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Strange Power Supply (???) Problem

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6 replies

by fred fillis

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Have a Tyan 2380 mobo with Athlon 800, running W98SE.

My wife says the machine spontaneously shutdown a couple of times. Was restarted in safe mode then was booted normally and left alone for 45 minutes. On return, screen was black. Cold start attempted but nothing happening but fan noise.

Have had some previous unexplained issues where it was necessary to remove one or both ends of the mains power cable to get the machine to restart. Tried this again and no luck, even after waiting 45 minutes.

My gut tells me it's the PS but I will not get the chance to look at it until I get home.

Is it possible that there is some sort of earth loop that causes this periodic problem or is it maybe an intermittant PS.

Cheers,

Ray

6 replies

by thechas

If you have at least a 300 Watt power supply, I would not start with the power supply.
If you have a 250 Watt, or smaller supply, replace it with at least a 300 Watt.

It may be either a clock speed, or a thermal managment problem.

There is a bug in the CPU speed auto-detect routine on some motherboards (socket A) the fix is to manually set the clock speed in BIOS settings. (100MHz fsb, 8X multiplier)
For some reason, the Athlon CPUs do not function well when underclocked.

I have alsoseen motherboards that shut down if the CPU overheats, or the fan speed drops to low.

You can use a hardware monitor program to watch this. (there may be one on the motherboard CD)
There are links to hardware monitor programs at www.viahardware.com

Make sure that the fans all run, and that the vents are not blocked or restricted.

There are also a few articles on thermal managment that you can download from AMDs web site.

Chas

by fred fillis

Was the PS after all. 5V and 12V both running half a volt low. Thanks for the ideas, will def. check into the CPU issues.

by the_roamer

To narrow this down, You would have to take a few different steps. Usually power supply problems manifest themselves in erratic power levels and you will see problems with components that don't seem to happen regularly. (i.e. a hard drive that doesn't work properly, etc). There are very real EMF issues that you would need to check into also. Where your computer is set up in your home, are there other powerful electonic devices near? If so, try relocating the computer. (usually emf problems will be apparent in the monitor, though...with problems with picture clarity and/or distortions in the picture)

Another step to try...when the computer boots up, leave it anattended in safe mode and see if the problem continues. If it does not, that would seem to rule out power supply and would point toward a configuration problem. Possibly some kind of driver conflict (I/O conflict or IRQ being requested by more than one device).

I would definately have your Power Supply tested, though. If it is indeed failing, you are leaving your system vulnerable to much bigger problems and expensive repairs by continuing to use a questionable power supply.

Good luck

by utgiannini

I am not a techy type of user so please forgive my ignorance, but I was wondering how my IPAD ??? which I don't think has a fan, can stay cool? How in the world does it not overheat without a fan? It seems like all tablets and smartphones would need fans to cool them - similar to notebooks. And, if they don't need fans (tablets and smartphones) then why the heck do notebooks need fans? What is the difference in cooling between tablets and PC's?

Again, I am not a tech person so I apologize if this is an elementary question. I do however, find this website very resourceful for the curious user. Thanks,

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