Desperation

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:43 pm

My new PC doesn't work anymore. It shut itself down today, during my Dragon Age playthrough, and now - when I hit the power button - it starts, shuts down once more and then tries once again to boot, until I disconnect the cable. Everytime it restarts (or tries to do so), it shuts down a little earlier, and I can't even access the BIOS or anything else.

Tomorrow I will bring it to repair, but, just so I know, what can it be?

Post by **Collector** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:59 pm

Does it have an Asus board? Mine on a first boot or after flashing the BIOS will reboot a number of times as it finds automatic settings for overclocking. How far does it get before it reboots?

Post by **Rudy** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:08 pm

I had a similar issue once, shutting down before it could even start. In my case the reason was overheating. The fan had to be reinstalled in my case.

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:52 pm

Collector wrote:Does it have an Asus board? Mine on a first boot or after flashing the BIOS will reboot a number of times as it finds automatic settings for overclocking. How far does it get before it reboots?

Yes. It's an ASUS board. Usually, I can get to the 'Press DEL to enter BIOS' screen and then, regardless of whether I press DEL or no, the PC reboots. On this second try, though, it shuts down even before the aformentioned screen.

Post by **Tawmis** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:54 pm

Was going to mention, as Rudy said - the fan. But if you leave it off for awhile (an hour or so), and then boot - and it shuts down immediately - it may not be the fan - but it may be a bad power supply. Mine is going out as well. It makes a horrid humming sound from time to time.

Post by **Collector** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:08 pm

I guess the good thing is that as new as your new PC is, it shouldn't cost you anything to get it repaired. It might even be good that it failed this early. It is common for those that build machines to do a "burn in" or a kind of stress test to put a load on the hardware so that if there are any weak parts, they fail early on when things are still under warranty.

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:20 pm

I just hope that whatever is the problem, it will be easily and, most importantly, quickly fixed.

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:54 am

They told me it was fault of a burned power supply. The PC should be fixed and ready later this afternoon...

... In hindsight, my cousin told me, the day before yesterday, that she sensed a burning smell upon entering my room, but - since I have both a cold and my usual allergy - I couldn't detect it. Maybe she was right, after all.

Anyway, i hope that that was really the problem and that now everything will work fine.

Post by **Tawmis** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 2:52 pm

AndreaDraco wrote:They told me it was fault of a burned power supply.

I'd like to point out I was right.

For once.

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 4:06 pm

Yes, you're right. And I think they're not very bright. They told me that the burned power supply was a 550 watt and now they've put inside a 600 watt. Am I wrong or even this one is too low? Given the specs, shouldn't I have at least more than 750 watt?

Post by **Tawmis** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:48 pm

AndreaDraco wrote:Yes, you're right. And I think they're not very bright. They told me that the burned power supply was a 550 watt and now they've put inside a 600 watt. Am I wrong or even this one is too low? Given the specs, shouldn't I have at least more than 750 watt?

I think 600 watt is what you'd put in most gaming computers. A friend of mine at work (who is way, way, way, way more technically inclined than I am - I am talking raid, arrays, the whole mess) says he won't use anything beneath a 600 watt power supply for his computers... and considering his specs are insane (and all for World of Warcraft...)... I think a 600 watt power supply SHOULD be fine in yours.

Post by **Collector** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:47 pm

Your I7 is not going to suck up a lot of power, not the way that the Intel CPUs used to do with the old horrible "Netburst" architecture of the old P4s, but you have a fair amount of RAM in the machine and drives will use a fair bit of power, especially during power on as the drives start spinning up. I would feel uncomfortable with anything less than 600 watts, these days. Also, make sure that they use a known brand. Cheap power supplies can lead to flaky machines.

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:24 am

Thanks guys. I really hope that this new power supply will definitely solve the problem. Well, we'll see

Post by **AndreaDraco** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:35 am

Since I changed the power supply, everything was really fine. However, yesterday something strange happened...

My boyfriend gave me for Christmas a nice set of speakers with a sub-woofer. Yesterday, pretty late at night, when I unplugged the speakers to plug the headphones, so that Mass Effect music wouldn't wake my parents, the PC shut down and only after five minutes I was able to turn it back on.

Could it be another problem with the power supply?

Post by **Collector** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:28 pm

It doesn't sound like it to me. If you had to pull your machine out to access ports in back, you may have just jarred something loose.

Desperation

Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation

Re: Desperation