Problem With My PCU

[infinityxtx]

Hi all, very new to this just joined today so if this post is in the wrong pace you know why!!
Cut a long story short as possible, my PC is a Pavilion Elite m9265.UK with a quad core Q6600 processor.
I had computer accidental damage insurance and my youngest knocked the computer off the unit it was on. Computer broke would not switch on.
Insurance sent a guy out who determined it was the Power unit because when he plugged his "tester" he had in the back of his van in the PC it started up. He then just fitted this power unit which I have since discovered is a 500Watt power supply. The unit itself is shipped new with a 300 watt supply.
My system has run slow ever since I mean really slow and sometimes wont turn on. Insurance people have washed their hands of it stating that a 500 watt power source would make my unit work better!!
HP themselves (tech department) suggest it would damage the PC.
The insurance have said they will send an "independent engineer out to check my system fully but say if it is not their fault they will charge me!! I don't really want to do that and seeing as it was their engineer who fitted what I believe to be the wrong power source which was as he stated for testing lying about in his van!!" I don't want them near it again in any event.
I have also downloaded a free bit of software called CPU-Z which tells you what's going on in your system etc.
This actually states that my 2.4 GHz processor is only putting out a core speed of 1600MHz max any time. Is this right or is it definitely faulty
Has anyone ever had anything similar happen and can anyone offer any advice what I should do.
Thanks in advance for any answers or help!!!
Chris

 

[WeedCali]

have you gone into your BIOS at all? who knows, some settings couldve gotten screwed up.

 

[infinityxtx]

Not gone into BIOS no, as I say I am no computer expert and would not mess around with any settings myself, all I know is that I bought a computer for almost £1000, I had it insured and then after accidental damage the guy fixed it with a 500 watt power supply instead of the 300 watt it was shipped with.

Workied excellently until he fixed it.

I don't do BIOS or anything like that, thats for experts which I am most definitly not.

Basically I just would like to know if the higher wattage power unit he installed could be the route of my problems perhaps damaging the PC in some way?

 

[rohan23]

It could be a faulty power supply, but it's unlikely. Try running a disk cleanup, defragmenting the hard drive and scanning for viruses.

 

[graw2]

I could be wrong but I don't think a bigger power supply would cause any problems.

There could be something else wrong. Have you checked to make sure everything was in there place, like the ram, graphics card? You may have knocked something loose when it fell off.

 

[GhostGT]

The fact that the power supply is rated at 500W won't cause problems for your computer; it simply will run at a lower load than the 300W PSU you had. However, the power supply itself might either have problems, or something else in the computer could have been damaged.

Also, keep in mind that your computer has features that allow the Q6600 to run at lower clocks when the computing power is not needed. I forget the name exactly (SpeedStep I believe), but the 1600MHz rating you speak of should be normal; I used to see that on my Q6600 all the time before I overclocked it.

 

[Remeniz]

Download a temperature monitoring program. Core Temp for instance.

Run it and report back with the readings.

 

[GibsonSGKing]

This powersupply, if a super cheapo one, might be giving out really bad power, which can slow your computer down. This is really unlikely though. Have you checked that all your ram is working and the video card is working?

 

[CBrooks]

To me, all signs point to hard drive damage and it could easily be the source of a slower computer.

It was knocked off a desk while it was still powered on = Hard drive damage.

You're power supply died which could take anything down with it = Hard drive damage.

Run the benchmark scan and error scan on hdtune and please tell us how that goes.

http://www.hdtune.com/

 

[Grantofhell]

I had a Q6600, I can tell you, as GhostGT did, under Intel's Speed Stepping and Enhanced Halt State and similar instructions that the multiplier goes down to 6 and the end result is 1600MHz. This only happens when the OS sends an "idle" signal. This is normal.

However, slow performance normally results in the processor or RAM so lets not rule out the passive parts in the computer.

Can you get a screenshot of all the tabs on CPU-Z for me?
As others have suggested, also download HWMonitor or a similar temperature monitoring program.

Did the tech take away the 300w you had? It would be a good idea to check that PSU in the system if they didn't take it. Since you say the system was fine before they had it

I would also strongly believe the Harddrive is not working properly. They are VERY sensitive and too many G's on impact could have thrown the actuator off or messed up the rotation of the platters. Download HDTune and run a simple bench and screenshot it so we can determine if the speeds are normal. Also run a *quick* error test to check for bad blocks/sectors.

Go to Memtest86.com and under the Free Download section, click on MemTest86 3.4a if you want to run a test from windows for a fairly accurate test or download MemTest86 3.5 as a bootable ISO and burn it to a disk. Remember to set your CD drive to boot first.

We'll move from there if we don't find any suspicious faults.