computer restarts itself

[Nimrod]

this is a problem i've had for a while and i just cant sort it...

 

whenver i play a video file the video starts replaying the first few seconds over and over #, then the program freezes and the how comp crashes... a lot of the time within a second or two of opening the file the computer actually restarts itself.

 

funny thing is that when i open a file clicked from a link on a forum for example, i load it up in quicktime within a new internet window and it works fine. larger files more than a few megs just resttart the computer...

 

i posted this on sos and dee pointed me to an article about having the right psu but i cant remember where that was or how to calculate the right wattage etc - what are the main components of my pc that i have to work out the wattage for this new psu thingy?

 

sorry if this is a bit vague but it pisses me off cos i think im slowly frying my pc and i cant afford a new one! :pray:

[2ndhand]

is your memory any good?

try reseating it. if you have recently added some, remove it and try it then. dont mix different memory speeds.

 

just a thought

 

your psu will only struggle if you have nuff devices running.

ie a grip of hdd's. and then it will only struggle if it has some rare super low watt output. some graphics cards also draw extra wattage too, so i believe.

 

if you want to work out what your pc uses in wattage, you need to include ide's, cd's and the processor itself.

 

i run a cheap generic 300w psu in my pc here at home and i have never had any psu related issues (that i am aware of)

when i bought the case the other day, it had no psu in it. i asked the guy at pc world if i needed a beefy psu. he said the fat psu thing was a myth and listed what power is actually used. and it was less than 250W.

 

now i know pc world isnt necessarily the knowlege centre of the world, but if he had said it does matter, i would have probably bought one there and then. he sacrificed a sale for what he honestly believed? a rare moment at pc world.

 

 

edit***

 

wrt psu's i hasten to add that if your psu is failing in some way then yes it would definately play a part!

however my experience with psu's is that they either work, or they go pop and stink and stop working completely.

 

if a bunch of other stuff is going tits up in windows too, maybe now is a good junture for a nice fresh install. at least to eliminate a software issue (after replugging all the wires and reseating the memory)

[djdj]

Type "Free Online Virus Checker" into google and you will get a link to TREND Micro Systems.

 

Follow the link and let the virus checker run.

 

Hit a reply with an virus's you find. It won't delete them but it will tell you if you have and where they are located in the HDD.

 

pz!

 

djdj

[Steve]

I doubt it's power supply related, although it could be. I think it's either a driver or software issue, possible memory. If you're using XP, you can disable the reboot thing so you can read the blue screen that will appear when the machine crashes. This will give you a clue as to what it is. Try reinstalling your graphics card drivers or updating them to the latest available too.

 

You could also try lowering the hardware acceleration slider - that can cure those symptoms: -

 

Right click on a blank area of the desktop and choose Properties. Click on the Troubleshooting tab of the window that pops up and lower the slider by one notch. Reboot and see if this cures your problem.

[Guest Deeswift]

is your memory any good?

try reseating it. if you have recently added some, remove it and try it then. dont mix different memory speeds.

 

just a thought

 

your psu will only struggle if you have nuff devices running.

ie a grip of hdd's. and then it will only struggle if it has some rare super low watt output. some graphics cards also draw extra wattage too, so i believe.

 

if you want to work out what your pc uses in wattage, you need to include ide's, cd's and the processor itself.

 

i run a cheap generic 300w psu in my pc here at home and i have never had any psu related issues (that i am aware of)

when i bought the case the other day, it had no psu in it. i asked the guy at pc world if i needed a beefy psu. he said the fat psu thing was a myth and listed what power is actually used. and it was less than 250W.

 

now i know pc world isnt necessarily the knowlege centre of the world, but if he had said it does matter, i would have probably bought one there and then. he sacrificed a sale for what he honestly believed? a rare moment at pc world.

 

 

edit***

 

wrt psu's i hasten to add that if your psu is failing in some way then yes it would definately play a part!

however my experience with psu's is that they either work, or they go pop and stink and stop working completely.

 

if a bunch of other stuff is going tits up in windows too, maybe now is a good junture for a nice fresh install. at least to eliminate a software issue (after replugging all the wires and reseating the memory)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Seriously dude, do you trust anyone from PC World? They don't know shit about power supplies (or anything, for that matter). If he'd known about PSU's he would have not even mentioned the wattage because that's not important -- what is important is the amperage. Now, if your PSU doesn't supply enough stable, consistent and clean power to your components, you're gonna get crashes , bloe screens and stuff like that.

