I think it must be the power supply

Bill Anderson wrote:


Question: Could a failing power supply have been causing the video card
flakiness? And if so, does it make any sense to replace the current
power supply with the PC Power and Cooling unit when it arrives on Monday?


The best way to tell, would be to connect an oscilloscope to the 12V rail,
and watch what happens to the voltage, when the video card does a VPU
recover. A multimeter may not be able to catch a quick dip
in the voltages.

Modern PCI Express video cards receive two voltages. They get 12V
from the motherboard connector and from any aux connectors on the
end of the card. They get 3.3V from the motherboard connector.
I don't know what they use the 3.3V for, but usually a few watts
is drawn from that. The 12V is converted by an onboard regulator.
The chips themselves need relatively low voltages (like 1.5V or so
at a large current), so 12V is not used directly.

In theory, the onboard switching regulator should be able to tolerate
a large range of voltages (say 6V to 16V). So it doesn't have to
be picky about the voltage. It is a regulator after all.

But if the input voltage drops to 6V, the input current to the switching
regulator would double. (The regulator tends to have a constant power
input, and that is how I can conclude it would double.) Doubling
the current on the PCI Express slot connector input could damage
the connector. The Aux connector on the end might not care as much.

So it could be, that the video card has tighter tolerances to voltage
variation, applied artificially by the circuit. Such that it
"complains" about a lesser variation in voltage.

To answer your question -

1) Does the replacement supply meet the needs of the hardware ?
Is there any danger the current supply will have a reduced
life, due to being operated near its service limit ? Is it
a 68% efficient supply ? (A 68% efficient supply would tend
to run hotter at a decent load.)

2) When *any* new supply arrives, there is always a small danger
it will be either DOA or running out of spec. In the past,
I would have judged PCPower to be above average on their
product test - they still had duds, but not to the same
extend as those companies that simply didn't care what they
shipped.

Check the reviews on Newegg now, for PCPower, and see if the
quality still seems to be there. Since OCZ took over, there
have been price drops. Who is to say, what streamlining of
the manufacturing process has occurred as a result. I let
the customer reviews decide that for me. Reviews are the
best surveillance of any manufacturer and their decisions.

Paul

On Jan 29, 6:24*pm, Bill Anderson wrote:
Question: *Could a failing power supply have been causing the video card
flakiness? *And if so, does it make any sense to replace the current
power supply with the PC Power and Cooling unit when it arrives on Monday?

If the power supply is not sufficiently sized, then get the system
to fully load that power supply. That means executing complex
graphics (ie a movie) while downloading from the internet, while
playing a CD-Rom, while searching the hard drive, while ... Now the
system is loading that power supply. If the power supply is
sufficient, voltages from that supply will exceed 3.23, 4.87, and 11.7
volts on any one orange, red, purple, and yellow wires.

Due to filtering throughout the power system, any voltage dip will
be so slow as to be obvious even on a multimeter. Although the
oscilloscope clearly provides superior information, a multimeter using
those above numbers and sufficient loading is sufficient to detect a
typically undersized supply.

Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote:


Question: Could a failing power supply have been causing the video
card flakiness? And if so, does it make any sense to replace the
current power supply with the PC Power and Cooling unit when it
arrives on Monday?


The best way to tell, would be to connect an oscilloscope to the 12V rail,
and watch what happens to the voltage, when the video card does a VPU
recover. A multimeter may not be able to catch a quick dip
in the voltages.


snip

Paul:

Here's what's happened so far:

I sent the unit to OCZ and 2 or three weeks later (two days ago) it came
back. When I opened the box I suspected I was looking at my original
unit, as the rubber band I'd used to bind the wiring was still attached.
No information was included to indicate what had been found or what
had been done. So I sent a message to OCZ asking what had been done to
the unit. The response was that the unit had been "repaired," but the
technician who did the work had gone home for the day. Would I like the
guy I was emailing to to ask the technician what had been done? I
replied, "yes, please."

Now today I've received this:

Comment: Hello Bill,

Does your power supply work now?

