power supply failing?

DEATHMASTER

DEATHMASTER

The Freeman
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So I've been fine with my setup for a couple years now but all of a sudden the computer shuts off. This has happened twice now and I have to wait 30s-1min with the cable unplugged before the thing will turn back on. I'm thinking its either the HDD or PSU. It's happened both times after a long day of being on, but that's nothing uncommon.

specs: Antec 550W psu, 3800+ X2 cpu, WD 400gb HDD + 160gb Hitachi (non-raid), 7950gt, unknown mobo, 2gb DDR.
 
lol you know I had this same problem and it turned out I didn't have enough hard-drive space.
 
That's weird. Well I've got 40gb and 13gb left on the respective drives.
 
DEATHMASTER said:
...I have to wait 30s-1min with the cable unplugged before the thing will turn back on.
Click to expand...

Sounds like an electrical problem. What your experiencing is the safety shutoff of your PSU. Most likely the cause of the problem is the PSU, but it could be anything. Listen for noises. Check your motherboard for popped capacitors.
 
Only thing I've heard is the HDD click after a long time of usage (just one loud click). Didn't find anything loose in the case.
 
If it's a safety shutoff like AtomicSpark said, then you might try a signal cleaner, for clean surge-free power.

I use an APC battery backup/surge suppressor along with another surge suppressor/signal cleaner. I can hear my APC catching surges at least once a week, sometimes more than once a day. Makes an audible switching sound. You can tell it works, because usually the lights in my room dim for a second when it happens - a surge.

It usually happens in the morning, when people in the building are running all kinds of high powered appliances to cook breakfast.

In case you don't understand, 'Signal cleaner' would be listed as a feature of the surge suppressor.

A surge could be compared to crimping a garden hose causing increased pressure, then releasing the crimp, causing the water to shoot out with increased power. In this example, the water is like electricity, and the hose is an electrical wire, of course. This can easily damage sensitive electronics.

I also compare it to someone flushing a toilet while you are taking a shower. First the water pressure drops, then, as it recovers, the water shoots out with increased power a few times before normalizing.
 
I'm not sure surges would be a cause, this has happened basically 2 days in a row and never once before. And I am using a multioutlet "power supply" it has a couple lights on it that say "grounded" and "protected."
 
I would agree that it is most likely an electrical issue. (although you do want ~20% free space on the HDDs, not 8%)
Could be the wiring in the building, something a UPC would help with.
Could be that a part in your PC is getting old and a capacitor is bulging or leaking.

If you had another PC you could test each part.
You could do check disk on your drives (right-click drive, properties, tools, error checking)
Fan on the GPU working and saying on for the full time the PC is on? (I've had a bad fan that was on at first but slowed down to basically nothing even when GPU was in game. Too much dust or bearing issue.)

If error checking comes up with nothing then I wouldn't suspect the drives. More likely the motherboard. Especially if it isn't draining it's power and able to come back on up to a minute after you unplug the power.
 
Stating the obvious here, but it could just be the power supply has become faulty.

I'm thinking it could also be possible that the CPU is getting too hot, causing the computer to shut down (protect mode), and not allowing you to turn it back on for an interval of time, (when the CPU is cooler.) This would be a predetermined amount of time (like setting a timer) and not an actual test to see if the CPU is actually cooler before turning on. This is all speculation, as I don't have any knowledge on how overheat protection works on CPUs, however I will assume they have it.
 
my temps show the cpu and HDD at usual levels. But as I'm sitting here printing some stuff the psu fan all of a sudden got faster, first time i've heard that.
 
BTW, I didn't mean to suggest that the surge protection would fix your problem, I was suggesting that maybe your power supply is already damaged, based on what AtomicSpark said.

A bad power supply is pretty common, since it is the conduit to the irregular power of a wall outlet.
 
I'm not entirely sure, but I think it may have been the graphics card prompting it. It happens when I'm in a game, and this time on the restart, the temp monitor was stuck on 96 (C) for the graphics card. I checked to make sure the fan is still working and the rivatuner setup for the temperature ranges works as well. Thing is I'm not getting any artifacting before it shuts down.
 
You should have mentioned that to start with, or is this a new development?

Clean and re-seat the card?

My computer used to reset all the time until I cleaned the memory with an air gun. But I never had to wait to turn it back on.
 
I alt-tabbed out of the game to see what the temp was at this time and it was at 88, and I'm only on the damn menu! I could distinctly hear the fan on the card too, and rivatuner showed it at 80% speed which is what I have it configured for at that temp range. The only other game that sent my card this high was Bioshock (which I haven't played in forever) but even then it didn't shut off. Where do they sell these air guns or compressed air things?
 
A can of compressed air is sold at any office store like staples, best buy, office max, but I usually get the best deal at Wal-Mart.
 
Electronics department. computer isle.

The brand they carry. (what it looks like):
CleanSafe-Dust-Remover%2010%20oz.jpg
 
I think I've seen that "Dust remover" can before, always thought it was a spray of...well not air.
 
pickup a box of latex rubber gloves while you are there. The rubber will prevent any static damage to your components. The box of gloves should be enough to last.. well, for the rest of your life if you just use it for your computer. You could even reuse the gloves if you can get them on a second time.
 
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