Powersupply or Mobo? Serious problems.

[adam]

Ok, I finally got myself a really nice system and the damn thing has been giving me nothing but problems.

AMD 64 bit Opteron
Asus Sk8V mobo
Thermaltake Purepower 560W PSU

I've narrowed the problem down to one of these three.

My pc was running fine for a couple of weeks and then it would just die. The mobo would still have power to it (led was on) but the fans would stop spinning and everything would just lose power. Power button did nothing. If I unplugged the power cord and plugged it back in, or if I reset the switch on the powersupply it would immediately start to boot up...as if it were stuck in the ON position. This would happen everytime unless I reset the CMOS. After doing that it would operate as normal until it died again, and then rinse wash repeat. It would die at totally random intervals. I once got into windows and used it for an hour, but most times it happens before even loading windows.

I tried using an extra CMOS battery that came with the mobo, but no luck. I RMA'ed the mobo and they tell me that its a totally new one, but same problem. I figure its got to be the power supply but I just want to make sure before I RMA that too.

The mobo is one of the ones that has two power inputs...the larger one and that small one. I've got other pcs here but they only have the single large input. If I use my PSU on those they operate just fine. So if the problem is with the PSU then it has to be with that little plug. Does this seem logical? If there were a short in that single plug or wire then would that cause everything to shut off yet still keep power going to the mobo?

What does that smaller plug do anyway?

[Capmaster]

I don't know exactly what the little plug does, but that problem sure sounds like a bad PS or an intermittent PS connector or cable. Especially with the MB changeout.

The ATX-style MBs had control of the PS given over to the MB and OS instead of just a hard-wired power switch like the AT style boards. If the PS isn't getting the activation signal from the MB (via the small connector?) because of an intermittent connection, that'll act just like what you're seeing.

[indolikaa]

Does this seem logical? If there were a short in that single plug or wire then would that cause everything to shut off yet still keep power going to the mobo?

It sure could.

What does that smaller plug do anyway?

If you are talking about the four-pin "Pentium 4" power supply plug, that's your ATX 12V CPU line.

The one I'm referring to is on PDF page 25 (page 2-3) of the manual (version E1473) for this board, on diagram 2.2.3. It sits just "northwest" of the K8T800 chipset and right above the PWR_FAN connector. This connector powers the CPU itself, and it's very picky on how clean and stable the power feed is.

The connector is described in more detail on page 2-26. You'll also notice that there is a minimum power requirement on the main connector: 8A on the +12V lead and 1A on the +5V standby lead. I would think your power supply is up to the task, but I'd double-check that anyway.

My guess is your 12V CPU feed on the power supply is bad.

[adam]

Yes that is the connector I am talking about. This is a behemoth of a PSU.

The +12V is 22A and the +5V is 40A, so I'm sure its sufficient. Also it worked fine for a couple weeks at least. I'm convinced that it must be this particular plug. Damn I wasted so much time RMA'ing the mobo. Asus took almost a frickin month.

I'm going to try to RMA it through Thermaltake. Their website doesn't say anything about RMA and there was no manual or anything that came in the box. These bitches better fix it, this was like a $120 PSU.

[gitreel]

That is an expensive power supply.

Does it talk to you?

I think it is that 12 volt plug as well.

[indolikaa]

I've never done a direct RMA with Thermaltake before. Then again, I've never had one of their products tweak out like that, either.

I think this is your power supply...
http://www.thermaltake.com/purepower/W0023.htm

It does show a full 2.0A on the +5VSB leads. But if you were getting flaky power on that lead, it would certainly explain your problem.

I believe your RMA directly through the retailer with Thermaltake.

[adam]

I looked again and I got it on special for $99 at newegg. But yes it is an expensive, and supposedly very good PSU. Looking at Thermtake's website, they don't even have an RMA description, and ASUS just turned me off so much, I know it'd be asking for trouble to RMA through them.

I've still got a few days left to RMA it through newegg so I'm going through them. I feel so bad always using them. Its like I punish them for having such great service when all the manufacturer's are so terrible. I usually get my RMA's returned the same week I send it. I LOVE newegg.

[rallynavvie]

I've never heard much about the Thermaltake PSUs so that would make me assume they're pretty decent. Mine puts out 36A on the 12V rail but it's an EPS supply so it has an 8-pin extra 12V plug. I do know that the 12V rail powers your fans so I wouldn't think it that causing the problem, more likely your 5V rail. Do you have a way to monitor your voltages? Also could it be your RAM going?

[adam]

I could monitor my voltages in the bios but I wouldn't really know what to look for. The Ram is fine. I've got two sticks, both brand new and the problem happens with either of them. I'm sending the PSU out today and newegg should have it back to me by the end of next week. I expect that will solve the problem.

[Craig Tucker]

Do you have another power supply you could pop in to test.