Our technician could not find any problems with your power supply. It
was thoroughly tested.

Allen Chung


So ... I responded as follows:


Hi Allen:

A few comments:

1) It's annoying that I must correspond with you via your "Add comment
to trouble ticket" website. Because I can't see our past messages to
each other -- because I have no record of what I've told you before -- I
feel I must recap everything in every message. Can't you include an
email trail in your responses? As it is, there's no record in my note
this evening to indicate what I told you in the first place about my
problem, nothing to explain why you thought an RMA might be required in
the first place.

2) I pretty much suspected that even though in an earlier message you
told me my power supply had been "repaired," nothing had been done to
it. I'm not surprised. The problem was intermittent and I worried that
you would get the PS and test it and find nothing wrong.

3) Thank you at least for following up and answering my questions about
what has been done with the unit I sent you. But I must point out that
if I'd received a note with the unit when it was returned, something
along the lines of "Mr. Anderson, we couldn't find anything wrong with
this unit, we think it's not the cause of your problem, and we recommend
you re-install it," you and I could have been spared some unnecessary
correspondence. At least I wouldn't have needed to treat this episode
as a mystery needing to be solved.

4) I will re-install the power supply this evening. Who knows? Maybe
it'll work with no problems for the life of my computer. Maybe the
problem was caused by a loose connection. Maybe. But I'm telling you,
when I removed the 610 watt PC Power and Cooling power supply and
replaced it with a no-name 400 watt power supply, the problem went away.
I have not experienced any of the symptoms I described to you in my
first message since removing the PC Power and Cooling unit. But ...
let's give it another go and keep our fingers crossed!

Thanks for your attention to my difficulties.



--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Bill Anderson wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote:


Question: Could a failing power supply have been causing the video
card flakiness? And if so, does it make any sense to replace the
current power supply with the PC Power and Cooling unit when it
arrives on Monday?


The best way to tell, would be to connect an oscilloscope to the 12V
rail,
and watch what happens to the voltage, when the video card does a VPU
recover. A multimeter may not be able to catch a quick dip
in the voltages.


snip

Paul:

Here's what's happened so far:

I sent the unit to OCZ and 2 or three weeks later (two days ago) it came
back. When I opened the box I suspected I was looking at my original
unit, as the rubber band I'd used to bind the wiring was still attached.
No information was included to indicate what had been found or what had
been done. So I sent a message to OCZ asking what had been done to the
unit. The response was that the unit had been "repaired," but the
technician who did the work had gone home for the day. Would I like the
guy I was emailing to to ask the technician what had been done? I
replied, "yes, please."

Now today I've received this:

Comment: Hello Bill,

Does your power supply work now?

Our technician could not find any problems with your power supply. It
was thoroughly tested.

Allen Chung


So ... I responded as follows:


Hi Allen:

A few comments:

1) It's annoying that I must correspond with you via your "Add comment
to trouble ticket" website. Because I can't see our past messages to
each other -- because I have no record of what I've told you before -- I
feel I must recap everything in every message. Can't you include an
email trail in your responses? As it is, there's no record in my note
this evening to indicate what I told you in the first place about my
problem, nothing to explain why you thought an RMA might be required in
the first place.

2) I pretty much suspected that even though in an earlier message you
told me my power supply had been "repaired," nothing had been done to
it. I'm not surprised. The problem was intermittent and I worried that
you would get the PS and test it and find nothing wrong.

3) Thank you at least for following up and answering my questions about
what has been done with the unit I sent you. But I must point out that
if I'd received a note with the unit when it was returned, something
along the lines of "Mr. Anderson, we couldn't find anything wrong with
this unit, we think it's not the cause of your problem, and we recommend
you re-install it," you and I could have been spared some unnecessary
correspondence. At least I wouldn't have needed to treat this episode
as a mystery needing to be solved.

