Random Power Down Issues

[renrut422]

Alright, I am having some of the weirdest problems ever with my desktop. It all started about a month ago when I decided to do a quick fall cleaning before school started up. I went to turn the computer back on, and I got a really weird screeching noise, fans spun but no boot. Took it to my school's IT dept since it is free and they said power supply was bad, made sense because it was always stuck in the I position on the I/O switch on the back, so I replaced it with a more powerful (800W Rosewill Lightning).

Got the new one in and it worked, got excited and ran some stuff, started downloading SCII since I wanted to start playing it some. I come back to my room and it had randomly powered off after ~3.5 hours. Next morning, I unplugged the power supply, plugged it back in. Computer booted, I put in my password at windows, desktop loads, BAM crash. That night decided to look a little bit more into it, it seemed as though the CPU may not have been plugged in quite like it should have so I jiggled it a little bit and it looked a bit better. Turned it on that night, let it run for 5 hours did fine, played some video games that night and it worked like a champ. Figured this was the end of my issues.

The next day, I turned it on and was sitting it idle for a little bit, listened to some music off spotify, and then once more the power down reared its ugly head after about an hour. Since then, I have gone into BIOS to try and see if my RAM is undervolted per the suggestion of a friend, but it crashed after ~5 minutes then ~30 seconds before I really even got a chance to look around in my BIOS.

At this point, I'm assuming my HDD, Vid Card and CPU are fine because the computer shouldn't pass the POST otherwise, it shouldn't be heat related because it performed fine under a load. This leaves me with either PSU, motherboard, or RAM. I plan to get a power supply tester and check that, then swap out my RAM. If neither of these fixes my problem, would it be pretty safe to assume motherboard or are there other suggestions? I have also looked around for blown/bulging capacitors and none are visible on either motherboard or video card. It's incredibly frustrating because there are plenty of threads on "my computer won't start" but very little information on random shutdowns like this, I'm hoping it'll stay int his 30 second power on range though because it will be easier to troubleshoot that way.

Current Hardware:
500GB HDD Seagate 7200RPM
Rosewill Lightning 800W
Zotac GTX 560 Ti
MB Asus M5A99X EVO 990X
4GBx2 PNY RAM
AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2 Ghz) with a coolermaster CPU fan
Samsung DVD drive

*The previous PSU was an Antec GreenWatts 650W (only psu on the market known to literally burst into flames, way to go Antec)

 

[Raiddinn]

TBH it sounds like a PSU problem and I doubt that a PSU tester will be able to help you validate that conclusion that much.

You can probably take it back to the store and tell them that ever since you bought it your computer just crashes over and over and you want them to trade it for something else.

BTW, on the surface it looks safe to assume the Rosewill 800w is more powerful than an Antec 650w, but it isn't necessarily true. Antec usually reports numbers conservatively whereas Rosewill often reports numbers aggressively.

Anyway, if you want you can try taking the PC back to the school and having them put one of their PSUs in it. I am guessing if it is powerful enough it should start right up.

I know it sounds weird, but PSUs often just have this SIDS thing going on and its possible you got hit with it twice in a row.

 

[renrut422]

Well I could potentially swap my PSU with my friend's down the hall and see if that works, would you then suggest refunding my Rosewill and just living with an Antec once they get back to me off RMA? I'm going to try to pay for an upgrade considering it is the only psu on the market known to burst into flames, that usually isn't a good thing.

I am at all costs avoiding going back to our IT dept, on return I was missing two mobo screws that were certainly there when I took it in, and they have about 30 computers in right now where as they only had one when I came in and it still took a week.

 

[Raiddinn]

Well, I don't know about your IT department or anything, but if they suck then go with the guy down the hall idea instead.

If he has a good one, everything should be fine. However, depending on how good of a friend you are you might want to make sure he understood exactly what happened to the last 2 PSUs you tried to plug into this thing before he commits to handing it over.

 

[renrut422]

I think I'll just wait till Antec sends me a new power supply on RMA and go from there, evidently the fact that there was a definite smell after my power offs suggests that it is definitely power supply related according to my computer engineering friends.

 

[Raiddinn]

If you smell something, 95% of the time its PSU. They are right about that.

 

[renrut422]

I will revisit this thread after Antec gets back to me with a new PSU, thank you so much for your help up to now though!

 

[Raiddinn]

Its all good.

 

[tucothecat]

FWIW, I've had terrible luck with Rosewill brand PSU's. Actually, that's the only brand PSU I've run across that actually went bad over and over again. This was a few years ago, and smaller "case included" psu's ... but I still wouldn't trust rosewill for psu.

 

[renrut422]

Yea, I decided to take the refund option on the Rosewill. Now I'm just playing the hurry up and wait game that is getting parts for a computer as someone who lives on the East coast. Hopefully it's here by Friday, though I will say Antec's customer service is pretty horrid. Took me 5 hours to start my advance RMA with all the runaround they give you, plus they would only offer me a different model if I downgraded in wattage even after they acknowledged that this power supply has been known to burst into flames.

"Don't worry sir we think this new revision that we released in 2012 has fixed the flames and failure issue, but rest assured our warranty covers any damage to other components due to power supply failure." - Calling complete BS on that because I'm sure it requires 100% proof plus 15 hours of work to get that if it even exists.

 

[renrut422]

Well, got the new Antec PSU and it has been working for 7 hours, sounds like we are good? Let's hope

 

[renrut422]

Best answer selected by renrut422.

 

[Raiddinn]

Glad to hear things are going well in the short term. I hope they continue that way.