Cascade Crew

aaron_sK · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:39 pm Post subject: Power supply breakage

My trusty old PC died the other day out of the blue. Power came on, lights, fans, whatever, but no POST. Pulled the PSU, jumped it on and checked voltage with DVM. All voltages checked good but no voltage on the gray wire (PWR_OK), so dead PSU, easy fix, right?

Order a new one off Newegg but get impatient and scrounge up an old used one that was working when pulled. Plug it in and get nothing. Pull it back out and test the voltage the same way to find the exact same thing (all voltages good except for nothing on the gray wire).

After some thoughts on what a dumbass I was for not testing the unit before it went in, I started to test further and found that there is a small spike of voltage on the gray wire when the unit is switched on, but it quickly drops to zero.

I am curious if it is likely that the motherboard took both units out, and if so can I test the board to find out before I plug the expensive new one in. Rolling Eyes

Dewey316 · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:01 pm Post subject:

Are you power it up with any load on it? If you are just plugging it in, and jumpering the power connect, it may not work. Try to hook up a couple of HD's or something to give a couple of the circuits some load.

aaron_sK · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:17 pm Post subject:

*Edit: Dewey nails it again. Looks like I have three good working PSU's and one dead motherboard.

Thanks for the help, man. Laughing

Alphius · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 2:07 pm Post subject:

I told you they sometimes need load in my text message buddy...

aaron_sK · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 2:11 pm Post subject:

Yes, I realize now what you meant, Gabe. I had assumed that since it was providing power to the rails that it was "on" and thus the power ok line should have voltage.

chevymad · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 2:44 pm Post subject:

Seems like alot of this going around right now. I just had to replace the motherboard in this machine. Another friend is having issues this week too.

aaron_sK · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:07 pm Post subject:

Haha... change in the weather killing stuff? Who knows.

While poking my head around I found a few swelled caps on this motherboard, and at eight years old replacement would just be silly. So I bought a newer old PC that was kind of a POS and built myself two-into-one.

Seems to work well so far and the errantly-ordered PSU will be the ticket for the new/old graphics card. My old 430w is doing okay with the onboard graphics, but it's too old to have a PCI-X output and I doubt it could keep up anyway. Rolling Eyes

Just more time and money spent on not the Camaro I suppose. Laughing

chevymad · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:18 pm Post subject:

You have a pci-e 16x slot? I have a nice radeon card extra at the moment.

It's a 4670.. and it supports hardware acceleration when encoding video.. Smile

aaron_sK · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:21 pm Post subject:

Thanks, B, but a GTS250 came as part of the deal. It ain't the latest and greatest but I can't complain. Hell, the old rig was still on AGP8x! LMAO

chevymad · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:24 pm Post subject:

While mine was apart I stepped up to a gtx 560 with 1gb of ddr5. Very Happy

Now if I can just get it to work with my encoding software..

aaron_sK · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:28 pm Post subject:

Now that's highfalutin. Laughing

Does your encoder disagree with nVidia's drivers?

chevymad · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:34 pm Post subject:

Not sure whats broke. Been using mediashow espresso. I've just uninstalled and reinstalled starting with version 5.0.. which actually works.. The gpu monitor shows that its using the card for processing. But then I upgraded to 6.0 and it broke again. But I just upgraded to 6.5.. and have a patch yet to do to that too. Then i'll see what happens.

chevymad · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:38 pm Post subject:

6.5 broken too..

Definatly the software not the drivers. Downloaded Badaboom and it works fine.. Max's out the gpu .. computer makes a nice heater like this LOL

Alphius · Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:38 am Post subject:

High solar activity... :tinfoilhat:
Not even kidding. Solar flares are at a high point now.

I lost 3 hard drives within a month, two in my server and one in my laptop. Seems like computer troubles are going around recently. Laughing

aaron_sK · Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 8:43 am Post subject:

chevymad · Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 9:30 am Post subject:

Luckily this card has its own rear exit cooling system. Takes up 2 slots. Bad thing is, this motherboard has the 16x slot near the bottom so there isnt much room for the air intake against the bottom of the case.

Never had a card I could overclock just by playing with software so easy. Now I need to figure out just how hot is too hot.