I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

MM

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:13:52 +0100, MM wrote:

I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second or
two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few months,
then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

Absolutely classic symptom. That's happened more times than I can
remember!

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I learnt the same the hard way, I couldn't boot up past the motherboard boot screen and bios settings.

It was intermittent, but I never had a complete power failure. This lead me to all sorts of difficult diagnostics and costly as I bought a new mobo which the company refused to take back.

In the end after swaping out the memory and CPU with the wife's PC eventually found the problem was due to the PSU.
Intermittent voltage on one of the input leads can cause this, doesn't even need to be a complete failure which make diagnosis very hard.

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:16:27 +0200, hewhowalksamongus wrote:

I learnt the same the hard way, I couldn't boot up past the motherboard
boot screen and bios settings.

It was intermittent, but I never had a complete power failure. This lead
me to all sorts of difficult diagnostics and costly as I bought a new
mobo which the company refused to take back.

In the end after swaping out the memory and CPU with the wife's PC
eventually found the problem was due to the PSU.
Intermittent voltage on one of the input leads can cause this, doesn't
even need to be a complete failure which make diagnosis very hard.

You can get inexpensive PSU testers from dx.com. I have found them very
useful.



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

In article ,
MM writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period.
Eventually I changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no
problems since (touch wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or
leaking caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20
from CPC, I can't be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:39:58 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
MM writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period. Eventually I
changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no problems since (touch
wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or leaking
caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20 from CPC, I can't
be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

I think this is where the recently mentioned ESR meter comes in. I tend
to pay a bit more for PSUs these days - I go for the 80+ ones.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 22/04/2013 10:54 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:39:58 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In ,
writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period. Eventually I
changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no problems since (touch
wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or leaking
caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20 from CPC, I can't
be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

I think this is where the recently mentioned ESR meter comes in. I tend
to pay a bit more for PSUs these days - I go for the 80+ ones.

I will +1 Bob's suggestion.

I, being someone who loves a bargain, have, since the 80's, always
preferred a cheaper PSU on the grounds that, if the package is rated
high enough it will be just fine.

Over the years, some parts would fail, mostly hard drives but, that
would be the hard drive's fault, wouldn't it?

About a year back 2 new hard drives, in a 4 drives system, blinked
out. Totally functionless. My PC would shut down when switching from a
low res' window to a higher res' window.

I looked for info as to what could be causing the problem and many
would say, 'get a badged PSU; pay more for the quality' on the grounds
that the manufacturer's ratings were more likely to be nearer the truth.
So, I relented and did just that.

I have had no such problems since but, the thing the gives me more
confidence than ever before is, just how cold the PC casing is above the
PSU even when demanding 'simracing' graphics are in use. Oh, and a 6
year warranty came with it.

....Ray.

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On 22 Apr 2013, you wrote in uk.d-i-y:

...Ray.


I had a less obvious problem. My PSU (fan) was still running when I shut
down the PC. No matter how long I let it the fan would keep running. I
eventiually found it was due to the PSU not responding to a signal from the
Mother BOard. Changed the PSU and all is well now.

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:40:59 +0100, RayL12 wrote:

On 22/04/2013 10:54 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:39:58 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In ,
writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period. Eventually I
changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no problems since (touch
wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or leaking
caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20 from CPC, I
can't be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

I think this is where the recently mentioned ESR meter comes in. I tend
to pay a bit more for PSUs these days - I go for the 80+ ones.

I will +1 Bob's suggestion.

I, being someone who loves a bargain, have, since the 80's, always
preferred a cheaper PSU on the grounds that, if the package is rated
high enough it will be just fine.

Over the years, some parts would fail, mostly hard drives but, that
would be the hard drive's fault, wouldn't it?

About a year back 2 new hard drives, in a 4 drives system, blinked
out. Totally functionless. My PC would shut down when switching from a
low res' window to a higher res' window.

I looked for info as to what could be causing the problem and many
would say, 'get a badged PSU; pay more for the quality' on the grounds
that the manufacturer's ratings were more likely to be nearer the truth.
So, I relented and did just that.

I have had no such problems since but, the thing the gives me more
confidence than ever before is, just how cold the PC casing is above the
PSU even when demanding 'simracing' graphics are in use. Oh, and a 6
year warranty came with it.