[adam]

Not one that has a 12V connector, and without that plugged in it won't boot up at all. But at this point I think I've ruled out all other possible causes of the problem. Even if its not a bad 12V line, its still got to be a problem with the power supply.

[DVD_Ripper]

Do you have another power supply you could pop in to test.

That would be my suggesstion as well.... that way, with a shadow of a doubt, you can narrow it down to the PSU...

Also, I would be tempted to unplug all peripherals except your boot HD just to see if one of those is causing some semblance of a short.

Are you sure your MB's stand-offs are keeping the MB off the case? (No shorts there eh?)

[adam]

I didn't describe my whole testing process cause I knew my post was going to be long as it was.

I removed the mobo from the case and from the back sliding tray. I removed all periperals including all hard drives. All I had was CPU and heatsink, and memory (tried with two different sticks.) I tried using two different power switches too. Everytime, the power would cut/short out just sitting in the bios.

Since I RMA'ed the mobo I'm pretty confident it was never that. I don't think it could possibly be the CPU, so PSU is the best bet. I don't have another PSU that will work with this mobo. The ones without the 12V line will not even allow me to boot up at all. I'll let everyone know how it works when the new PSU comes in.

[DVD_Ripper]

One thing you could try is to run a progie called Hot CPU Tester on the machine that will give your memory and CPU a good workout. Thus you can eliminate those two items as it will thoughly test and also burn in the devices.... You may notice some thermal 'shorts' when either item (memory or cpu) gets too warm

Just a thought

[QuaiBoy]

Definately try a different power supply, whatever you have available.
There's absolutely no reason to have a power supply of that capacity in a standard PC, other than bragging rights. The quality of the supply is far more important. No matter what the capacity, a power supply of any brand can malfunction and cause instability.

See if you can swap the supply for a decent supply of 350-400w. Personally not a fan of Thermaltake, although I know many of you swear by them. I'd go with a Antec since you mentioned sourcing from Newegg.

For reference, here's what I run off my supplies. They are modded for low-noise (near silence, I'm a fanatic) operation so they both receive LESS airflow than the standard versions and therefore run much hotter than intended. Both have been running 24/7 for over 6 months. I run Folding@Home all the time so the CPUs have run very hot most of that time.

Antec TruePower 350w running:
A64 3200+ overclocked to 2.2ghz&220Core/Zalman 7000Cu/MSI NEOPLAT/2GB/1AGP1PCI Video/2 Optical/74GB Raptor/160GB Seagate/3 Fans

Antec TruePower 380w running:
AXP 2500+/Spire Falconrock/Chaintech 7NIL/1.5GB/3 Optical/2x80GB Seagate/160GB Seagate/4 Fans

Lots of PCI cards and other peripherals (8 USB devices on the former, RAID controller on the latter). Something to think about if you can swap that PS with another model.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

[adam]

Cooling is definitely not a problem with my pc. My bios reads 35 degrees for the chip (should actually be cooler since bios temps are high) and I have active cooling and spreaders on the memory. Also, it often crashes within seconds of turning it on.

There's also that booting loop that it gets into where it automatically turns on just when I plug it in. It will do this even if I remove the memory. Its got to be power related.

Thanks for the suggestions all, but now its in Newegg's hands.

[QuaiBoy]

Depending on the method of attachment and type of memory, heat spreaders can cause more harm than good.

My post was simply to imply that the power supplies have been in low airflow configurations and continue to be more than sufficient for the needs of my loaded PCs. YMMV/IME.

Anyway, hope you get a decent replacement. Newegg kicks ass.

Good luck,
-Evan-

[adam]

I think we may have posted at about the same time, but like I said I have no other PSU to test with. Luckily Newegg is so fast that its no big deal to just wait for the replacement.

I have been burned, literally, by crap PSU's in the past. I definitely learned my lesson. I too prefer Antec's generally, but I did quite a bit of research before making my purchase and I stand by it. This PSU is fantastic and almost completely quiet, I just got a bumb one.

No I don't use all 650W but someday I might. I have 2 10k sata drives and 2 7200 sata drives, and 4 IDE drives, and I'm running a 64bit operton with a gig of ram, and alot of peripherals. I've also got 9 fans running not even including the two in the PSU. (granted alot of those are inside cooling kits for my HD's so they aren't big) So I do use a decent amount of power. I didn't buy this for bragging rights, I bought it for security and for upgradability.

[rallynavvie]

Meh, you don't need that much power. I run a DP machine with a 74GB Raptor, two IDE drives, and 2 15k SCSI drives, in addition to a ROM and burner and a power-hungry video card on a 550W PSU.

If you really want the best in PSUs look into the 510 turbo from PC Power and Cooling. ATX server folks swear by them. But since you already have one I assume you can't return the replacement should work out. What kind of fans/noise do those put out? Both my Antecs are quieter than the rest of the computer. Usually the most noise I get is from my CPU fans which I leave at full tilt all the time.

