A sign my PSU is failing?

T

TimothyB

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 25, 2004
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I have an Antec True430.

Lately during startup at the point WinXP load screen appears one of the HDs starts going on and off, 6+ times, must be my C drive since it makes Windows take that much longer to load. At the same time the lights on the fans would flicker, as if the power was dropping causing the drive to go on and off.

I removed the side panel and found during bios loading just touching one of the power cords caused this. This cord went to one HD (I think C drive, with 4 total I forget), then to a fan controller and my 6800 card. I noticed on this cord one of the wires was out a little from the plastic end. I push it back in, start up with no trouble but the next day it started again and I can't find anything wrong. So the drive and fans would go on and off at windows load screen, but this time not even tugging on the wires would cause the problem like before with the loose wire.

I switched the HD to another cord but left the 6800 and fan controller alone . This time the system starts up quickly with no noise from the drive, but I did see the lights flicker again. I also notice when loading a large app, like Illustrator, from the C drive the lights would flicker. Note, 4 of the 5 fans are on the controller, but the 5th is connected to the mobo and it flickers too.

My 2005fpw 20inch LCD also just died, the backlight works but it won't show anything, not even it's own menu systems. Could this power problem effected the 6800 and damaged my 2005fpw through the DVI cable? The 15inch LCD on the vga port didn't suffer any problems. When the 20inch died I wasn't doing anthing intesive, just typing a message in a forum, no gaming or photoshop.

I don't think I left anything out, any ideas? :)
 
sounds like you have dirty power and it's killing your stuff. Get an online UPS (and I stress the online part), like one made by Liebert.

P.S. I am not responsible if you spend lots of money and it doesn't help ;)
 
TimothyB said:
I have an Antec True430.

Lately during startup at the point WinXP load screen appears one of the HDs starts going on and off, 6+ times, must be my C drive since it makes Windows take that much longer to load. At the same time the lights on the fans would flicker, as if the power was dropping causing the drive to go on and off.

I removed the side panel and found during bios loading just touching one of the power cords caused this. This cord went to one HD (I think C drive, with 4 total I forget), then to a fan controller and my 6800 card. I noticed on this cord one of the wires was out a little from the plastic end. I push it back in, start up with no trouble but the next day it started again and I can't find anything wrong. So the drive and fans would go on and off at windows load screen, but this time not even tugging on the wires would cause the problem like before with the loose wire.

I switched the HD to another cord but left the 6800 and fan controller alone . This time the system starts up quickly with no noise from the drive, but I did see the lights flicker again. I also notice when loading a large app, like Illustrator, from the C drive the lights would flicker. Note, 4 of the 5 fans are on the controller, but the 5th is connected to the mobo and it flickers too.

My 2005fpw 20inch LCD also just died, the backlight works but it won't show anything, not even it's own menu systems. Could this power problem effected the 6800 and damaged my 2005fpw through the DVI cable? The 15inch LCD on the vga port didn't suffer any problems. When the 20inch died I wasn't doing anthing intesive, just typing a message in a forum, no gaming or photoshop.

I don't think I left anything out, any ideas? :)
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That wouldn't be problem on the AC side... Although a good battery is never a BAD idea.

If the AC was bad, then you'd get flaky 3.3V, 5V and 12V because all of your DC is converted from the same AC input, and if your 3.3V and 5V was "flickering" then your PC would just straight up lock up.

Since your video card, light and drive motor are all fed by 12V.. I would say your 12V rail has gotten really weak.. OR... there's a short on the 12V rail somewhere (possibly the light. Those inverters they use are crappity crap crap) causing other devices on the 12V rail to suffer.
 
Well this morning the HD during loading went on and off again, so swapping wires didn't help.

So so far your saying it's not the AC outlet because if it was the problem would lock up the machine, so a battery won't fix this but is a good idea none the less.

