Power Supply PC

[JoseMCeee 10+ year member]

Before my PC stopped working it would shut off out of no where or everytime I would try to boot it up, a blue window with white writing would flash for about one second after the Windows XP screen and then the system would restart. This screen would not stay on for long but what I was able to read was "Internal-power-failure, hardware or software could have caused this etc..." This would happen at least twice before the PC would start up normally. I thought I could have been a hardware problem because I had not installed any new software. So I took out one of the memory chips but that did not help it. Then I swapped to the memory chips and then it just completly stopped working. Sometimes even when I pushed the power button it would not do anything.

Well I completly bought a new system, pretty much everything except the video card and audio card and the power supply. What I was wondering if any of the above could have been because of the power supply. I recently bought it at new egg for 40 bucks and its 450 watt. Is there anyway to see if its the powersupply? But my mobo and everything else was already pretty old so Im not suprised if the mobo could have caused it.

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[rocky 59 5,000+ posts]

dmm

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

yeah check the leads for 12V, and fi you can find the pin layout for your cpu you should be able to check the voltage on the socket (i would think..havent tried). What kind of PSU? ive dealt with antec customer service on a few things and its always top notch...i always rec antec psu's and cases...great company.

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

if you take the power supply out of the case, bridge the GREEN WIRE on the 20-pin molex connector to one of the BLACK WIRES on the same molex connector with a spare piece of 16awg wire, [ you might need to plug a fan or somthing in to make it turn on too ] you can then use your DMM to test the voltages. red = 5dcv and yellow = 12dcv and orange = 3.3dcv. also - plug the DMM into a free yellow\black molex and check and see if your 12v rail is dipping, do the same for the red\black.

they all have a single common ground - so dont worry about WICH black wires to test with.

alot of the time - if you are using a good amount of power, the RMS of your powersupply will be like how car audio rates amplifiers.

a $40 POS power supply will claim 450w, when it will only give ya like 225w. and if you use more power than that, it will strain and end up loosing voltage to compensate. whats probly happening is your 12v\5v\1.5v rails are dipping in voltage and your CPU is shitting a brick.

i would highly suggest not buying flea-market-esque powersupplies. because we all know - your equipment is only as good as your weakest link, and if you supply dirty power, you get dirty performance.

good luck to ya.

 

[HiAmplidude 10+ year member]

your system is only as good as your weakest link

exactly!

 

[JoseMCeee 10+ year member]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817159031

this is the one I have

 

[JoseMCeee 10+ year member]

I was also thinking about buying an Antec power supply because I realized that only few companies make good PSU's. Im not sure if I should just order the new power supply and just call it a day. Everything else is going to be new...

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931 and call it a day.. not a bad price either for 550 watt. 5/5 star and 106 reviews.