I just can't win

J

JPGR87

Gawd
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
Messages
640
I recently went through a fiasco with an Antec NeoPower 480 where it quietly failed and took a motherboard or two with it. I sent it back to Antec three weeks ago under the 3 year warranty (I had only owned it for two). So in the meantime I bought a FSP ATX 450PN off of newegg to hold me over/to be a backup power supply in case something ever happened again. Well that arrangement worked out for about a month until my computer started restarting randomly. It seemed like every time i touched/nudged the case with my feet it would restart. So out of curiosity i opened up DFI's monitor utility, and the 3.3v line was registering with 2.5 volts. That seemed like a big problem. I had an older weaker power supply laying around that i figured i could just plug into the motherboard and video card and have the FSP power the drives and all until i figured out what to do, so now i have an open case with one mounted psu and one on the floor and every time i turn it on i have to time it just right or it won't POST. Is there anything i can do about it? or should i just try to contact FSP to get an RMA (i bought it in may so the 30 day newegg period is long gone)
 
Sorry this took so long, i don't have much time to do stuff.

I got my a Antec NeoHE 500 in the mail as a replacement for my NeoPower 480, so that issue is out of the way. I kind of miss the variable fan output, but i'll live i guess.

I hooked up the Fortron to everything and started it up, then i took the little 4 pin extention to the ATX connector and started testing voltages. It turned out that the 3.3v was hovering around 3.23 for most of the time, which is pretty ok i guess. I then opened up the monitor utility and it said something about 3.0 or 2.9ish, so i guess that thing is garbage. The only question i have is do you think the 3.3v line could be getting unstable as the unit got hotter? i didn't really have the time to let it heat up, and it was already out of the case sitting on the ground (replaced by the RMA replacement) by the time i got the message to retest it, so i never formally reinstalled it. And when i used a seperate power supply for the ATX connection the random restarts did stop. I suppose i'll just have to let it run in a spare computer and see what it does. Thanks for your help!
 
...That's what i did, i put the multimeter probes on the 3.3v line and ground and watched the thing through a startup, idling, loading it up for about 10 minutes, and shutting it down and it stayed at 3.23. I guess it was either overheating or there was something of a loose connection inside my computer since it seemed to restart when i jarred it with my leg sometimes.
 
JPGR87 said:
...That's what i did, i put the multimeter probes on the 3.3v line and ground and watched the thing through a startup, idling, loading it up for about 10 minutes, and shutting it down and it stayed at 3.23. I guess it was either overheating or there was something of a loose connection inside my computer since it seemed to restart when i jarred it with my leg sometimes.
Click to expand...
Check the +5VSB, +5V & +12, too while you are at it. ;)
 
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