tries to boot again anyway. On my mainboard are a couple of tiny LED's that lights up (these LED's are there to show in which power mode the system is running).

I'm pretty sure that either my PSU or mainboard is faulty and not any other part, because to be sure I removed every part that is not truly needed to initialize the Bios. No HDD, DVD-ROM, USB, keyboard, mouse, even no graphiccard. Everything got disconnected. Only the absolute necessary remains CPU, Memory and PSU.

I can't tell how long the problem already may exists because as I mention, before I use S3 Standby most of the time. Tften there lies weeks before I restart the computer. If a windows update or new drivers as exsample came out that requires a reboot.

If is it likely the PSU, I'm planning to buy a Thermaltake Toughpower 750 as replacement, as for the mainboard I would go with the same model again.

Oklahoma Wolf
03-16-2009, 09:32 AM
Sounds like the PSU is hitting the wall there... LC Power is Huntkey, which overrates everything. However, if the system keeps restarting when it's not supposed to, I'd make sure the power switch on the case is working properly.

Dragoon
03-16-2009, 09:28 PM
Well, I bought the Thermaltake Toughpower 750 PSU today. To my surprise after installing and connecting the problem still persists. I mean, I knew by sheer method of elimination that either PSU or mainboard were faulty, but because of the nature of the problem I was sure it has to do with the PSU. I even went to cellar and bring up my old naked mainboard Gigabyte G965 which has still a core 2 e6300 and 2 gb ram installed. I put my graphiccard on and connected it with my old PSU. It booted up fine.
I will have no other choice than to remove my mainboard from the case, and bring it back tomorrow for service. I'm already looking forward with joy to explain the error to the vendor.

PS: The termaltake is nosier than my old LC Power. :) Anyway still better off with the Thermaltake.

C'DaleRider
03-18-2009, 12:18 PM
Are you overclocking on the system that's constantly rebooting?