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Computer Death

M

miketd

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 4, 2003
Messages
86
I have an Ubuntu Server that has been running for over a year. It randomly went down the other week. I got it to boot back up, but it went down again after ~20 minutes or so. Next time I tried to start it, I couldn't get it to boot at all. So I decided to run a memory checker which instantly found lots failing sectors. I assumed my memory had gone bad (corsair value select). So I swapped it out with some unused sticks I had lying around. Ran the memory check again. Still failing. My replacement memory had never been tested, so I thought there was a slim chance that perhaps these sticks were bad too. So I replaced the memory for a third time with some stuff that absolutely should work. However, when I went to test the memory, I encountered another problem. As soon as I plugged in the system, the power light started to blink. Now I can't boot at all. I am having a hard time being absolutely sure what these symptoms are being caused by, but I am starting to think it is the power supply.

The system specs are:
-Antec SmartPower 500W
-MSI K8NGM2
-4 hard drives (3 in raid 5, 1 boot). All are 7200 RPM Western Digitals.
-1 DVD drive
-Athlon 64 3000+
-1 video capture card
-Onboard video
-Onboard sound

I think that maybe I was taxing too much current from the power supply and it finally died. Is this setup too much for a 500W PSU? Do you think that is the problem? I have yet to try another power supply since my only other one is in a system that works and I don't want to strip it down (at least not this weekend).

If you think the power supply is too meager, what should I replace it with? Consider that I want to merge this server with my desktop and so I'll be adding a video card to the mix. I also want to upgrade the CPU. Video card will most likely be a Geforce 8600, CPU will most likely be an Athlon X2 or equivalent. I'll probably drop the video capture and add a DVD burner as well.

Thanks in advance,
Mike
 
The problem isn't the PSU wattage, it's the model. SmartPowers are notorious for capacitor failure (I had two go bad on me). I'm actually pretty surprised you were able to get a year of continuous operation out of one, but the low load probably allowed it to live longer.

Try to RMA it to Antec and tell them that you would like to get it replaced with a Basiq 500 since the SmartPower has such a high failure rate.
 
So 500 watts is enough for that setup I am going to move to? I am afraid I am ignorant about how many watts various components use. With the 4 hard drives, I thought I was using a lot of power.
 
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