An annoying comp problem...

[hankdean]

sounds like ur powersupply. i know this is dangerous and completely stupid but my friends comp had that same problem..."wouldnt turn over." so i removed the hard drive put in a junk one and then went to town w/ the switch on the powersupply turning it from 115 - 225 or whatever....and then back to 115...it would run fine...meant it was the powersupply...computer needs more juice than it can supply continuasly.

or clean ur damn heatsync on top of your processor. other than that it really really sounds like a powersupply issue.

[Sum1]

power supplies just go bad like that? I've had this one without issues for a year or two.

I think tomorrow I'll hit up Best Buy and see what I can do about this. I need to find one that'll fit in this stupid dell box, which hopefully won't be an issue.

[pullzem]

Be warned that some Dell power supplies were made with the "screw holes" custom-made for each Dell PC model. That prevents you from easily putting in another one with standard "screw holes". I replaced my last Dell PC power supply with one made by Rosewill, that I bought from Newegg and it matched up perfectly.

[Sum1]

My box is a Dell 8250... I ripped out the PSU today and am going to best buy tomorrow to try to match it up with something. Besides sucking more electricity, is there really anything bad that would happen if I have to go a little higher on the power? I think this one is 170W.

[JimJohnson]

More power wont hurt it. just gives you more room to add additional items.

[pullzem]

Bigger is never a problem with power supplies...actually it allows you to upgrade or add components without worrying about needing more power, then.

[Sum1]

Unless the psu just went bad from being old and the environment I'm in (fairly humid), then I can't explain why it'd go to the shitter just yet. The only thing I've added to the comp is about a gig of ram... and this was quite a while ago. Haven't had issues until relatively recently.

Anyway, I ripped out the psu and will visit the store tomorrow morning... thank god my main PC is still working. I need my fix!

[JimJohnson]

Originally Posted by Sum1

Unless the psu just went bad from being old and the environment I'm in (fairly humid), then I can't explain why it'd go to the shitter just yet. The only thing I've added to the comp is about a gig of ram... and this was quite a while ago. Haven't had issues until relatively recently.

Anyway, I ripped out the psu and will visit the store tomorrow morning... thank god my main PC is still working. I need my fix!

PSUs just go bad sometimes. I lost 3 just recently

[kukmuk]

Do you have an ATI video card? I have had this exact problem (video dies randomly, no choice but to reboot) before, but ONLY with ATI cards. If that is the case you might try a different catalyst version from their website (latest version if you aren't already running it, or read the version changes and see if any affect your setup and revert back to that version). To try shutting down your pc without video you can use this sequence:

1) Windows key + r
3) Enter "cmd" wait a second, press enter
4) Enter "shutdown -r -t 1 -f"
[shutdown (restart) (time = 1 second) (force)]
5) You should hear the shutdown "ding" if its Vista, or shutdown music if XP

If this is the case that eliminates the PSU (unless you run a Video card with a 6 or 8 pin direct connection). A passively powered card shouldn't have any problems if your computer is still running fine (i.e. able to be shutdown without video).

A few things to check:
1) Set ACPI to S3 suspend in bios, if you are suspending this will cause your fans to shut off
2) Video drivers (especially if ATI)
3) Set up a network share (or admin share if you have the ability) and try to browse the box after the blackout problem
4) Ping the box after the blackout problem to see if the NIC responds, this means there is at least power to the motherboard

EDIT - Dell PSU's are sometimes a pain to replace, I have only had 1 Dell and it was given to me with a missing PSU. I ended up throwing away a perfectly good P4 because I was not able to get a PSU or adapter that would create the necessary 24 pin + 4 pin Dell special adapter the motherboard took (granted this was an older Dell machine, they may have cleaned up their act nowadays).

[Vesryn]

Originally Posted by JimJohnson

PSUs just go bad sometimes. I lost 3 just recently

I can agree with that. I've had them up and completely die all of the sudden, another where it kind of just faded out over a weeks time.

It does sound like a bad psu to me though, particularly if you were still running off the original factory one. 170w is fairly weak too these days, if you'd added stuff since you bought it.