Topic awaiting preservation: Power supply probs

I'm not the best when it comes to hardware... basically I can buy the parts I need, put them together, cross my fingers and turn it on (I have a blast doing though). I built a new comp over the weekend and noticed that the HDD led was acting erregular... Staying solid when the HD wasn't being read. I was a little upset because I wasn't sure if there was something wrong with the motherboard or not (yes the HDD wire was connected correctly). So I rebooted and waited to see if it was still doing it and the computer just up and restarded all by itself (ACK!). Anyways I didn't have any more time to play around with it so I left it on and went to take care of some other things for about 4-5 hours. I came back home and the computer was off and it wouldn't turn on, so I grabbed another power supply and it fired right up. <whew> Long story for a short question... could a failing power supply cause the previous symptoms (HDD led acting funny and random reboots)? Thanks!

A failing (or weak) power supply can cause almost any random act of satan. Be it causing software glitches, shutdowns/restarts, or dimming and flickering lights (quite common), it's all possible under the power supply. I'm not an expert on electrical engineering by any means, but if the current drops below a certain threshold then we see delays in signals passing through resistors and so on.
Keep this in mind for the future since a bad power supply can cost you a hard drive, motherboard, or any other part of your PC directly connected to the PSU. I'd say you have a good eye for noticing the HD LED - I certainly wouldn't have.



(Edited by Nada`King on 03-27-2005 04:05)

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Keep this in mind for the future since a bad power supply can cost you a hard drive, motherboard, or any other part of your PC directly connected to the PSU

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MMMHMMMMM! yeah... um... my advice is to NOT save money by buying a cheap power supply.

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my advice is to NOT save money by buying a cheap power supply.

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Cannot reinforce that strongly enough. A few years ago a friend lost all but a CD and a sound card when a 1 cent diode failed and as he put it '.....allowed illegal amounts of electricity to course through the MB.'

And just in case you weren't aware... not enough power is usually far more detrimental than a spike. If you hear your power company talking about 'brown-outs'... pay attention big time. Also a good time to consider an uninteruptable power supply which these days don't cost a whole lot.

And to be on the safe side, if you have ANY doubts about the power supply you removed, get it out of the house. Removes the temptation to install it in another system just to see if you can get it up and running. =)

Don't get too worked up over a "cheap" power supply. Just buy above the 350watt mark and shoot for companies that have a familiar name (Antec, Enermax). If you do that, you can often get good deals on overstocked items and such. That's how I got my Antec 500watt.

Crap... now I'm worried that something else was ruined. If it all works OK with the new power supply is it safe to say that nothing else was damaged? I want to make sure and get anything damaged replaced within my 15 days.

Nothing is likely to be damaged if you have not seen it at this point. Power damage often causes catastrophic failure or nothing at all. If anything goes down inside the next few weeks, you might be able to attribute it to your failed psu. But, since you haven't had problems with anything else, it looks like you're in the clear.

Cool! Thanks for all the help. I got a new (not cheap) power supply and it's running like a champ. The HDD led was still acting funny but when I disconnected it from the mother board (to test the led's themselves) and hooked it back up it was perfect. Peace.

Glad to help