 

I'd suggest finding out the specs of the PSU, but look especially at amperage on the +12V rail. Every PSU should have a sticker on the side with the rated spec (it's illegal not to have the sticker on there). Open up your PC case and check it out.

 

Details of the components are important -- list the spec of the PC. What processor? What graphics card? etc.

[Steve]

Watts = Volts X Amps so they are all inter-related. If the amp rating of a rail is low, it's resulting wattage will also be low.

[Guest Deeswift]

OK, so take a 300 watt generic PSU, and a 300 watt by a respected manufacturer, and the specs will be totally different. I see plenty of 480 watt supplies out there with low amperage, then there's something like the Tagan TG480-U01 (my PSU) which delivers 28A @ +12V, 48A @ +5V, 28A @ +3.3V -- this PSU can power several high-end computers at once (it's been done, and the Tagan didn't even break a sweat). Try doing that with a generic 480 watt PSU. Wattage has little to do with it, Steve. That's why the 300 watt generic PSU will crap out, possibly taking other components like mobo, CPU, memory, etc. with it (very costly) but you'd be fine with the 300 watt branded PSU. Amperage, not wattage.

 

For Nimrod: http://digitalvertigo.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=100

 

 

Example of a good PSU:

 

TAGAN TG480-U01 REVIEWS

______________________

 

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/revie...dmlld19JRD02OTQ

http://www.hardwarezoom.com/viewcontent.jsp?ReviewID=186

http://www.themodfathers.jolt.co.uk/?page=...on=show&id=8062

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/article-4310.php

http://www.3dvelocity.com/reviews/tagan/tg480.htm

http://www.tech-pc.co.uk/tagan1.php

http://modtown.co.uk/mt/review2.php?id=taganpsu

http://www.ocprices.com/?rev_id=210

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=128

http://www.casemodworld.com/reviews-viewarticle70-page1.html

 

http://www.nforcershq.com/modules.php?name...rticle&sid=2110

 

Tagan 480 PSU Wins Custom PC Award - Powers Worlds Most Powerful Gaming Rig

 

The first scientific lab test ever carried out by a UK publication has revealed Tagan as the No. 1 PSU.

 

A recent intensive lab investigation (grand total of 472 tests) carried out by Custom PC, part of Dennis Publishing published in issue 015/ December 2004 has awarded the Tagan 480 as the No. 1 PSU with an overall score of 92% (95% stability, 95% features & 84% value). The Tagan fought off eleven other PSUs including Enermax, Antec, Akasa, AOpen and FSP. The Tagan 480 was honoured with Custom PC Approved and the Premium Grade award, James Goldbold, Deputy Editor of Custom PC who carried out the project gave Tagan 480 the verdict "The turbocharged 12V rail and upgrade flexibility make this the dream PSU".

 

The readings from the test report showed the output generated by Tagan from the 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails as 28A, 48A and 28A respectively. The test also showed that the Tagan's efficiency never dropped below 99% even under full load. The Tagan marketed for its power, efficiency, stability and silence has certainly lived to more than what it expected.

 

The award winning Tagan 480 has also been implemented in the world's most powerful gaming system manufactured by Scan, the 3XS- SLI Cobra, Approved by Custom PC (issue 015/ December 2004 ). The Tagan 480 is used to power a dual Xeon 3.4GHx processor, 2 GB Corsair DDR2 400MHz memory, a pair of 256MB XFX GeForce 6800 GT graphics card, two S-SATA Western Digital Raptor 74GB HDD, a 300GB Maxtor DimondMax 10 HDD and to top things off a Plextor PX- 712A 12xDVD Writer.

 

Example of a shit PSU:

 

http://www.mcmcomputers.co.uk/product_info...roducts_id=1037

 

I used to have this PSU. As soon as I tried to install a slightly power-hungry graphics card (9800 Pro IceQ), I'd get computer restarts, BSOD's, black screens, you name it. Avoid the cheap shit. Power supplies play a way bigger part than people give them credit for. If the CPU is the brain, PSU is surely the heart.

[2ndhand]

will the "standard" (or cheap) psu's start to give in only when a graphics card is meaty?

or when you run a brace of drives (say a load of scsi drives) ?

 

i know nothing about power supplies other than i have never had a pc that required any other than what i had nearby at the time.