When you say possibly the light, are you talking about the LEDs in the fans? Ever since I got those after the first week one of the fans had a LED on one corner fail, and others kind of flicker or not as bright. Now a days all 5 fans' lights don't light up all the way with many of them just failing.

I wonder why the drive doesn't have the same trouble after start-up. I mentioned the lights still flicker when reading, but the worst is at start-up.

Oh, another thing, 6 months ago I got rid of a powered USB hub. I found that it was sending some kind of current through the usb cord to the mobo. I noticed the problem when I was trying to install a new 6800 card and even with the PSU off and power cord detached the card would sound a ring from it's built in speaker as soon as I put it in the agp slot.

Even after removing the hub I had to discharge the mobo by turning it all off with the power cord removed to hit the power button a couple times, before it would jump start on everytime I shutdown at that point. Maybe with my tv card connected to the power pins for self start up might have caused some of that eratic behaviour if some current was reaching it. Keep in mind I'm no expert on this.

Later I gave the hub to my mom to use with her laptop, the thing sparked and went up in smoke, luckily no damage to the laptop, but it did ruin the mouse and keypad connected to it. Maybe the long exposure from this failing hub to my computer did some damage to the psu.
 
Oh.. when you said flickering lights, I thought you meant cold cathodes.

Disregard.

Although the one dying LED could be because of bad 12V.

May want to just replace the PSU.

I'm selling some if you're interested. ;)
 
Actually, almost all of the fans, which have a blue light at each corner, have atleast one that has failed.

When I get home I'll move my computer to another room to another outlet to test before ordering another PSU. I thought buying the best $80 PSU would have avoided something like this.

Maybe it's time to build another machine, my 2500+ oced is getting old. But I height how we're right in the middle of a transition of new dual core cpus that are too expensive at the moment. Is it worth getting a 4400+ X2 for around $600 or should I just get a 3800+ for around $350. I'm a graphic designer so dual core would be nice for mulitasking, but I never do anything as intensive at work as I do at home, so it mightn not be needed.
 
jonnyGURU said:
Oh.. when you said flickering lights, I thought you meant cold cathodes.

Disregard.

Although the one dying LED could be because of bad 12V.

May want to just replace the PSU.

I'm selling some if you're interested. ;)
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Are you selling a PSU? If so, what kind? I need one bad, i'm on a 350 deer brand right now because my antec 380 watter had a busted 5V+. The 5V was dropped around 4.4 and my drives were shutting on and off and locking up my PC all the time. It was shit. I've had this Deer for a while that came with an old POS case. I needa new PSU bad because I don't trust this one. PM me if you've got the goods. lol.
 
It looks like the only one that I have left that's not spoken for is an Mad Dog Surepower 500W. I want $40 for it, plus whatever UPS shipping ends up being (need Zip Code.)
 
Did you try tightening the HD power connector socket? The socket is made of metal tubes with a slits down their sides, and you can tighten the connections by prying between each tube and the surrounding plastic, 90 degs. from the slits,

Have you measured your voltages with a digital multimeter and not merely with software?

I've never heard of fan LEDs blowing out frequently, and I thought that LEDs lasted forever unless driven with too much current.
 
you shouldn't really be running a 6800 on an antec 430, I blew one out witha 4ghz p4 and radeon 9700 pro vmodded.

After killing 3 antecs, including a 550, I am now a pc power and cooling customer for life. Get one and all your power related issues WILL go away.
 
You really think a 6800 is that hard to power, maybe an Ultra? I use to use a generic case with PSU for $40 to run a 1800+ system with a 9700pro, 4 PCI cards, 4HDs, to optical drives, floppy and never had problems with that, though a friend I sold the guts to said a year later that PSU finally died.
 
I just got home and this time I went into the bios to monitor the voltage.

3.3v was at: 3.31

12v was also fine: 12.09 something

5v seemed low, it was at 4.38 and over time it steadly climbed, before starting up all the way it had reached 4.67. So maybe that's why I only have problems at startup as the voltage is weak then and climbs the longer the system on. So I guess if I restart now it will be fine since the power has been for a while, but if I left the PC off for hours it would start over.

