Strange Power issue

[cougar76]

Hey everyone,

Something strange is going on with my computer and I think that it's the power supply but I'm not certain. Here's my story:

One day I go to flip on the computer and everything seems to be starting out alright, all my devices are powering up and then all of a sudden the computer shuts down. So I press the power button but nothing happens. Now I have all my computer stuff plugged into a Pwer Center (the kind that you plug everything into and then each component has it's own on and off switch) so I shut off the master switch, then turned it back on and still nothing happened. So I reached behind my computer and switched it off from the power supply itself and then when I switched the power supply back on the computer started to fire back up and it promptly shut itself down.

Well, through trial and error I realized that if I unplugged anything from the back of the computer it would fire up just fine and work perfectly. So I basically just yanked something if it ever didn't want to boot up again.

Well, the computer itself seems to be working fine now, but for some reason whenever I turn on the master switch from the power center the computer fires up all by itself and it shouldn't do that (I usually have to turn on the master power switch and then reach down and press the power button on the computer itself). I have an Inwin 250W ATX 2.01 power supply and all ATX power supplies should shut down whenever you shut the computer off and it appears that mine isn't. It's almost as if it just goes to sleep instead of shutting down.

So what does it mean when your computer doesn't fire up sometimes, and at other times it will start up without you having to press the "on" button? Now keep in mind that I have fooled with nothing in BIOS or within Windows (as in sleep mode, or hybernation or anything). This just started out of the blue one day.

[tl511]

Im not sure about the Power Center, I never use one of those. However, I have had my PC just shut off on me before too. I believe it was from the Power Supply overheating. I thought the fan must be going out. So I replaced the fan. This worked for a while with no problems. Then one day it shut off and would never come back on. So I replaced the ps and no problems. If it shuts off, can you quickly unplug something from the Power Center and plug it back in and it will boot up fine? If so, I would try to skip the power center and plug into a power strip and see if your problem goes away.

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AMD T-bird 850
Epox 8KTA+
128MB PC-100 Micron Ram
Maxtor 20.4 GB 7200RPM HD
44X CD-Rom
Lucent 56K Modem
Turtle Beach Montego II
Intel 10/100 Nic
19" AOC Monitor

[Kelvrick]

Yep, looks like a power problem. Either the power center is messed up inside or your power supply is messed. Another possibility is a virus, have you completely scanned recently? An example is how a friend of mine who got a virus that kept on opening and closing his cd-tray. Was pretty funny though. He couldn't play games for a week.

[cougar76]

Originally posted by tl511:
Im not sure about the Power Center, I never use one of those. However, I have had my PC just shut off on me before too. I believe it was from the Power Supply overheating. I thought the fan must be going out. So I replaced the fan. This worked for a while with no problems. Then one day it shut off and would never come back on. So I replaced the ps and no problems. If it shuts off, can you quickly unplug something from the Power Center and plug it back in and it will boot up fine? If so, I would try to skip the power center and plug into a power strip and see if your problem goes away.

Oh yeah, I forgot one little thing (dopey me :-)

I originally did suspect the power center so I took out a brand new power cable and plugged it straight from the Computer into the wall and it still had the problem of not turning on unless I unplugged something from the back of the computer. It was almost as if it (the power supply) would go through its routine of powering up all my computer equipment and then it would just get overwhelmed and shut itself down. It's kinda strange though since I've had this exact same setup for at least 6 months now and I haven't had any problems.

Maybe my power supply realized that I had placed an order for a geforce card and it got scared so it decided to start misbehaving :-)

[cougar76]

Originally posted by Kelvrick:
Yep, looks like a power problem. Either the power center is messed up inside or your power supply is messed. Another possibility is a virus, have you completely scanned recently? An example is how a friend of mine who got a virus that kept on opening and closing his cd-tray. Was pretty funny though. He couldn't play games for a week.

Nope, I haven't scanned for a virus lately. In fact I don't even have any antivirus programs (can't stand having anything running in the background that's not necessary). I remember there used to be a site online that could scan your computer for viruses without having to download anything.....does such a site stil exist?

[tuck2040]

What is your system? , the problem is probably that your power supply isn't powerful enough to power all of your devices, I would get a 300w power supply and see what happens.

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I have the heart of prince charming


in my fridge

[cougar76]

Originally posted by tuck2040:
What is your system? , the problem is probably that your power supply isn't powerful enough to power all of your devices, I would get a 300w power supply and see what happens.

Ok, My system is as follows:
P3 600E
256mb cas2 pc100 ram
STB Velocity 4200
Vortex 2 sound card
Kingston 10/100 NIC
Diamond SupraExpress v.90 modem (ISA)
IBM 75gxp hdd
Quantum Fireball LCT10
Yamaha 4x IDE burner
Toshiba 5x DVD drive (ide)

I guess it is alot of stuff for one computer, but it's kind of strange that I've gone all this time without so much as a single problem. Oh well, I guess if it keeps giving me problems I'll buy a 300w power supply and see if that helps.