Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: icemaw on March 20, 2004, 01:29:17 PM

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: icemaw on March 20, 2004, 01:29:17 PM

When my system has been off for a couple hours and I try and boot up. Both status lights go red. It will boot of after I unplug and plug back in the system cables I:E: hard drives etc etc. I have tried new cables with no luck. If system has been powered down for a short time it will boot fine otherwise its a fight. System specs are in sig.

Any help would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: bloom25 on March 20, 2004, 02:07:35 PM

I'd say try a higher wattage power supply and see if that takes care of it.

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: icemaw on March 20, 2004, 02:24:37 PM

hiyas bloom thanks for the reply. This system has been running in current config for a couple years with no changes. This is a problem that started a couple months ago. You think it still might be the power supply? I have never changed one of them is it hard? Its a full tower case with a 350 watt supply. Do I need more?

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: bloom25 on March 20, 2004, 03:05:37 PM

Interesting...

One other problem could be failing power capacitors.  Look at the capacitors near the cpu socket and (possibly) near the memory slots and see if any of them look bulged out at the top (or worse yet leaking) - they should be flat on top.

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: sonar732 on March 20, 2004, 03:08:37 PM

Changing a power supply is really easy!  Unplug all of your power cables and unscrew it from the back of your case.  Then you can pull it out with no problems.  With your system specs, I'd suggest a 400 watt power supply.  I've seen capacitors that have not leaked, but blew up...it was a sad site to see.

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: bloom25 on March 21, 2004, 05:29:02 PM

Icemaw, if that's a decent 350W power supply IMO that is plenty for your system.  

I still think the problem is likely to be either bad caps or a flaky power supply.  Generally you can do a visual inspection on the caps and spot problems there.  Testing the powersupply is a bit trickier, given the symptoms you are having.

Title: Boot up problem
Post by: BB Gun on March 21, 2004, 11:16:00 PM

A powersupply definitely can "just go bad".  Happened to me several months ago.

The simplest way to test it is the ole' part swap method, unless you have some kind of electrical system tester and know how to use it and what the nominal numbers for your PSU are supposed to be.

BB