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Weird PSU failure...

L

LifesBane

n00b
Joined
Dec 26, 2008
Messages
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I'm just curious if anyone has run into something like this. I just got a Thermaltake TR-800P for my system. The PSU definitely seems to be bad. I just upgraded my video card, so I've been trying some new games with maxed out settings. After a little bit of playing, my system will just completely power down (motherboard lights still on though). It is stable otherwise, but graphics intensive games will just shut the system off after not too long.

Trying to turn the PC back on doesn't exactly work either. When I turn it on after a shutdown like that, the system tries to start up (the fans come on, all the lights come on, etc), but the lights slightly pulse, my mobo error code LED kinda flickers, and I can hear my hard drive keep doing a spin-up, spin-down really quickly. It's like the PSU is pulsing the power or something.

I thought maybe it was overheating, but it's not really getting hot at all, and after letting it sit and cool off, it still wasn't starting up. Oddly enough though, I figured out that by just turning the PSU power switch off then on, it clears up the problem and the system will instantly start booting up fine. It works 100% of the time, even doing it directly after a shutdown.

I'm just curious if anyone else has ever experienced this kind of issue. Time to start the RMA process... grr.
 
Well... I wouldn't say "the PSU definitely seems bad." If you only upgraded the graphics card, then there's a few possible scenarios:

1. The new card is overloading the PSU. An overloaded PSU shuts down as a form of protection. Although, this is HIGHLY unlikely in your case as the PSU in question is an 800W and ANY single graphics card configuration (unless you have a butt load of hard drives) do not need an 800W PSU.

2. The graphics card is bad.

3. The motherboard is bad.

So we know what kind of PSU you have... what kind of motherboard and graphics card do you have, and what kind of graphics card did you have before. It would be cool if you could list all of your system specs.
 
Thanks for the response -- sorry I didn't list the specs. I thought due to the problem, and the fact that the PSU was pulsing the power and working only after toggling the PSU power switch, it was undoubtedly the supply. I'll admit I'm unfamiliar with PSU problems though... they've always either worked fine or just blown out on me :p

Here's my system pre-upgrade:
EVGA 780i SLI Motherboard
Antec NeoPower 550 watt PSU
Intel Core 2 Extreme qx6850 non-OC (Corsair H50 cooler)
4x1GB Patriot DDR2 800 (@ 4-4-4-12)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB
Creative X-Fi Pro Music
1x7200rpm SATA HD, 1x10,000rpm SATA HD
1xDVD R/W

I ran that setup for the last couple years. My upgrade was just:
Thermaltake TR2-800P
EVGA GeForce GTX 480

The system is perfectly stable if I just do basic stuff like web browsing, or even movies. It's just when I start playing games that it happens. I'm going to toy around with switching around some of the cabling like the PCI-E power connectors to the graphics card and such... see if anything makes a difference.

(If it is the PSU, anyone have any experience with Thermaltake or TigerDirect for RMAs? Trying to figure out if it will be faster to go through TD or directly through the manufacturer)
 
yep.. my system dose the EXACT same thing when the south bridge over heats... replaced it with a better cooler, and after having that issue for about 2 years, it hasn't done it once in the last year.
 
Try sticking the Neopower back in and see if you have the same problem. It should be able to manage with that system.
 
Thor -- The same problems? Even having to toggle the PSU power switch or else the system wouldn't boot? Good to know... Hmm... well, the system shouldn't be running any hotter (my 8800GTX's fan was crapping out and the card was frequently hitting 95-97 which is hotter than my 480's gotten so far), but could the card maybe be drawing more voltage or something that would heat up the Southbridge more?

Zero -- I'll give it a shot if switching around the cables like I just did doesn't work... after what everyone's told me though, I'd be impressed if the 550 would run the card as it's actually under the minimum wattage req's for the 480.

Thanks for the advice, all. I'll give these things a shot and see what happens.
 
LifesBane said:
Thor -- The same problems? Even having to toggle the PSU power switch or else the system wouldn't boot? Good to know... Hmm... well, the system shouldn't be running any hotter (my 8800GTX's fan was crapping out and the card was frequently hitting 95-97 which is hotter than my 480's gotten so far), but could the card maybe be drawing more voltage or something that would heat up the Southbridge more?
Click to expand...

yup.. some times for nearly 15 minuets, it may have had something to do with the same problems that plagued the first gen xbox 360 and overheating, where the chip would get hot enough to basically break its solder connection, when you cut the power, what was a heatsink is now a heat well, and the system wont boot until it has cooled off and the connections are remade. the upgraded heatsink (in my case) may be putting more pressure on the chip and the connections cannot be broken by a small amount of thermal expansion. this combined with less thermal expansion (because of the new heatsink) made the problem go away.
 
Ok.. initially you said you just upgraded the graphics card and now it looks like you upgraded the PSU and graphics card. That graphics card should be nothing to that PSU, so the PSU could be bad, but like Zero said, try the Antec first. The Antec should be able to handle that build just fine, so if you put the Antec back in there and the problem goes away, then you have a bad Thermaltake PSU.

FYI: This is why when you do upgrades of only a few components, you shouldn't swap the components out all at the same time. One at a time is going to make troubleshooting easier if a problem crops up.
 
Thanks again all.

I logged my MCP temps (which I understand to be the Southbridge) and they were maxing at around 74-75 which I understand to be fine, so I don't think it was overheating.

I threw the Antec back in there, and yup... perfect stability. My MCP temps are running a little hotter though. Maybe that's just because I got a longer play session in finally, but they were still only hitting about 84 max and staying there so that's still not all too bad from what I understand (as long as it doesn't go a ton higher).

I guess I'm going to stick with this for now while I RMA the Thermaltake. Again, thanks for everyone's suggestions. Glad to finally be able to use this new card!
 
If you can, I suggest that you return the Thermaltake for a complete refund and purchase a better PSU instead. The TR2 line is Thermaltake's budget series and they are not especially good.
 
Agree with Zero /\

If you do upgrade the PSU go with a corsair, higher end antec psu or a seasonic. None of those brands have ever let me down.
 
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