4) I will re-install the power supply this evening. Who knows? Maybe
it'll work with no problems for the life of my computer. Maybe the
problem was caused by a loose connection. Maybe. But I'm telling you,
when I removed the 610 watt PC Power and Cooling power supply and
replaced it with a no-name 400 watt power supply, the problem went away.
I have not experienced any of the symptoms I described to you in my
first message since removing the PC Power and Cooling unit. But ...
let's give it another go and keep our fingers crossed!

Thanks for your attention to my difficulties.


I guess we'll know, when you do the test *again* and it fails :-(

Paul

Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote:


4) I will re-install the power supply this evening. Who knows? Maybe
it'll work with no problems for the life of my computer. Maybe the
problem was caused by a loose connection. Maybe. But I'm telling
you, when I removed the 610 watt PC Power and Cooling power supply and
replaced it with a no-name 400 watt power supply, the problem went
away. I have not experienced any of the symptoms I described to you
in my first message since removing the PC Power and Cooling unit. But
... let's give it another go and keep our fingers crossed!

Thanks for your attention to my difficulties.


I guess we'll know, when you do the test *again* and it fails :-(

Paul

I've received this follow-up:

Comment: Hello Bill,

I have tried creating test tickets to see what you see and did notice
that you cannot see the history of these tickets.

We use a third party service for these tickets and do not have immediate
control over such features. I will ask our IT department about this
function.


Intermittent problems are the hardest to test for obvious reasons. If
you find the problem persists, I will speak with our RMA team and find
an option for you.



So ... back in it goes and we'll see what happens. Hey, maybe it really
was just a loose connection.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Paul wrote:


I guess we'll know, when you do the test *again* and it fails :-(


I have a confession to make. In all this removing and installing of
power supplies I discovered that the EATX12V connector on the P5K had a
cap on it that covered four of eight holes. The PC Power and Cooling
power supply has a four-pin plug which I have been using, and it also
has an eight-pin plug which has been idle for the year and a half since
I built the computer. I'd never noticed that cap. So tonight I popped
it off and now I'm using all eight pins on the EATX12V connector. Hope
that makes a difference. We'll see.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Bill Anderson wrote:
Paul wrote:


I guess we'll know, when you do the test *again* and it fails :-(


I have a confession to make. In all this removing and installing of
power supplies I discovered that the EATX12V connector on the P5K had a
cap on it that covered four of eight holes. The PC Power and Cooling
power supply has a four-pin plug which I have been using, and it also
has an eight-pin plug which has been idle for the year and a half since
I built the computer. I'd never noticed that cap. So tonight I popped
it off and now I'm using all eight pins on the EATX12V connector. Hope
that makes a difference. We'll see.


For anyone who's still interested, here's the note I sent to PC Power
and Cooling tonight:

Hi Allen:

Last night I removed my no-name power supply (actually it's a 400 watt
ATX12V 2.01 Professional Power Supply from StarTech.com) and replaced it
with my old PC Power and Cooling unit which you returned without repair.
It ran just fine and after a few hours of use I shut it down and went
to bed. I did not turn it on this morning before I left for work.

I returned home around 8:00 this evening and when I turned it on, the
unit powered up but my monitor remained dark -- it was getting no video
signal. I know this because the little blue light on the monitor just
blinked, meaning it was getting neither an analog nor a digital signal.

After a minute or two of waiting, I pressed the reset button -- and once
again, as I've described to you before, weird things happened. The
computer powered down, began to power up again, and then just shut down
completely. I pressed the power button again and again and got no response.

So just to see, I unplugged the power cord from the PC Power and Cooling
PS, waited a few moments, and then plugged it in again. Then I pressed
the power button one more time and voila -- the computer powered up and
it's working fine and I'm able to type this message.

Now remember -- my spare 400 watt no-name power supply performed
flawlessly the entire time my PC Power and Cooling PS was away for
repair/replacement.

So I hope you can understand what I'm thinking when I consider that my
computer works fine with the no-name PS installed, but it's flaky when
the PC Power and Cooling PS is installed. What I'm thinking is that
there's something wrong with the PC Power and Cooling power supply.
Yep, that's what I'm thinking, all right.

And don't you think the same thing? Don't you think a new or
refurbished PS is in order?

