Power Failure... Twice!

codexile

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Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Motherboard
Athlon XP 3200+
512x2 Corsair RAM
160GB SATA Maxtor
Lite-On DVD-RW Drive
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro

My system has run fine for the past three or four months. Yesterday, I tried out the new game 'Horizons'. I played for a while, and I left the room. My grandmother told me the network was down so I went to check and my PC was off. I hit the power button, lights flashed and fans rotated about 90 degrees, then nothing.

I figured my power supply must have blown, so I borrowed my friends 420w (forget the brand) and plugged it in. It worked great. I asked if I could borrow it until I bought a new one and they agreed. I used it normally for about a half an hour, and I decided to check out Horizons again. Five minutes after playing my computer just shut off, and exhibited the same symptoms.

The only variable I can think of other than playing the game would be that I finally got around to plugging my frontpanel USB into the board. It was working fine though, and at the time of the crash there were no USB devices plugged in.

Other things to note:
Two computers were plugged into the same surge protector at the same time (during the first outtage) and only mine blew. I took the power supply from the other one and put it in mine, and it blew (the second time). This leads me to believe that it was not a power surge, or anything like that.

After the PSU's blew out in my computer, I tested them in other computers and they didn't work.

The green mobo light does come on when the PSU is plugged in. It just wont boot.

We've come up with the following list of possibilities:

*The GPU was drawing too much power. Get a stronger PSU.
*The Radeon has a short. Get a new card.
*The motherboard has a short. Get a new motherboard.
*Plugging in the USB is causing some kind of short. Stop doing it.
*I only have two case fans (one intake, one outtake) so overheating may be an issue


So, any ideas? Thanks!
 
how curious.

shorts circuits/overloading/overheating just cause any respectable psu to turn off

maybe ill think about this for a while


(ahh, but what if it was a curious short circuit, like shorting the 12volt rail to the 7 instead of ground? fldgjkfg hmm)
 
What else do you have plugged into your board?

Do you have a modem sound card ect?

Also Does the Radeon draw its power from the motherboard or do you have a extra power running to it like the new cards have?

Unplug all unessacary compenents like the sound card ect. Then restart. Also make sure you have the power connecters for the motherboard and cpu both plugged into your board.

you have alot of powerhungry devices in there. One thing you may also want to try is plugging everything except your board into a separate power supply ex: hard drive, cd, possibly your video card, etc.
 
There is no modem, and the soundcard is onboard. The Radeon draws it's power directly from the power supply.

What would I be trying to accomplish by removing devices and booting? Just testing to see if it works with less devices being run?
 
Yeah

I would plug a second power supply up to your video card.

You never know what might work.

And if you determine its the powersupply get a top quality brand and one that is atleast 480W. It will set you back 80 to 100 bucks but oh well.

I have a thermaltake 480w silet pure power in my system. Also antec is pretty good. The ones who know more than me say that PC Power and Cooling make the best powersupplies. Expensive and hard to find though.

http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/home.htm
 
Most likely your processor is overheating and with the A7N8x motherboards they have CPU Overheating Protection which aids you soo whe it seems to overheat it automatically shuts down
 
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