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Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:39 am Post subject: PC crashing alot

So this just started last night, and it's pissing me off royally. I'm tooling along, playing Warcraft and listening to mp3s. Been playing for like 4 hours or so. All of the sudden I hear this pop sound, kinda like a breaker makes when it trips and my screen freezes. Complete and total hard lock.

I turn the comp off and turn it right back on, it boots to desktop and promptly does it again. So I think it must be overheating. I pull the sides of the case off and go get a box fan, put it directly on the side of the case and boot it back up. Log in to WoW, play for about an hour, hear the sound, locks again. I look inside.... all fans are still spinning, HD activity light is still going.... nothing seems hot at all.

So I turn it off/on, and it boots to desktop and locks again. Turn it off, leave it off for a minute, turn it back on. Comes up ok, go back into WoW, about 10 minutes later it locked again. Did this about 5 more times before I finally finished what I was doing and shut it down for the night.

Anybody have any idea what that pop sound might be? I'm wondering if I"m having power supply issues. I have some offbrand 350 watt power supply that I've had forever, 4-5 years now I think, and I'm running 2 hard drives, a dvd drive, and just got the new Raedeon x1650 pro vid card. I'm wondering if maybe the card was the straw that broke the camels back. But I'm thinking if it was power supply then fans would stop, or HDs would stop spinning, or PC would just shut itself down... something.

One of the times when I rebooted I went into the BIOS and checked the hardware monitor.... CPU was showing 32C and MB was at 30C, seems fine to me. Also, before I shut it down for the night I booted to the desktop and was googling around about the problem and it pulled a hard lock, so I know it's not WoW that's doing it.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:53 am Post subject:

Sounds like you popped a capacitor, probably in the PS or one of the capacitors typically found surrounding the processor socket on most mainboards, but maybe elsewhere like your display adapter or audio controller/amplifier (or some other power-sucking device). Visually examine the motherboard and other components; it should be easy to spot. Look for little bits of (usually) blue or grey plastic; these are the remnants of the heat-shrinkable stuff that caps are frequently wrapped in. If you don't find anything, it's probably inside the PS. Be extremely careful opening the PS should you decide to; surviving power capacitors may be 'live' and can give you a nasty shock!

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:24 am Post subject:

crewsr wrote:
Sounds like you popped a capacitor, probably in the PS or one of the capacitors typically found surrounding the processor socket on most mainboards, but maybe elsewhere like your display adapter or audio controller/amplifier (or some other power-sucking device). Visually examine the motherboard and other components; it should be easy to spot. Look for little bits of (usually) blue or grey plastic; these are the remnants of the heat-shrinkable stuff that caps are frequently wrapped in. If you don't find anything, it's probably inside the PS. Be extremely careful opening the PS should you decide to; surviving power capacitors may be 'live' and can give you a nasty shock!

This was my thought as well.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:26 am Post subject:

Alright, so quick question. I have a 350W power supply in there now. One Maxtor 250GB IDE drive, one western digital 80GB ide drive, one lite-on dvd burner, and Sapphire x1650 pro video card. Audio and Ethernet are built in.

I have a brand new power supply here at the office I was thinking about popping in to try out and see what happens. But it's 300W, you think that's enough to handle it? It's an AMD XP1800+ processor. And 2 case fans. If it fixes the problem I will replace it with a proper supply, just wanted to try that temporarily to help me narrow things down.

Will also inspect the board itself for popped caps.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:30 pm Post subject:

you know..

this is a question that I've always thought about as well...

just how do you determine your power needs?!?!?!

how do you know what size PSU to buy for your computer?!?!

just curious if there is some way to determine all this, or a diagnostic tool that will answer questions like these...

Forever in our hearts. · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject:

*shrug*

http://www.journeysystems.com/?powercalc

the Apple Chix0r is just googling around for fun.

Butt Sniffer Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 1622

fathertyme wrote:
you know..

this is a question that I've always thought about as well...

just how do you determine your power needs?!?!?!

how do you know what size PSU to buy for your computer?!?!

just curious if there is some way to determine all this, or a diagnostic tool that will answer questions like these...

This might help

Forever in our hearts. · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject:

AnalogKid wrote:
fathertyme wrote:
you know..

this is a question that I've always thought about as well...

just how do you determine your power needs?!?!?!

how do you know what size PSU to buy for your computer?!?!

just curious if there is some way to determine all this, or a diagnostic tool that will answer questions like these...

This might help

Great minds think alike. Copy cat.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:32 pm Post subject:

fathertyme wrote:
you know..

this is a question that I've always thought about as well...

just how do you determine your power needs?!?!?!

how do you know what size PSU to buy for your computer?!?!

just curious if there is some way to determine all this, or a diagnostic tool that will answer questions like these...

There are a few power calculators around online (Krbs and AK posted a good one)

Essentially make sure the PS you have/buying has enough amps per rail to power what you have.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject:

Why worry about calculations? Just buy a 1KW PSU and give yourself plenty of power to spare in the event you decide to upgrade other components at some point.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:01 pm Post subject:

The calculator that Krbshappy71 posted is a good one. Here's another, if you want to compare:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

For modern PCs, the most important thing is the available current on the +12V lines. +3.3V and +5.0V are not used much anymore.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:12 pm Post subject:

Was definitely the power supply. Turned the comp off last night (I usually leave it on all the time) so when I got home I turned it on and was greeted with an immediate hard lock on the desktop. Turned it off, threw that spare 300W supply I had in it and booted back up, proceeded to play WoW for 4 hours with no issues.