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote:


Question: Could a failing power supply have been causing the video
card flakiness? And if so, does it make any sense to replace the
current power supply with the PC Power and Cooling unit when it
arrives on Monday?


The best way to tell, would be to connect an oscilloscope to the 12V
rail,
and watch what happens to the voltage, when the video card does a VPU
recover. A multimeter may not be able to catch a quick dip
in the voltages.


snip

Paul:

Here's what's happened so far:

I sent the unit to OCZ and 2 or three weeks later (two days ago) it
came back. When I opened the box I suspected I was looking at my
original unit, as the rubber band I'd used to bind the wiring was
still attached. No information was included to indicate what had been
found or what had been done. So I sent a message to OCZ asking what
had been done to the unit. The response was that the unit had been
"repaired," but the technician who did the work had gone home for the
day. Would I like the guy I was emailing to to ask the technician
what had been done? I replied, "yes, please."

Now today I've received this:

Comment: Hello Bill,

Does your power supply work now?

Our technician could not find any problems with your power supply. It
was thoroughly tested.

Allen Chung


So ... I responded as follows:


Hi Allen:

A few comments:

1) It's annoying that I must correspond with you via your "Add comment
to trouble ticket" website. Because I can't see our past messages to
each other -- because I have no record of what I've told you before --
I feel I must recap everything in every message. Can't you include an
email trail in your responses? As it is, there's no record in my note
this evening to indicate what I told you in the first place about my
problem, nothing to explain why you thought an RMA might be required
in the first place.

2) I pretty much suspected that even though in an earlier message you
told me my power supply had been "repaired," nothing had been done to
it. I'm not surprised. The problem was intermittent and I worried
that you would get the PS and test it and find nothing wrong.

3) Thank you at least for following up and answering my questions
about what has been done with the unit I sent you. But I must point
out that if I'd received a note with the unit when it was returned,
something along the lines of "Mr. Anderson, we couldn't find anything
wrong with this unit, we think it's not the cause of your problem, and
we recommend you re-install it," you and I could have been spared some
unnecessary correspondence. At least I wouldn't have needed to treat
this episode as a mystery needing to be solved.

4) I will re-install the power supply this evening. Who knows? Maybe
it'll work with no problems for the life of my computer. Maybe the
problem was caused by a loose connection. Maybe. But I'm telling
you, when I removed the 610 watt PC Power and Cooling power supply and
replaced it with a no-name 400 watt power supply, the problem went
away. I have not experienced any of the symptoms I described to you
in my first message since removing the PC Power and Cooling unit. But
... let's give it another go and keep our fingers crossed!

Thanks for your attention to my difficulties.


I guess we'll know, when you do the test *again* and it fails :-(

Paul


Well look here -- I've come back to update a thread that's almost a year
old. Never thought it would take this long to revisit the subject, but
here I am again.

To recap: Last February my computer would refuse to post when I turned
it on in the mornings. The fans would fire up and the optical disk
drive light would come on, but no post, no boot. So I'd hold the power
button in for about five seconds and the power would shut off and I'd
push the button again and this time the computer would post and boot --
or not. Repeat, repeat, repeat, ah ... there's the beep and we're in
business.

My best guess, and the best guess around here, was that the power supply
was the problem. When I removed my PC Power and Cooling power supply
and replaced it with a no-name spare, the problem went away. Ah-hah!

So I told my story to a nice technician at PC Power and Cooling and he
had me ship the unit back to him and in a few days it came back to me
unchanged. They "could not find any problems."

So I put it back in the computer as described above and to my complete
surprise the computer has been posting and booting flawlessly ever
since. At least it has until about a week ago.

Now I'm back to where I was before -- power on, no post, power off,
power on, no post, power off, power on, BEEP!, and everything works
great. Maybe it takes one retry, maybe five. But eventually the
computer will post. At least that's how it's been so far.

