Discussion
Hi folks.
My two year old PC has suddenly began acting up. Nothing has changed significantly in the past few months - the setup is exactly the same as it has been for a while.
It started yesterday when I did a post-installation reboot. I got the first line of POST, which is the processor info, then nothing. It just hung and got stuck there. Cannot enter BIOS and key presses don't do anything. Tried a combination of hard and soft reboots and the problem remained. Left the machine off for half an hour in case it was heat - same issue.
After an hour hour of trying to diagnose it by swapping and unplugging various bits, I realised that when I reduced the power load on the PC either by unplugging all the USB peripherals or a couple of PCI cards, the system booted fine. Confirmed this when I could successfully replicate the error when everything was plugged in, and fixed it when everything was disconnected.
But once the PC booted up, I got erratic behaviour. Programs would crash randomly and the PC would reboot when under any kind of extra load (e.g. upon a video render or when one of the optical drives spool).
Am I right to assume my PSU is on the blink? I did think it could be faulty RAM, but I don't see how unplugging devices would fix boot-up if it was problem RAM.
My system has always been ultra-stable, but always runs ultra-hot. This is because I built it to be incredibly silent, and in my noiseless room with everything turned off I still can't hear it at all - it's THAT quiet. The trade-off is that I run high core and system temps due to the really low fan speeds, and I've lost about three hard drives in two years. I've accepted this as par for the course though and always have a supply of spare hard drives in the cupboard to install when I need them, but unfortunately I never expected my PSU to go.
So what I'm thinking is that the heat has finally gotten to my PSU and it's on the blink. It's important that I get this right because a replacement PSU of a similar (noiseless) standard to what I have now will cost me about £130, so I want to be fairly certain with the diagnosis.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
D
My two year old PC has suddenly began acting up. Nothing has changed significantly in the past few months - the setup is exactly the same as it has been for a while.
It started yesterday when I did a post-installation reboot. I got the first line of POST, which is the processor info, then nothing. It just hung and got stuck there. Cannot enter BIOS and key presses don't do anything. Tried a combination of hard and soft reboots and the problem remained. Left the machine off for half an hour in case it was heat - same issue.
After an hour hour of trying to diagnose it by swapping and unplugging various bits, I realised that when I reduced the power load on the PC either by unplugging all the USB peripherals or a couple of PCI cards, the system booted fine. Confirmed this when I could successfully replicate the error when everything was plugged in, and fixed it when everything was disconnected.
But once the PC booted up, I got erratic behaviour. Programs would crash randomly and the PC would reboot when under any kind of extra load (e.g. upon a video render or when one of the optical drives spool).
Am I right to assume my PSU is on the blink? I did think it could be faulty RAM, but I don't see how unplugging devices would fix boot-up if it was problem RAM.
My system has always been ultra-stable, but always runs ultra-hot. This is because I built it to be incredibly silent, and in my noiseless room with everything turned off I still can't hear it at all - it's THAT quiet. The trade-off is that I run high core and system temps due to the really low fan speeds, and I've lost about three hard drives in two years. I've accepted this as par for the course though and always have a supply of spare hard drives in the cupboard to install when I need them, but unfortunately I never expected my PSU to go.
So what I'm thinking is that the heat has finally gotten to my PSU and it's on the blink. It's important that I get this right because a replacement PSU of a similar (noiseless) standard to what I have now will cost me about £130, so I want to be fairly certain with the diagnosis.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
D
Sounds like a PSU fault to me. This happened to me, broadly similar behaviour so I went out and spent a grand on a new PC.
£11 later on a new PSU and the old one is fine... just don't tell the other half!
Why not buy an el cheapo PSU for a tenner, then make sure it fixes the problem before shelling out on a fanless one?
If Silent running is really important, water cool it, with a huge radiator and one smalledit, sorry, LARGE low speed fan. Should save you money in the long run on burnt out components!
>> Edited by _dobbo_ on Friday 19th August 09:20
£11 later on a new PSU and the old one is fine... just don't tell the other half!
Why not buy an el cheapo PSU for a tenner, then make sure it fixes the problem before shelling out on a fanless one?
If Silent running is really important, water cool it, with a huge radiator and one smalledit, sorry, LARGE low speed fan. Should save you money in the long run on burnt out components!
>> Edited by _dobbo_ on Friday 19th August 09:20
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