[adam]

That was a typo in my last post. Its 560 not 650. The PSU looked good so I got it, and for the 2 or 3 weeks it was running I was very pleased. This thing is much quieter then my old 350W. I can't hear it over the combination of my other fans.

I've got 8 HDs and plan to add more. Everything else is pretty power hungry as well. I just upgraded but if I do it again I could easily go dual processor. I might not need all the power now but I plan on keeping this thing a long time and the last thing I want to do is outgrow it.

[ViRaL1]

How many drive bays in your case?

Also, what kind of RAID (I'm assuming) setup do you have?

[adam]

Its a real nice Lian Li Mid Tower case. The bottom has a drive cage where you can mount I think 5 drives vertically or 4 horizontally. I've got 4 going vertical, and the front fans blow across it. Two are IDE and go to a raid controller and the other 2 are my 7200RPM Sata's which are in raid 0 through one of the mobo's sata raid inputs.

Above that was a 3.5 inch cage but I took it out and put in a 5 1/4 cage and stuck two IDE drives in there which go straight to the mobo. None of the IDE's are in any array, they are all different sizes and are just used for storage. I think I could actually plug everything into the mobo if I wanted to. Its got two separate sata raid inputs, an IDE raid input, and primary and secondary IDE channels.

Then in my main 5 1/4 slots I've got two 10k Raptor drives also running in raid 0. I put them there cause they are housed in a cooling kit with heatsinks and front fans. Then I've just got my burner and a little mountable stereo. I got tired of having to use desktop speakers.

My drives all run suprisingly cool. I've got a blowhole in the top of my case which really sucks the heat from the raptors and my memory.

For those of you who think I must be a pirate to have so much storage, no I'm still on 56k. I just have a million DV projects going at all times.

rallynavvie, I may be thinking of someone else but didn't you say you have a similar setup in this Lian Li case?

[ViRaL1]

Sounds like a pretty good setup. I'd have gone with vertical storage option as well. I'm sure the heat dissipation is much better. My mobo has a similar setup P&S IDE and a Promise 376 IDE/SATA RAID controller. Not really taking full advantage though, 80GB IDE boot drive on main cotroller and a 250GB IDE drive on the RAID controller because it supports 48-bit LBA and the main controller doesn't (no clue who thought that was a good idea). Everything else is optical. Heat's not bad. Of course the bulk of my storage is in a server on GbE.

56K? I've heard of that.

[dxj40c]

Get a cheap volt meter and check that you have power on all the wires, somtimes those contacts get pushed up inside the connectors or come unsoldered. I had one computer that sometimes wouldn't boot until I grabbed the harness of wires and gave it a jiggle and it too would just die sometimes. I never located the exact point of the bad connection. Finally gave up and bought another PSU.

[rallynavvie]

I have mostly 10k SCSI drives packed in a Lian Li PC-60 variant with my dual Athlon board and some 15k ones thrown in for good measure. I can only fit 4 drives in the cage in the bottom since that 5th one gets too close to the motherboard's IDE controller. Might not be a problem since I don't have IDE hard drives in that one but I do have a ROM and burner on there. Now if I could find a good internal SCSI burner...

I'm planning on getting that part that turns the external 3.5" bays into three internal hard drive bays with a fan in front to move more in there. I'm also going to get that 5-device cage that occupies two 5.25" slots to get the rest in. All told you can actually shoehorn 18 1" profile hard drives in my case

I don't do hard drive coolers, just try to place them in front of intake fans. Hard drive coolers take up too much space and just add to the noise. I think a good set-up with the case would make more of a difference for cooling. Mine will eventually have 12 SCSI drives in it running nested RAID goodness. I should start investing in memory for it and finally retire it to server work.

[adam]

I'm planning on getting that part that turns the external 3.5" bays into three internal hard drive bays with a fan in front to move more in there. I'm also going to get that 5-device cage that occupies two 5.25" slots to get the rest in. All told you can actually shoehorn 18 1" profile hard drives in my case

You get those through lian li? I haven't seen those. They sound good.

I guess your case is different, but probably with a similar design. I'm amazed at how much you fit in these. They have a fantastic design.

[indolikaa]

Makes my $40 cases seem so...bland.

[rallynavvie]

Makes my $40 cases seem so...bland.

I'm glad to see it found a fitting owner :P

Here's a link to a good price for that Lian Li part:
http://www.coolerguys.com/840556060079.html
Bah, apparently it turns 2 5.25" bays into 3 HDD mounts with an 80mm fan in front of them. I guess I still have to fabricate something for that spot. I'd rather have the big 5-drive adapter for those 5.25" slots.

[adam]

Got my replacement PSU today. It took longer than usual because of the long weekend.

Stuck it in and now everything is running fine.

[rallynavvie]

Was this the RMA replacement?