Power Supply Question

G

GRENADE MAGNET

Poster
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
239
I believe my power supply died.

I built the machine years ago.

Since It's last gen tech, power supplies
don't look the same anymore. Mine mounts at
the top rear of the case with a fan in front & back.

The new style, which I saw on a demo at tigerdirect,
mounts lower in the case with a fan on top / or bottom?

They're labeled ATX but will this new style fit my case?

Time to build a new machine. I was shocked at how outdated it was,
but in the mean-time I need to fix this one.
 
The style of power supplies has not changed. People just tend to design computer cases where the power supply is in a different spot.

If your case is ATX, then an ATX power supply will work perfectly fine.
 
It wouldn't even turn on the other day.
It just booted for me then abrutly shut down
and rebooted again. No bueno.

It got stuck in a reboot cycle recently.
I had to unplug it and hold the power
button down before it would boot.
 
almost sounds to me like you have capicitors on the mobo getting ready to die and not the power supply.

take a look at the caps surrounding the cpu slot.. check for leaking and swelled capicitors.

like this:

Blown_fuse_screenshot.JPG


if you find any leaking or swelled, Im sorry to say but you will need a new mobo
 
Last edited:
It seems to kinda run off the 430W until you try to stress it by running a game.

I put the original supply back up and it still won't boot.

My best guess is still power supply.
 
After a short temper tantrum I relented and ordered a psu tester from newegg.

Having my gaming machine down is aggravating.

I put my old 512mb vid card in and the system is still unpredictably shutting down.

I have no idea where the problem lies at the moment.
 
Well, if it keeps shitting down then somewhere there is a voltage drop somewhere. Troubleshooting that is not easy. If it does it with another PSU then you are looking at the MOBO or CPU not getting enough voltage, though I could think of other things. Either way, you don't want that kind of thing in your machine. Eventually it will short circuit, and the shutdowns are probably built in safeguards to prevent that.
 
Yeah It's doing it with both psu's, however the spare I tried is not equal or adequate to run the system.

Unfortunately both my motherboard and processor have been discontinued.
 
Power supplies have changed a little bit over recent years but the standard form factors are all still available. You can easily find a power supply that will work in your box. The one you showed a pic of doesn't mount like it's shown. That fan actually points down and it SUCKS air (not blow) up and out the back. ATX is ATX is ATX...deviations are clearly marked miniATX... microATX... I have a really weird one for my small form factor case called TFX but it's still a standard.

Hopefully it is just your PSU. Over the years I've had PSUs fritz out and take MBs... RAM... CPUs.. with them =/ Start with a new PSU. If it's still unstable I'd run a low level diagnostic package. I can't think of it off the top of my head; haven't used it in years. I got it on a bootable CD.... Qtools... Quick Tools? Something like that. It cycles through testing all your hardware. That will tell you if you have bad RAM, CPU, co-processor, bus, bridge, etc.

Or you can throw parts at it. No shame there; done it many times. Pull any other cards that aren't absolutely necessary. This is tougher now-days because so many things are integrated to the motherboard. Used to be you'd pull out all your PCI and ISA cards. Add them back in one at a time until you found the one that made your system unstable.

Pull all the RAM out... put one back in... boot up... is it stable? If yes then add another stick of RAM. If no then pull that stick and try another one. Weed out the bad ones!

Put in a known-good stick of RAM. Is it stable? If yes then replace RAM. If no then it's not RAM.

Put in a known-good graphics card. Is it stable? If yes then replace gfx card. If no then it's not gfx card.

You see where I'm going with this. My wife is always like "why do you have all these computer parts?!" This is why =)
 
Last edited:
MorganM said:
Power supplies have changed a little bit over recent years but the standard form factors are all still available. You can easily find a power supply that will work in your box. The one you showed a pic of doesn't mount like it's shown. That fan actually points down and it SUCKS air (not blow) up and out the back. ATX is ATX is ATX...deviations are clearly marked miniATX... microATX... I have a really weird one for my small form factor case called TFX but it's still a standard.

Or you can throw parts at it. No shame there; done it many times.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's the reassurance I was looking for. I've seen some cases where it was mounted low, transversely I've noticed that some new cases with top mounted psu's have more clearance above the mount. Was apprehensive about deviating from the front/back fan configuration, especially since the PSU labels orientation seemed to indicate fan side up mounting.

I'll go pick one up tomorrow.

Btw, I appreciate your blessing to throw good money after bad if it doesn't work lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top