Now that I have your attention, I will tell you what happened.
One day 2 weeks ago, I left for a class and came back to find that my PSU is dead. It seems that 350-watts is not enough to run 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, a floppy, 2 nic's, a USB2 PCI card and an ATI Radeon 9800 EZ. This was at night, so I borrowed a friends old, loud, dirty 400-watt PSU for the time being. The next day, I quickly purchase a new on on Newegg.com and had that shipped to me ASAP. Popped the PSU in and my computer starts. "Yes", I say to myself. But then it shuts off. Completely off. I have to unplug the PC and replug it to get it to start again. The cut-offs seem to be random and I have had it cut off during bootup, after bootup just finished, when I tried to play a particular video file, 2 more times doing random stuff, but never during the 5-hour GPU benchmark or 4-hour BIOS benchmark (left it on temp monitor screen). Question #1 is what is wrong with that PSU?
I cant be without a PC, so I decided I will RMA the PSU whenever I had a chance and popped the borrowed PSU back in. Everything goes fine until this weekend. I went away this weekend as I have done for the past 30 weekends leaving my computer on (I run a server). I have left my PC on 24 hours before, but this time I was not at it for a full 2 days. I come back and all the lights on my devices are out (no mouse light, no kbd light, screen is off). I figure this was just a really odd crash and I press the reboot button. Everything is fine, passes the Windows load screen fine. Right after that, my PSU seems to go crazy and spin into overdrive, then even higher than that. The fan returns to normal as all my devices cut out again, and this time I decided to unplug it. I step behind my PC to smell something burning (that wierd 'technology-is-burning' smell) nad I quickly yank my power cord out and all cords to the tower so I can get inside to see the damage. There are no physical damage to the PC that I can see (and I cant see inside the PSU). Question #2 is is my PC completely toast or is it just the PSU?
Right now it is sitting on my floor, open (but covered) and the old, borrowed PSU still connected. It has been like that for 19 hours. All PSU's mentioned are in my possesion.
Thank you for your time.
-Cool-
One day 2 weeks ago, I left for a class and came back to find that my PSU is dead. It seems that 350-watts is not enough to run 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, a floppy, 2 nic's, a USB2 PCI card and an ATI Radeon 9800 EZ. This was at night, so I borrowed a friends old, loud, dirty 400-watt PSU for the time being. The next day, I quickly purchase a new on on Newegg.com and had that shipped to me ASAP. Popped the PSU in and my computer starts. "Yes", I say to myself. But then it shuts off. Completely off. I have to unplug the PC and replug it to get it to start again. The cut-offs seem to be random and I have had it cut off during bootup, after bootup just finished, when I tried to play a particular video file, 2 more times doing random stuff, but never during the 5-hour GPU benchmark or 4-hour BIOS benchmark (left it on temp monitor screen). Question #1 is what is wrong with that PSU?
I cant be without a PC, so I decided I will RMA the PSU whenever I had a chance and popped the borrowed PSU back in. Everything goes fine until this weekend. I went away this weekend as I have done for the past 30 weekends leaving my computer on (I run a server). I have left my PC on 24 hours before, but this time I was not at it for a full 2 days. I come back and all the lights on my devices are out (no mouse light, no kbd light, screen is off). I figure this was just a really odd crash and I press the reboot button. Everything is fine, passes the Windows load screen fine. Right after that, my PSU seems to go crazy and spin into overdrive, then even higher than that. The fan returns to normal as all my devices cut out again, and this time I decided to unplug it. I step behind my PC to smell something burning (that wierd 'technology-is-burning' smell) nad I quickly yank my power cord out and all cords to the tower so I can get inside to see the damage. There are no physical damage to the PC that I can see (and I cant see inside the PSU). Question #2 is is my PC completely toast or is it just the PSU?
Right now it is sitting on my floor, open (but covered) and the old, borrowed PSU still connected. It has been like that for 19 hours. All PSU's mentioned are in my possesion.
Thank you for your time.
-Cool-
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