 

i am open to change here. its just with the some 40 odd pc's that i have built/maintained over the last 7 years (at work aswell as home) i have never come across a psu issue (unless its dead. they do die in time). all of these pc's bar a few have been just basic 1 hard drive simple graphics card jobbies though. not gaming pc's. it probably i havent pushed the power too hard.

 

so back to the original thread, if your pc is a regular system (the lights in the house dont go dim when you switch it on) then i'd try a load more things before you swap the psu.

 

when my psu at home does pop though i know who i will ask about buying a good one!

 

i want to run 2 sata drives (aswell as an ide and a cd) would i need to upgrade the psu accordingly? (this pc will be outside of the usual boundaries i have worked within)

[Steve]

The specs of two power supplies with the same total wattage can obviously be different, but for any rail, wattage is equal to voltage multiplied by amps. As the rails usually have set voltage values (3.3, 5, 12 etc) then the higher the amount of amps, the higher the amount of watts too.

 

E.g.

 

A 5v rail at 30amps = 150watts. The same 5v rail at 20 amps is only 100watts. To say you only need to look at amps is incorrect, because the amount of amps directly affects the wattage.

[Clownstyle]

Couldnt it just be the software you are using? Have you tried any other players? Could even be an issue with codecs. I would download a fresh codec pack.

[Guest Deeswift]

The specs of two power supplies with the same total wattage can obviously be different, but for any rail, wattage is equal to voltage multiplied by amps. As the rails usually have set voltage values (3.3, 5, 12 etc) then the higher the amount of amps, the higher the amount of watts too.

 

E.g.

 

A 5v rail at 30amps = 150watts. The same 5v rail at 20 amps is only 100watts. To say you only need to look at amps is incorrect, because the amount of amps directly affects the wattage.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It never works out like you said! BTW, I'm not saying "only look at AMPS", but AMPS are probably more important than overall wattage. Seriously mate, it never works out as you explained above. Take a generic PSU of the same wattage as a good, well respected manufacturer and I bet the AMPS are different.

[Steve]

It does work out like that mate. Have a read here: -

 

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/power/sup/output.htm

 

The main page about it is here: -

 

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/power/sup/outputPower-c.html

 

That second page shows you the exact way to calculate the total wattage of a PSU including a couple of examples.

[Guest Deeswift]

Those PSU calculators are a load of cack. I've said my bit anyway, take it or leave it.

 

4th POST DOWN

 

2nd POST DOWN

 

I could find LOADS of info on generic PSU's vs quality ones at the same wattage. I can't be bothered though.

 

Look at this cheap 550 watt QTEC PSU. Note the +12V rail @ 20A peak power, and 14A max:

 

 

Now look at this 480 watt (yep, lower wattage) Tagan PSU with 28A on the 12V. Proof that wattage / amperage doesn't work out anything like you said. Not all power supplies are created equal, and you get what you pay for.

 

 

Also, how about PSU's with dual 12V rails? You simply cannot calculate amperage based on overall wattage.

[Steve]

I didn't say you could calculate amperage based on the overall wattage, but you can for each rail then add it up. It's Ohm's Law mate, not something I've concocted in my head. Take your Tagan for example. On the +5V rail, there are 48A. Multiply 5 x 48 and you get 240, which is the number of watts. On the +12V rail you have 28A - multiply it up and you get 336 watts - again that's exactly what it says on the sticker. The site I posted a link to shows you exactly how to add up the figures and is probably the most in-depth resource on PSU's I've ever seen.

[Guest Deeswift]

Did you edit some posts? Whatever. -- a cheap PSU is no good, that's the bottom line. Despite what anyone says, you can't take a basic generic PSU and expect it to perform the same as a quality one rated at the same wattage, it won't happen.

 

This is not really helping Nimrod though, so try eliminating everything starting from software, to drivers, to hardware. But don't rule out the PSU, they have a limited life, get full of dust and die, and when they're on the way out you'll get problems like you have been -- random restatrs, crashes, BSOD's, etc.

[Steve]

Did you edit some posts?

 

No.

[Guest Deeswift]

No.

 

Oh.

[Steve]

oh right, Uploading now - Should be done in a few minutes.

[Guest Deeswift]

FLOL...

[Dub-Se7en]

in my last pc BSOD's and restarts were all down to the psu crapping out. when i put in a half decent 450w it all cleared up,

 

experiencing a similar prob in my new pc now....