Perhaps I should have explained what I meant what I meant by 80+ - it
occurred to me afterwards that someone might think I meant the price!
These PSUs are claimed to be a bit more economical, and with the number
of machines I have running...

http://www.80plus.org

(it redirects, but don't worry about it).



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:16:27 +0200, hewhowalksamongus
wrote:


I learnt the same the hard way, I couldn't boot up past the motherboard
boot screen and bios settings.

It was intermittent, but I never had a complete power failure. This lead
me to all sorts of difficult diagnostics and costly as I bought a new
mobo which the company refused to take back.

In the end after swaping out the memory and CPU with the wife's PC
eventually found the problem was due to the PSU.
Intermittent voltage on one of the input leads can cause this, doesn't
even need to be a complete failure which make diagnosis very hard.

The way I figured it was this: Approximately two years ago I bought a
new PC tower case complete with power supply in order to purloin the
power supply for another PC whose PS had gone duff. Why buy a new case
just for the power supply? Two years ago, the duff power supply was
tiny. Its length is 105mm. I tried and tried, but could not obtain a
new one to fit the extremely tight space in the other PC. However, on
browsing around the Maplin shop in Peterborough I noticed the new
tower cases and lo and behold, one had a power supply with the right
dimensions! That's why I ended up with a new tower case.

After using the power supply to fix that other PC I put the brand-new
tower case in the loft, thinking one day it would come in handy.

So when the Acer started playing up, I fetched the case down and
planned on moving the whole "innards" of the Acer to the new case
(which is larger, has more drive bays and is far more accessible than
the cramped Acer design).

I reckoned with a new power supply, and if this doesn't fix it, then,
well, I'd need a power supply anyway for the new tower case, and I
worked out that a mobo, RAM and CPU from Amazon wouldn't cost more
that £108. So if the worst came to the worst, I'd have bought the new
power supply AND the new mobo, RAM and CPU.

Anyway, as "luck" would have it, the power supply alone has done the
trick! I now have an "Acer" inside a no-name tower case working very
nicely. Of course, the mobo is obsolete, but for "driving" my music
apps for my digital piano, it's still got plenty of oompf.

Only prob: I'll have to keep the Acer case, because it has the
official Microsoft certificate of authenticity (Windows XP) stuck to
the side. (I bought the PC secondhand three years ago locally.) I
don't know how to get that CoA off without damaging it.

So, the PC is back in the land of the living for £22.99, the cost of
the new power supply. Sure, I could've got it cheaper online, but I
bought it locally from a computer shop in Spalding and took the case
along with me to make sure the new supply fitted.

MM

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:39:58 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
MM writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period.
Eventually I changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no
problems since (touch wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or
leaking caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20
from CPC, I can't be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

Indeed so. The only problem is disposal of the old unit, because
you're not supposed to chuck it in the black bin bag, so I'll have to
make a special detour next time I go to Spalding in order to drop it
off at the council tip.

MM

On 22/04/2013 12:00 PM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:40:59 +0100, RayL12 wrote:

On 22/04/2013 10:54 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:39:58 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In ,
writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period. Eventually I
changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no problems since (touch
wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or leaking
caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20 from CPC, I
can't be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

I think this is where the recently mentioned ESR meter comes in. I tend
to pay a bit more for PSUs these days - I go for the 80+ ones.

I will +1 Bob's suggestion.

I, being someone who loves a bargain, have, since the 80's, always
preferred a cheaper PSU on the grounds that, if the package is rated
high enough it will be just fine.

Over the years, some parts would fail, mostly hard drives but, that
would be the hard drive's fault, wouldn't it?

About a year back 2 new hard drives, in a 4 drives system, blinked
out. Totally functionless. My PC would shut down when switching from a
low res' window to a higher res' window.

I looked for info as to what could be causing the problem and many
would say, 'get a badged PSU; pay more for the quality' on the grounds
that the manufacturer's ratings were more likely to be nearer the truth.
So, I relented and did just that.

I have had no such problems since but, the thing the gives me more
confidence than ever before is, just how cold the PC casing is above the
PSU even when demanding 'simracing' graphics are in use. Oh, and a 6
year warranty came with it.

Perhaps I should have explained what I meant what I meant by 80+ - it
occurred to me afterwards that someone might think I meant the price!
These PSUs are claimed to be a bit more economical, and with the number
of machines I have running...

http://www.80plus.org

(it redirects, but don't worry about it).



LOL, OK, but, I didn't respond to the 80+. I was referring to 'any.
PSU that fails is in general, due to poor quality. :-)

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One click voting to change the world.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/
Join Now! Be a part of people power.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/
Biting the hand that feeds IT

(Andrew Gabriel) writes:

In article ,
MM writes:
I have an older (around 2006) Acer with an MSI mobo. PC went on the
blink. Symptom: PC started, then immediately stopped (within a second
or two). This problem started intermittently over the previous few
months, then on Friday it just would not start.

Cause: Power supply. I fitted a new one and the PC has worked ever
since.

My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period.
Eventually I changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no
problems since (touch wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or
leaking caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20
from CPC, I can't be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

I've a collection of PCs of varying age, some of which are so old as to
be irrelevant (apparently - myself I don't think so, partly because I
don't run Windows so don't need speed) and I've had similar problems.

The difficulty though is that new PSUs are missing one supply line only
needed by ISA cards, and they often (usually?) don't have a switched
mains output socket which is invonvenient.



--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:40:59 +0100, RayL12 wrote:

I think this is where the recently mentioned ESR meter comes in. I tend
to pay a bit more for PSUs these days - I go for the 80+ ones.

I will +1 Bob's suggestion.

Even if building to a tight budget, £50 - 60 on a good PSU is a saving in
the long term (and possibly even sooner).
I've always used Seasonic as they get good reports and also make PSUs for
other suppliers.
My current PC (2007) has a 330W Seasonic that's never been above 120W input
and is at 45W idling, so I hope it's got a few years in it yet.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

In article ,
Bob Eager writes:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:39:58 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
My desktop system is 2007, so not much newer.
That started crashing periodically, with the frequency slowly
increasing. I reseated everything socketed, but it didn't help.
I hadn't changed any of the software over this period. Eventually I
changed the PSU a couple of months ago, and no problems since (touch
wood;-)

There's nothing visibly faulty in the old PSU - no swollen or leaking
caps for example. Given the new PSU was well under £20 from CPC, I can't
be bothered to try diagnosing the old one.

I think this is where the recently mentioned ESR meter comes in. I tend
to pay a bit more for PSUs these days - I go for the 80+ ones.

This one turns out to be 80+, although it didn't say so anywhere
before it arrived.

We use 93% ones at work, but we have them specially designed as
they're not PC-shape, are much more powerful, and are hot swap.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Bob Eager wrote:

You can get inexpensive PSU testers from dx.com. I have found them very
useful.

I was thinking about getting a tester but was told that I would be as
well buying another PSU and use that, in a substitution manner, to find
if the fault was the PSU.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

We use 93% ones at work, but we have them specially designed as
they're not PC-shape, are much more powerful, and are hot swap.

That reminds me of a comic strip (userfriendly) were the sales droid
(Steff Murky),trying to make the old equipment they (a canadian ISP)
were selling sound like it had a USP, said the servers had coldswap
power supplies, this started a fad of everyone demanding they got the
new cold swap power supplies.

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:44:52 +0100, soup wrote:

Bob Eager wrote:

You can get inexpensive PSU testers from dx.com. I have found them very
useful.

I was thinking about getting a tester but was told that I would be as
well buying another PSU and use that, in a substitution manner, to find
if the fault was the PSU.

It's a damn sight quicker using the tester, and it tells you which bit
isn't working.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

In article ,
soup writes:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

We use 93% ones at work, but we have them specially designed as
they're not PC-shape, are much more powerful, and are hot swap.

That reminds me of a comic strip (userfriendly) were the sales droid
(Steff Murky),trying to make the old equipment they (a canadian ISP)
were selling sound like it had a USP, said the servers had coldswap
power supplies, this started a fad of everyone demanding they got the
new cold swap power supplies.

Reminds me of a reporter in the bible-bashing belt in the US
interviewing about an upcoming election when gay marriage was
in the news.

"Would you vote for a heterosexual candidate?"
"Oh no. We don't want no heterosexuals around here, gett'n up
to all sorts. Should all have been drowned at birth"...

Oh, how I laughed, whilst the rant continued...

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]