So what is considered low for the 5v current?
 
TimothyB said:
You really think a 6800 is that hard to power, maybe an Ultra? I use to use a generic case with PSU for $40 to run a 1800+ system with a 9700pro, 4 PCI cards, 4HDs, to optical drives, floppy and never had problems with that, though a friend I sold the guts to said a year later that PSU finally died.
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Well, I don't think you ever posted what kind of CPU you have now, but an AMD XP is pretty low power and usually gets regulated off of the 5V rail. A64's and Pentium 4's get regulated off of the 12V, so if you have an A64 or a Pentium 4, that alone would be a big difference.

And a 9700 Pro AGP card uses about half as much power on the 12V rail as a 6800 PCI Express card.

So we could stop guessing and you could list all of your specs. ;)
 
TimothyB said:
I just got home and this time I went into the bios to monitor the voltage.

3.3v was at: 3.31

12v was also fine: 12.09 something

5v seemed low, it was at 4.38 and over time it steadly climbed, before starting up all the way it had reached 4.67. So maybe that's why I only have problems at startup as the voltage is weak then and climbs the longer the system on. So I guess if I restart now it will be fine since the power has been for a while, but if I left the PC off for hours it would start over.

So what is considered low for the 5v current?
Click to expand...

First of... BIOS/software read voltages are often not accurate.

Secondly, my best guess is you wouldn't see a dip in voltage (in the 12V specifically) until you started hearing the drive wind up/down, lights flicker, etc.

If the 12V was low all of the time where you could just randomly sample a reading from the BIOS reflecting this, you'd be in here discussing a lot more serious problems.

larrymoecurly: Those LED's on fans are notoriously crap. I've pretty much given up on using them. I've gone through so many Antec and Coolermaster blue LED fans. *sigh* Also, if the voltage does dip below spec, the LED will go out. I've got my LED fans hooked up to a speed controller. If I turn the RPM's down, the LED's almost immediately go out.
 
This morning just now I quickly went to the bios hardware monitor. The 5v was as low as 4.30 at times. This time the hard drive did start going on and off while I was just sitting in the bios. I don't think I noticed the 12v change during this. After a while the drive stopped and the 5v climbed to 4.38-4.48, so I exited and started up fine.

Maybe it's just that one drive, I did switch it to another power cable. Why would it be the only one clicking on and off? I guess there might be no real answer to this until I spend money to get a new PSU to see if that helps.

Yeah, the fans were the real popular ones at newegg, the blue ones, and the ones connected to the fan controller don't like it very much. But I'm using the same fan on the cpu heatsink powered by a spot on the mobo and it too acts wierd.

My specs:

Barton 2500+ (185*11.5) 2127mhz
Thermalright slk-800-u heatsink
Asus A7N8X Rev 2.0 1005bios
2x512mb Geil DDR3200 6-3-3-2 Dual
Antec True 430watt
Leadtek 6800 128mb at 400/850 at 3D, not 2D
Compro Videomate TV/FM Gold Plus PCI
Maxtor IDE PCI, Audigy 1 PCI
Hitachi 200 and 250 gig drives, new
2 older Western 80gigs
 
Re: Specs

Ok. You have an A7N8X. Your video card is AGP. Your 430W isn't too wimpy.

But you might want to at least try a new PSU.
 
Thanks for all your comments thus far.

I also wanted to note another anomaly. For a while now, a year or more, my sound will go up then back down. So I'll be watching tv, playing a video, a game and sound will jump up to where I turn it down, then it goes back to normal and I have to turn it up again. New speakers didn't fix that and I haven't bothered to replace the audigy. I'm just mentioning that incase that's another sign of a power issue or just a bad audigy.
 
That's a good deal.

A beefy +5V rail to run your current setup, and beefy +12V rails to run your future setup. Go for it.
 
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