Power problem with desktop machine

I just rebuilt an old machine of mine and am having a power problem
with it. The machine is an Intel chip on an Asus A7V266-E motherboard
in an Enlight mid-tower case.

When I hit the power switch, the power LED goes on and the fans start
to spin as they should. After a few seconds, the fans go off and the
power LED starts flashing. The machine shuts off (it was never really
on except for a few seconds) and the power LED continues to flash. It
never gets to the point where there was anything on the screen, having
only been on for a few seconds.

The funny thing is, that the few times it has booted up, it works
perfectly fine. There were no major hardware changes: memory, mobo,etc
are all as they were before. I did add a new hard drive or two,
formatted them and installed WinXP sp2 and they worked just fine. I
have checked all the connectors. I doubt it is thermal shutdown as it
never has time to warm up. Keyboard, mouse and video are all
connected.

Is this a glitch in the power supply. I don't have another one to swap
it out with and don't want to buy one unless I'm sure this is the
problem. The PS worked perfectly fine until the rebuild.

Can anyone offer me any ideas or insights here.

Thanks,

BB

Bing Bong wrote:

I just rebuilt an old machine of mine and am having a
power problem with it. The machine is an Intel chip on an
Asus A7V266-E motherboard in an Enlight mid-tower case.

When I hit the power switch, the power LED goes on and the fans
start to spin as they should. After a few seconds, the fans go off
and the power LED starts flashing. The machine shuts off (it was
never really on except for a few seconds) and the power LED
continues to flash. It never gets to the point where there was
anything on the screen, having only been on for a few seconds.

The funny thing is, that the few times it has booted up, it works
perfectly fine. There were no major hardware changes: memory,
mobo,etc are all as they were before. I did add a new hard drive or
two, formatted them and installed WinXP sp2 and they worked just
fine. I have checked all the connectors. I doubt it is thermal shutdown
as it never has time to warm up. Keyboard, mouse and video are all
connected.

Is this a glitch in the power supply.

Could easily be.

I don't have another one to swap it out with and don't
want to buy one unless I'm sure this is the problem.

Trouble is that that is the best way to test that possibility.

The PS worked perfectly fine until the rebuild.

But the load may be different enough to trigger that sort
of behaviour if the power supply is marginal or flakey.

I'd try it without the hard drives plugged in, to see if it will
stay up with less load on the power supply. If it does, that
would be pretty convincing evidence that the power supply
is marginal or flakey and worth buying another.

Can anyone offer me any ideas or insights here.

Oh, thankyou . . . thankyou . . . rod . . . we are so lost without you . . .
but you forgot a ****wit remark.

-g

Rod,

It looks like you were right. I started unplugging things one at a
time and, all of a sudden, it started booting just fine. That last HD
was just enough load so that the PSU couldn't handle it. A new 430W
PSU is on the way.

Thanks,

BB


On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 07:02:32 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

Bing Bong wrote:

I just rebuilt an old machine of mine and am having a
power problem with it. The machine is an Intel chip on an
Asus A7V266-E motherboard in an Enlight mid-tower case.

When I hit the power switch, the power LED goes on and the fans
start to spin as they should. After a few seconds, the fans go off
and the power LED starts flashing. The machine shuts off (it was
never really on except for a few seconds) and the power LED
continues to flash. It never gets to the point where there was
anything on the screen, having only been on for a few seconds.

The funny thing is, that the few times it has booted up, it works
perfectly fine. There were no major hardware changes: memory,
mobo,etc are all as they were before. I did add a new hard drive or
two, formatted them and installed WinXP sp2 and they worked just
fine. I have checked all the connectors. I doubt it is thermal shutdown
as it never has time to warm up. Keyboard, mouse and video are all
connected.

Is this a glitch in the power supply.

Could easily be.

I don't have another one to swap it out with and don't
want to buy one unless I'm sure this is the problem.

Trouble is that that is the best way to test that possibility.

The PS worked perfectly fine until the rebuild.

But the load may be different enough to trigger that sort
of behaviour if the power supply is marginal or flakey.

I'd try it without the hard drives plugged in, to see if it will
stay up with less load on the power supply. If it does, that
would be pretty convincing evidence that the power supply
is marginal or flakey and worth buying another.

Can anyone offer me any ideas or insights here.

It looks like you were right.

Do better next time, his ego needs more.

-g

Bing Bong wrote:
Rod,

It looks like you were right. I started unplugging things one at a
time and, all of a sudden, it started booting just fine. That last HD
was just enough load so that the PSU couldn't handle it. A new 430W
PSU is on the way.

Thanks for the feedback, too rare in my opinion.


Rod Speed wrote
Bing Bong wrote:

I just rebuilt an old machine of mine and am having a
power problem with it. The machine is an Intel chip on an
Asus A7V266-E motherboard in an Enlight mid-tower case.

When I hit the power switch, the power LED goes on and the fans
start to spin as they should. After a few seconds, the fans go off
and the power LED starts flashing. The machine shuts off (it was
never really on except for a few seconds) and the power LED
continues to flash. It never gets to the point where there was
anything on the screen, having only been on for a few seconds.

The funny thing is, that the few times it has booted up, it works
perfectly fine. There were no major hardware changes: memory,
mobo,etc are all as they were before. I did add a new hard drive or
two, formatted them and installed WinXP sp2 and they worked just
fine. I have checked all the connectors. I doubt it is thermal
shutdown as it never has time to warm up. Keyboard, mouse and video
are all connected.

Is this a glitch in the power supply.

Could easily be.

I don't have another one to swap it out with and don't
want to buy one unless I'm sure this is the problem.

Trouble is that that is the best way to test that possibility.

The PS worked perfectly fine until the rebuild.

But the load may be different enough to trigger that sort
of behaviour if the power supply is marginal or flakey.

I'd try it without the hard drives plugged in, to see if it will
stay up with less load on the power supply. If it does, that
would be pretty convincing evidence that the power supply
is marginal or flakey and worth buying another.

Can anyone offer me any ideas or insights here.

Ohhhhhh, rod is so mature now, bow down to the great rod, post more, we are
so lost . . .

-g

On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 16:25:42 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:


Thanks for the feedback, too rare in my opinion.

You get plenty of feedback, it's just not good feedback.

Since you say that you added drives, my appraisal is that your old power
supply unit no longer has enough output to consistently boot your computer
with the additional load. I would upgrade your power supply unit to a
QUALITY model with higher power output.

--
DaveW

----------------
"Bing Bong" wrote in message
...
I just rebuilt an old machine of mine and am having a power problem
with it. The machine is an Intel chip on an Asus A7V266-E motherboard
in an Enlight mid-tower case.

When I hit the power switch, the power LED goes on and the fans start
to spin as they should. After a few seconds, the fans go off and the
power LED starts flashing. The machine shuts off (it was never really
on except for a few seconds) and the power LED continues to flash. It
never gets to the point where there was anything on the screen, having
only been on for a few seconds.

The funny thing is, that the few times it has booted up, it works
perfectly fine. There were no major hardware changes: memory, mobo,etc
are all as they were before. I did add a new hard drive or two,
formatted them and installed WinXP sp2 and they worked just fine. I
have checked all the connectors. I doubt it is thermal shutdown as it
never has time to warm up. Keyboard, mouse and video are all
connected.

Is this a glitch in the power supply. I don't have another one to swap
it out with and don't want to buy one unless I'm sure this is the
problem. The PS worked perfectly fine until the rebuild.

Can anyone offer me any ideas or insights here.

Thanks,

BB