Power Supply Dying?

[zaaephod]

Good morning,

I put this PC together about a year ago, and today I have a problem. I switched it on this morning, and it comes on, looks like it's loading, then shuts off. I don't even think it got to the post a few times, other times it got close, but shut off before it got going. All the lights in the case shut down,everything goes off, like you've pulled the plug. After several of these 'random' cycles, it started up just fine. Wiggling wires and checking connections didn't seem to help. I'm sure this can't be good for the drives.

On a side note, the crucial ballistix tracer RAM listed below failed on me after about 4 months, so I replaced it with some OCZ reapers. It's been fine ever since then.

I thought I'd post here before I replace the PSU and find out that's not it. Thanks for your time. Here's the rig (sorry for the cut'n'paste)

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

GIGABYTE GA-X38-DQ6 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Ultra Durable 2, Ultra Cooling Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail

EVGA 768-P2-N881-AR GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AL1065 - Retail

ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T - Retail

Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series - Retail


Tuniq Tower 120 Universal CPU Cooler 120mm Cooling Fan and Fan Controller/Heatsink - Retail
ZALMAN Zm-F2BL 92mm Blue LED Case Fan - Retail
CORSAIR CMXAF1 Fans - Retail
Thermalright HR-03 Plus VGA Cooler - Retail

Arctic Silver ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET) Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier - OEM
Arctic Silver ASTA-7G (2-PC-SET) Premium Silver Thermal Adhesive - OEM
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM

ZALMAN ZM-MFC1 Fan Controller Panel - Retail
Koutech IO-FPM520 Multifunction Front Panel Card Reader with USB2.0/1394a/Audio/Video Ports - Retail
Labtec PC Mic 333 980184-0403 Silver 3.5mm Connector Microphone
CORSAIR Flash Voyager 2GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) Model CMFUSB2.0-2GB - Retail
Logitech G15 2-Tone USB Wired Standard Keyboard - Retail
Logitech 904369-0403 Black/Silver 7 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 RF Wireless TrackBall Cordless Optical TrackMan - Retail
ESET NOD32 Antivirus Home Edition V3.0 - OEM

 

[josephmil]

Your BIOS isn't trying to load from an external HDD is it? Made that mistake a few times!

Otherwise this should be fine...

 

[Proximon]

Sigh. You need to organize your list better, searching through it is a pain.

Will it restart fine as well? Every time? If so, I can see it being the PSU, as they take longer to warm up, and longer to cool down.

If it is the PSU, remember that PC P&C warranty is 5 years.

 

[zaaephod]

Sorry, I've shuffled the list around to put the more relevant things at the top. Anyway, no, I've got the OS on the 150gb raptor drive. To be honest, since this is also the pc I work from, I've been afraid to shut it off now. Hard to diagnose like that, I know lol.

Put it this way, if it wasn't the PSU, what would you be looking at next? I've never seen a pc do this. It's like you're pulling the plug from the PSU, over and over again, but it's not a 'timed' sequence, sometimes it's a few seconds longer or shorter than the time before. Then, after nearly a dozen of these 'cycles', it started up and works fine, without me doing a thing to it.

Thanks again,
Z

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Sounds like it could be a RAM problem to me. Have you run memtest86+ to test for RAM errors?

 

[Proximon]

Sounds like it could be a RAM problem to me. Have you run memtest86+ to test for RAM errors?

You know, I wanted to say that but wasn't completely sure. You'll have to reboot it for memtest of course

The other possibility is the motherboard. Or a short on the motherboard cause by a stray object.