Is this a PSU issue?

[PaxR]

Hi all,

I'm troubleshooting a friend's PC which seems to be having issues with booting up. However I'm deciding wheather or not this is a PSU issue and was hoping for some advice.

Firstly I'll just list the specs:

- Intel Core 2 E6850 (stock standard)
- Asus P5KR Motherboard
- OCZ Powerstream 520w PSU
- Super Talent 2GB DDR2 6400 RAM
- Geforce 7800GTX

Nothing fancy in this case, just a standard system.

Currently when switching on the pc, the screen will remain black (does not POST), and all you can hear is the system turned on (CPU fan, case fans etc) however the GPU fan will spin at top speed. It will remain like this until you switch it off. However after 4-5 times when switching on/off, the system eventually becomes right and eventually boots into Windows.

I have installed my own 8800GTX, again when powering up the system it will whirl up to top spin. I even went through the trouble of installing all components to a spare motherboard (Asus P5W DH Deluxe) and still the same issue. I haven't yet checked RAM though.

So does it seem like a PSU issue? As mentioned above, the PC seems to come right once the system is 'warmed up' so to speak, however I'm unable to conclude if it is. At this stage, disconnecting my own PSU is somewhat un-motivating since all my cables are nicely sorted.

Any advice?

[maxidius]

Not sure if it is PSU problem or not.

I have similar symptom in my PC, but it turns out to be the passive heat-sink on the chip just below the CPU. It is too hot. Now, I add two 12-mm fans, one blowing out and one blowing directly on that heat-sink.

Other problems to check: RAM or video card seating. Check to make sure they are well seated. In some motherboard, the position of video card can be very sensitive to the extend that it can drive you crazy. Once I had the Asus P4P800 and one Gigabyte mobo, both made me crazy.

You have to check each component, better on another PC to see if it works or not. HTMH.

[PaxR]

Thanks for your reply.

Well at this stage, it appears its not so much a PSU problem anymore. It seems possibly a RAM issue at this stage, the PC now turns on ok since I (again) removed the RAM modules, and inserted them again. Probably the only change I done, was swapped the RAM in the slots they were in.

Still puzzles me though, as even placing the RAM into another motherboard I also experienced the same issue. But at this stage, so far so good. I'm thinking of having the RAM exchanged, should hopefully still be under warranty

[Baud]

I don't believe it's a psu problem.
Don't you try to overclock? If well, then reset the bios to its default values.

Also, there might be some speed regulator on your graphics card: try to play with it.

[PaxR]

Ok so it seemed the RAM was faulty as installing my own Corsair RAM, the PC would boot up ok. FYI: With the previous installed RAM (Super Talent) the PC would not even POST. As described above, the GPU fan will just spin rapidly with nothing displaying on screen.

As of today, I managed to get a replacement and installed the RAM. Computer turns on, goes through its standard POST tests, however it will 'sometimes' halt when booting up Windows XP. It's basically a situation where the little cursor in the top left hand corner will continue to blink, then it will either load into Windows or become a blank screen. I assumed it had completely halted, restarted the machine, which will usually log into Windows fine after the restart. However I turned off the machine, allowed the screen to remain black (after the little cursor disappeared) and after about 30 secs to a min, the PC will then load into Windows. But this usually shouldn't take this long.

In addition to this, changing my RAM into his board has the same issue with loading Windows, so now I'm thinking is it the hardrive or the motherboard? It's becoming a curly one.

FYI: The BIOS has been reset to defaults (the first time I troubleshooted), I even updated the BIOS but its appears I was dealing with 2 issues.

EDIT: Also I have recently installed Windows SP2 recently.

So any idea why booting into Windows will halt (as described above)?

[wonderwrench]

Try disconnecting the optical drives. I have seen similar problems with a bad CD or DVD drive. If it boots fine you have a bad drive or cable.

Try a bare bones setup. cpu, ram, video and HD eliminating everything else possible. Keyboard, mouse and monitor only. If you still have the problem try a different KB and mouse. If using usb KB and mouse try PS2 or the other way around.

Try underclocking the cpu and ram. Try bumping the cpu and or ram voltage.

Disable hardware thats not needed to boot from within the bios.

Hope this helps

[PaxR]

Originally Posted by wonderwrench

Try disconnecting the optical drives. I have seen similar problems with a bad CD or DVD drive. If it boots fine you have a bad drive or cable.

Try a bare bones setup. cpu, ram, video and HD eliminating everything else possible. Keyboard, mouse and monitor only. If you still have the problem try a different KB and mouse. If using usb KB and mouse try PS2 or the other way around.

Try underclocking the cpu and ram. Try bumping the cpu and or ram voltage.

Disable hardware thats not needed to boot from within the bios.

Hope this helps

Ah yes, thanks for the tips. I will attempt to try a few of these procedures hoping to pin point the issue. Will post once I see some changes (hopefully)