Power Draw

Had a real good look over the motherboard and all the capacitors look in tip-top condition. I did notice again that the fans on the top wall of the case are very close to the CPU power cable (that 6 or 8 pin one near the CPU) and the memory sticks. In fact the the CPU power cable was pretty much touching cloth so I've removed both fans, tidied up the cables and rerouted some so I could remove a few, air dusted the whole system including RAM slots and the PSU and also reconnected the DVD writer. So far it's been booting fine with no problems.

Did another memory stress test using MemTest 86 and it threw up 3 errors. I'll keep my eye on all this. Was looking forward to a new build despite the cost.


Cheers for the advice so far, I'm sure I'll be back! lol
 
So far so good. Do you reckon vibrations from the fans against the ram or power cable could have been causing it?
 
It could be. I had network issue with a power cable to close to it despite it being shielded.

I would offer to lend you my atx power supply testing gadget. But for the price of postage backwards and forwards you may as well buy one. I find it a useful easy tool to diagnose to of the issues I had with a build not too long ago. Maybe an idea.

Regarding the graphics card, I've had a very similar sounding problem with an old nvidia once. I ended up just using different ports to stop faffing about with it.
 
I said ages ago in my post to unplug the fans
 
Mr Bump said:
I would look at checking all your connections are tight as well, maybe the power lead into the PSU and mobo connectors, unplug your case fans as well.
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Here
 
i think its more of a happy coincidence to be honest. a power lead running close to a fan shouldn't make a system unstable.

the 8 pin 12v CPU supply on my ASUS m-ATX board has to pass directly over one of the CPU twin fans on my system.
 
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neil_g said:
i think its more of a happy coincidence to be honest. a power lead running close to a fan shouldn't make a system unstable.
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Shouldn't be the key word ;) If the connector or soldering is brittle then you'll never know. So yes I agree not likely the root cause, but part of the chain is a possibility...
 
dejongj said:
Shouldn't be the key word ;) If the connector or soldering is brittle then you'll never know. So yes I agree not likely the root cause, but part of the chain is a possibility...
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well yes "shouldn't" is about right :D

if the soldering in the connector joint was slightly cracked causing vibration to make a disconnect, might be the problem. but not a direct result of running the cable near the fan, more that the PSU has become defective.

/pedantic
 
Agreed, not the root cause...
 
From cold the PC fails to start, but waiting 10 mins after that it will start.

Are you switching off at the mains overnight, switching on at the mains before the first boot attempt and then leaving it switched on at the mains for the 10 minutes before attempting again?
 
I did previously unplug the fans but I never removed them and the problem was still there. Not sure how removing a fan which isn't running would change things but then maybe it was pressing slightly on the ram and shifting it in its seating? Come to think of it the top fans sometimes gave off a vibration noise so I'd push down slightly on the top of the case to stop it, I just realised I was probably pusing the fan into the ram! I'm now only running one fan at the front pushing air through to an exhaust fan at the rear. The two top exhaust fans are gone, I also had two side panel fans which I stopped using a while ago which are now gone and a new side panel is on. The CPU fan and giant heatsink is still there. Seems to be a lot more room inside the case now so hopefully better airflow also.

I also gave the whole case and PSU a proper air blast, although temps seemed fine when running stress tests. Perhaps some dust or something had got into the memory pins area which I also blasted out with dust. As said all the capacitors look in brand new condition as does the rest of the motherboard and other components.

I leave the computer on at the mains 24/7 and also the power button on the back of the PSU. But I shut down the computer when finished using. The multiblock has surge protection.

There's also the BIOS which I updated as mine was about 4 or 5 updates old! lol
 
Well, it's starting to happen again. Just the odd time but ever increasing. :(
 
Well it's now been happening more and more frequently with the monitor not turning on yet the computer is still booting up but I've come across something which seems to make it work. I always shut the computer down when finished but leave everything switched on at the wall, however, when it won't boot I've noticed that if I flip the PSU switch at the back of the computer (not the plug in the wall) to off for about 10 seconds then switch back on it always works. Could there be a capacitor issue in the PSU that isn't discharging properly or something?
 
Just to revisit this, this morning I connected the monitor to the integrated graphics using a dvi cable and switched it in bios and it works fine. So it looks like it's the graphics card.

So the question now is can it be a power issue? Driver issue? (latest driver always installed) A compatibility with the motherboard? Or something else? Using the same dvi cable with the graphics card doesn't solve it. I've also noticed that the monitor osd doesn't work unless it has a working connection with the computer. It's an ACER monitor now.

Any thoughts?
 
gman said:
Well it's now been happening more and more frequently with the monitor not turning on yet the computer is still booting up but I've come across something which seems to make it work. I always shut the computer down when finished but leave everything switched on at the wall, however, when it won't boot I've noticed that if I flip the PSU switch at the back of the computer (not the plug in the wall) to off for about 10 seconds then switch back on it always works. Could there be a capacitor issue in the PSU that isn't discharging properly or something?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it's a dodgy power cable connection - not the PSU but the actual 3 pin power cable - try unplugging and plugging it back in a few times.

Or it could be the switch on the back of the case.

You could also try re-setting the BIOS so that the PC powers up when you switch on the main power so don't need to use the power on switch on the PC.

Then simply unplug at the wall when you're finished for the night (always a good idea IMO) and as soon as you plug in and turn the main power on in the morning your PC should start.
.
 
I've looked over this thread and tbh, if memtest is throwing up errors I would swap out the dodgy RAM chips.

With a problem like this, I'd just change the PSU. I don't think your build would draw too much from your existing PSU, but if it's faulty the extra power drawer from your GPU upgrade probably exacerbates it sufficiently enough to be a problem. My i7 desktop shipped with a GTX 660, 2HDD, 2 optical drives and 4 DIMM modules. I added an SSD. It doesn't seem to have caused any issues with the 350W PSU that it shipped with.

I look after a fleet of around 50 desktop machines and at least 30 servers. When I see a problem like this, even as a triage measure I just change the PSU because it's quicker than actually diagnosing the issue and most times resolves the problem. With the fleet, in just over two years I've replaced:

~11 PSUs (7 were the same make and model which all failed within a few months of each other)
~4 SSDs
~2 RAM sticks
~1 mobo

Most of the machines are Intel i5 or i7, ranging from first gen i7 upwards.
We use Asus P6T mobos in the older machines
The majority of newer ones are Gigabyte Z68/Z87

On the server side of things (fleet of around 30 Dells) I've replaced:

At least 3x HDD
2x RAM due to non-correctable ECC errors (...when one chip goes, we replace the whole lot)
2x PSUs
1x mobo, by the looks of it - lost a domain controller during the course of the weekend, will find out for sure on Monday


In both my home servers, the power connectors are at the top of the mobo so it's impossible to plug them into the PSU without the cables touching the top fans. It's not ideal but doesn't seem to have caused a problem so far.
 
Cheers for all that. I just recently realised that my CPU Cooler says it's a 150W!!! Could that be sucking the power?
 
Ah lol
 
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