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PSU causing issue or something else?

D

delorean76

n00b
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
46
I've had my PC for about a year and lately it has been freezing quite often during low workloads, randomly 4-5 times a day. Sometimes it freezes right after startup or sometimes it's on for a few hours. It happens while browsing the web or doing a virus scan, or even when it's idling. It doesn't shut down and the PC itself stays on as if nothing happened. All I can do is push the reset button.

I do have a Thermaltake Armor case and the Coolermaster 600w has only the side fan, which is blocked partially by the HDD cage since it's mounted sideways. Could the PSU be overheating from that? I did some searching here and seems that a flawed PSU could cause such freezes. The only thing is that very rarely has it froze during gaming.

I don't overclock but here's the rest of the specs:
Asus P5N32-SLI Premium
Q6600 w/ Zalman cooler
2x 1gb OCZ Raptor
8800gtx
SB X-Fi music

Here's a shot of my voltages in Everest if it helps:
untitled.jpg
 
It might just be wearing out. How hot is the air being pushed out by the PSU? If it's abnormally hot, then maybe it is overheating. If you aren't sure, are the PSU fans spinning louder? That's another sign it's overheating and taking on too much load.
 
I can't tell. It doesn't feel like there's very much air at all coming out of the PSU. My old OCZ 520w had two small fans and blew a lot of air out compared to this one. This is my first PSU with just the one big fan so I'm not sure if that's normal or not. I don't notice the PSU fan spinning any louder.
 
Everest is reporting a mobo temp of 35c if all the heat from all your components are not being expelled enough you may be getting over 40c in the psu. If this is the case then the psu will decrease its efficiency. The Coolermaster website says its rated to be efficient up to 40c, after that it will not oprate as efficiently. Try leaving the case open and put a fan on it.
 
Do you get a BSOD or does the screen turn black? Any other indications of what might be going on?
 
hossdaddy said:
Everest is reporting a mobo temp of 35c if all the heat from all your components are not being expelled enough you may be getting over 40c in the psu. If this is the case then the psu will decrease its efficiency. The Coolermaster website says its rated to be efficient up to 40c, after that it will not oprate as efficiently. Try leaving the case open and put a fan on it.
Click to expand...
I'm surprised it does get that hot being that its the Thermaltake Armor case with a ton of fans, including the huge 250mm side fan. And this is at idle...
That's good to know though about the PSU temp.

Elledan said:
Do you get a BSOD or does the screen turn black? Any other indications of what might be going on?
Click to expand...
No, the monitor freezes where it last was. The only indication that it freezes is that the mouse pointer suddenly doesn't move. I've come back to my PC after leaving on to find that it froze 4 hours earlier by looking at the clock on the frozen desktop. I don't notice anything else immediate that could be causing it, other than the fact that the PSU fan is blocked as I mentioned before...

Outamyhead said:
GPU is a little on the high side for just idling isn't it?
Click to expand...
I don't know. It is the EVGA 8800gtx. What should it be at?
 
It just froze on me again and this time I noticed it did so right after the heat came on through the vent in the room. So I restarted it immediately and noticed in Everest that the temps were really high:
untitled2.jpg


And as I type this the mobo is at 41 and everything else up a few degrees from that pic. Again, it's all at idle. So is it safe to say that the PSU is overheating, or maybe something else?
 
Just for fun, could you try the following:

- Let the system just sit in Safe Mode for a few hours.
- Let it sit in the BIOS for a few hours as well.
- Run a burn-in test as found on the Ultimate BootCD.

As the system doesn't turn off suddenly, I doubt that the PSU is overheating, as in that case its protections should kick in and turn off the system to protect itself. It seems more like a driver issue to me at this point. The above tests should give some clue.
 
Elledan said:
Just for fun, could you try the following:

- Let the system just sit in Safe Mode for a few hours.
- Let it sit in the BIOS for a few hours as well.
- Run a burn-in test as found on the Ultimate BootCD.

As the system doesn't turn off suddenly, I doubt that the PSU is overheating, as in that case its protections should kick in and turn off the system to protect itself. It seems more like a driver issue to me at this point. The above tests should give some clue.
Click to expand...
I will try that stuff. Are the above temps something to be concerned about though?
 
delorean76 said:
I will try that stuff. Are the above temps something to be concerned about though?
Click to expand...

Not from what I can see, no. They look just fine for a system like yours after it has been on for a while/just restarted.
 
I looked elsewhere and found that a wireless LAN card could cause issues. I discovered that in addition to my Linksys card, my P5N32 mobo had one that I never even noticed. I took it out and noticed some immediate performance gains but it finally froze again a day later. Then I moved the hdd cage in the Armor case to let the PSU fan vent better. It's still freezing though, even when the temps are low.

I think I'm just going to buy a new PSU and see what happens. I've tried many things already...
 
I have a similar setup (see sig). Mine did the same thing. It started freezing at odd times. Eventually it just refused to POST. After RMAing the mobo, things have been fine but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've read several posts about people having similar issues with this mobo series and it seems that the voltage regulators of the P5N series just aren't strong enough to handle quad core CPUs.
 
Sounds like your board is starting to go . I had the same thing happen with my last board.
 
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