I've put the no-name power supply back in the computer and it's running
fine. I'm going to give it a few days to see if the problem returns
with the no-name PS. If it does, I'll know the problem is with the
motherboard or memory or something. If I go several weeks with no
problem, I'll probably put the PC Power and Cooling PS back in to see if
the problem returns. If it does, then I'll call PC Power and Cooling
(or whoever owns them now -- OCZ) and fuss. If it works with no
problem, well, maybe I'll get another year's worth of use out of it.

Can anybody think of something other than the PS that would cause this
sort of behavior?

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:15:18 -0500, Bill Anderson
wrote:



Well look here -- I've come back to update a thread that's almost a year
old. Never thought it would take this long to revisit the subject, but
here I am again.

To recap: Last February my computer would refuse to post when I turned
it on in the mornings. The fans would fire up and the optical disk
drive light would come on, but no post, no boot. So I'd hold the power
button in for about five seconds and the power would shut off and I'd
push the button again and this time the computer would post and boot --
or not. Repeat, repeat, repeat, ah ... there's the beep and we're in
business.

My best guess, and the best guess around here, was that the power supply
was the problem. When I removed my PC Power and Cooling power supply
and replaced it with a no-name spare, the problem went away. Ah-hah!

So I told my story to a nice technician at PC Power and Cooling and he
had me ship the unit back to him and in a few days it came back to me
unchanged. They "could not find any problems."

I've only remembered to do this once, but when one returns something,
it's good to put a very small mark on it somewhere, so when he gets it
back, he can tell if it is the same one or not. In your case they
were honest with you, I guess, but not everyone is. Sometimes I
think they pretend to replace something but just send the same one
back.

Similarly when you return something at a store that you know doesn't
work right, you can check if they put yours out for sale again. A
small mark, tiny enough that it won't be noticed by the next buyer (if
repaired or sold without being repaired), is best.

I think this happened to me or someone I know with a fairly expensive
piece of electronics once that they just put it out for sale again.

So I put it back in the computer as described above and to my complete
surprise the computer has been posting and booting flawlessly ever
since. At least it has until about a week ago.

Now I'm back to where I was before -- power on, no post, power off,
power on, no post, power off, power on, BEEP!, and everything works
great. Maybe it takes one retry, maybe five. But eventually the
computer will post. At least that's how it's been so far.

I've put the no-name power supply back in the computer and it's running
fine. I'm going to give it a few days to see if the problem returns
with the no-name PS. If it does, I'll know the problem is with the
motherboard or memory or something. If I go several weeks with no
problem, I'll probably put the PC Power and Cooling PS back in to see if
the problem returns. If it does, then I'll call PC Power and Cooling
(or whoever owns them now -- OCZ) and fuss. If it works with no
problem, well, maybe I'll get another year's worth of use out of it.

You're pretty throrough. I think I'd be convinced by now, but your
method is better.

Can anybody think of something other than the PS that would cause this
sort of behavior?

Bob wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:15:18 -0500, Bill Anderson
wrote:


Well look here -- I've come back to update a thread that's almost a year
old. Never thought it would take this long to revisit the subject, but
here I am again.

To recap: Last February my computer would refuse to post when I turned
it on in the mornings. The fans would fire up and the optical disk
drive light would come on, but no post, no boot. So I'd hold the power
button in for about five seconds and the power would shut off and I'd
push the button again and this time the computer would post and boot --
or not. Repeat, repeat, repeat, ah ... there's the beep and we're in
business.

My best guess, and the best guess around here, was that the power supply
was the problem. When I removed my PC Power and Cooling power supply
and replaced it with a no-name spare, the problem went away. Ah-hah!


OK, I really need some help now. This morning, with the no-name spare
PS installed, I powered up the computer but it didn't post. I powered
down as described above, waited a few seconds, and pushed the power
button again. This time the computer powered up and after a few seconds
it powered down. Then it powered up again and then it powered down.
Then it powered up and then it powered down again, this time for good.
I didn't touch the computer at all during this -- I just watched in
amazement.

Then I pushed the power button and powered up and no post. So I powered
down and powered up again and this time I got a beep and now all is well.

The problem isn't the power supply. But what could it be? I don't know
what to look at first. Help?

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog