STILL turning off and on...

[CorsePerVita]

Ok this is pissing me off.

I've tried two separate power supplies, both are a 500 watt power supply.

Specs are Gigabyte ga-ma770-ds3
Athlon 64 x2 4400+
2 gigs PC5300
Seagate 320GB hard drive
NVidia 8800GT PCI-e
Sound blaster audigy 2 platinum
2 peripherals - 1cd-rom burner, 1 dvd drive.

I have tried booting it up without a drive and that seems to work. It'll turn on, stay on.

If i start hookup up drives like peripherals and it's fine. Then i hook up a hard drive and it starts the problem.

Now, what happens is it'll power on for about 2-3 seconds and whamo, it'll turn off. I read the manual and the power supply has this "anti-overvoltage" control where if too much runs through it the power supply will turn it all off until you power it off for 15 seconds and flip it back on.

I can usually flip it off, flip it back on and it'll start up. But it's happening constantly.

I've tried SATA drives, IDE drives, etc... and hooking up just the peripherals seems to be fine, once a hard drive is plugged in it'll sporadically do this. Sometimes it starts right up, other times i have to power it off and back on. It's REALLY pissing me off. The guy i bought the parts from said "It must be your hard drive" but i've tried it with 3 separate hard drives.

It can't be the motherboard, it all functions fine, it can't be the CPU, the damn thing works and she runs like a rolex once she's booted up.

It has to be something about how it's hooked up or something when i'm turning it on that the initial draw of the voltage is giving a sudden "kick" that this power supply doesn't like. Now, mind you, the power supply that i tested was same model and same brand. So perhaps it's going "AH TOO MUCH POWER" when it first starts up from the initial draw, and after i flip it off and back on it's an over-ride and it goes "AHHH TOO MUCH POWER... oh you're okay with that? Ok I guess i'll work."

Help?

[FuzzyPlushroom]

What brands are these power supplies? A 500 watt PSU from one company isn't necessarily equal to one of another make.

It could also be some sort of weird "reboot-if-OS-boot-fails" thing, that would cause your symptoms - in that event, it'd be your drives not spinning up fast enough, most likely. That'd explain why it's OK on reboot, too - just an idea, though.

Does it reboot when there's nothing in your optical drives?

(I'm probably off on the wrong track... We'll see.)

[CorsePerVita]

What brands are these power supplies? A 500 watt PSU from one company isn't necessarily equal to one of another make.

It could also be some sort of weird "reboot-if-OS-boot-fails" thing, that would cause your symptoms - in that event, it'd be your drives not spinning up fast enough, most likely. That'd explain why it's OK on reboot, too - just an idea, though.

Does it reboot when there's nothing in your optical drives?

(I'm probably off on the wrong track... We'll see.)

I'm pretty sure it's an ULTRA 500 watt. I'll check when i get home.

It's before the drivers are spinning up, this happens around the same time it's either going through the detect process or what not. But it's never exactly consistent. Someone told me "OH it's your motherboard's battery! That'll cause some weird this." but doesn't explain why in the hell the power supply would actually kick off. It's not 100% consistent either. Some days she's good to me, other days she's a bitch. Making me reallllly mad as I've poured $800 into this setup now.

I don't mean it won't boot, i mean the power supply literally turns off, whamo, black screen, powers itself down, nothing.

[crenn]

Can you give us a model of the PSU? I think I could know.

[CorsePerVita]

I believe it's an ultra, i will know 100% for sure once i get home and will let you know.

I've had many theories on many boards. it sounds like this particular power supply maybe not right for my setup from what it sounds like on all the theories.

Current theories:

-Power supply not sufficient or model sucks for my setup
-Motherboard/cpu/ram is bad (makes no sense to me as if it were it'd be consistently bad i would believe)
-Setting in bios for temperature or voltage isn't set high enough and this is knocking it off and needs to be changed
-"i know you did this already, but make sure all your pins and connections are tight, and that the polarity is not wrong. some keyed plugs, can be put in backwards due to differences in manufactures."

[CorsePerVita]

Ok it's an Ultra 500W

Model LS-500P

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd58/koihoshi/IMG_3999.jpg

[DaveW]

There are rare cases where a particular PSU and a particular motherboard simply refuse to work together. I know you've likely done this, but google your PSU's model and your motherboard's model together and see if anyone else is having a similar problem.

Alternatively, it could be that you're drawing too much power on one line-this might happen if you're using an adaptor to plug in your CD, HD, and Graphics Card.

If it wasn't that, i'd guess on temperature next. If you haven't done this yet, get a case speaker (you can usually get one from an old case) and plug it into the speaker output on your mobo. Then listen for beeps-if there's none, you got something bad going on. If it beeps, google the motherboard error codes, and look up the beep. This is much easier if your mobo has an error panel, which is a little 7 seg display telling you the error code/state.

This sounds more like a BIOS issue than a PSU issue, but I'm not sure. Trying a completely different PSU can rule this out but it's not always easy to get your hands on one.

Best of luck, sorry I couldn't be of more help.

-Dave

[J-Roc]

I think one of your cd drives might be fried. I tested a handfull of old drives marked "broken" and "dead" with thies drives connected to my computer, she wouldnt boot. I got a quick flash of the LED fans and that was it.

From your description, it sounds about right.

[CorsePerVita]

I think one of your cd drives might be fried. I tested a handfull of old drives marked "broken" and "dead" with thies drives connected to my computer, she wouldnt boot. I got a quick flash of the LED fans and that was it.

From your description, it sounds about right.

I don't see how it could possibly be a cd drive. It boots with or without the peripherals. It's when the HARD DRIVES are attached that the issue comes up. I've tried it without peripherals and a hard drive and it still does it, it isn't the peripherals that's been tested.

So far the consensus on about 6 different forums is that I should try a different power supply.

[haha49]

well i know newer powersupplys dont have the 5 volt rail anymore so if you have a motherboatd 1999 or older it has isuses it could be the mb and when it trys to load the drive its haveing an isuse what i would do is check your temps and run it as a bare bone system 1 cd rom ram video and see what happens then try reinstalling on the hardrive..

[J-Roc]

Can you test the HDD on another machine? If it has issues when the HD is connected then it sounds like an issue with the HD.

Try overloading it with extra cd drives and fans and what have you and disconnect the hard drives. If it starts, then its your HD. Also try switching the power dongles from your cd drives and the hard drives.

[CorsePerVita]

3 DIFFERENT hard drives later, it is not the hard drive....

New observation. If I turn OFF the power to the power supply, leave it off for 10 seconds, flip it on and THEN turn on the computer it will boot up every single time.

This is definitely a power supply issue.

Going to go get a new one.