EggXpert

I have tried a lot of problem solving and troubleshooting on this computer and cannot figure out the problem. After two years it started to shut off randomly then I replace it with same model and it runs fine for a few days, then begins doing it again. I believe it to be PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W power supply because of the following events:

-Computer begins to shut off randomly every hour or so.

-After a days worth of troubleshooting, I find that it is in fact the power supply and swap it out with one I borrowed from a friend.

-Runs fine for the rest of the day, so I send in the old power supply which is still covered under a 3 year warranty by OCZ.

-Continues to run fine for the duration of the time it takes to get new power supply (one week).

-Swap out my friends PSU for the new one.

-Runs fine for several days, then I get a windows failed to boot message and tells me it may be due to hardware problems or a corrupted/missing system file. (I must say that after this I did not suspect the new PSU as it had been running fine for a few days and just thought it may be a virus.)

-Try to boot from the vista installation cd to repair and it would not boot, then tried to boot from a burned vista recovery disc to no avail. (Yes I chose to boot from a cd from the BIOS.)

-Decide to reformat by wiping the hard drive with CopyWipe, but can't get through one pass because now the computer shuts off randomly after an hour to two hours

I thought that maybe this PSU model could be overheating the computer or that I just have another faulty PSU, but I really want to be sure before deciding it is. I checked to see that everything was hooked up correctly and it is. I am at my wits end and the family is nagging me, so any help is greatly appreciated!

treble:

I have tried a lot of problem solving and troubleshooting on this computer and cannot figure out the problem. After two years it started to shut off randomly then I replace it with same model and it runs fine for a few days, then begins doing it again. I believe it to be PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W power supply because of the following events:

-Computer begins to shut off randomly every hour or so.

-After a days worth of troubleshooting, I find that it is in fact the power supply and swap it out with one I borrowed from a friend.

-Runs fine for the rest of the day, so I send in the old power supply which is still covered under a 3 year warranty by OCZ.

-Continues to run fine for the duration of the time it takes to get new power supply (one week).

-Swap out my friends PSU for the new one.

-Runs fine for several days, then I get a windows failed to boot message and tells me it may be due to hardware problems or a corrupted/missing system file. (I must say that after this I did not suspect the new PSU as it had been running fine for a few days and just thought it may be a virus.)

-Try to boot from the vista installation cd to repair and it would not boot, then tried to boot from a burned vista recovery disc to no avail. (Yes I chose to boot from a cd from the BIOS.)

-Decide to reformat by wiping the hard drive with CopyWipe, but can't get through one pass because now the computer shuts off randomly after an hour to two hours

I thought that maybe this PSU model could be overheating the computer or that I just have another faulty PSU, but I really want to be sure before deciding it is. I checked to see that everything was hooked up correctly and it is. I am at my wits end and the family is nagging me, so any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Have you try with 750w PSU  Yet?  600w PSU is the recommendation for the video card but if you have a lot of USB plug in then it won't have enough Power to run.  Try again because computer shutdown and did not give any error message which is assume that u don't have enough power to run on that system.

aggiedad:

Ok have you tried to reformat using your friends psu?also what are your temps.

I haven't tried it with his PSU yet, but sounds like my only way to test it again without buying one of my own. The temps on the CPU are around 34 C when i boot into the bios and Damn Small Linux off from a USB drive I have.

0125:

Have you try with 750w PSU  Yet?  600w PSU is the recommendation for the video card but if you have a lot of USB plug in then it won't have enough Power to run.  Try again because computer shutdown and did not give any error message which is assume that u don't have enough power to run on that system.

I hadn't thought it 610w wouldn't be enough; interesting point. There are a couple of things that lead to believe otherwise. One the computer didn't exhibit these problems until a few weeks ago and I built two years ago. And two I only have a USB mouse and a keyboard connected to it that wold draw any power from the PSU. Would that be enough to put it over the top?

Edited: I recently calculated the wattage that the computer would need and got a requirement of around 410 Watts using this site. I don't know how accurate it is, but I don't believe it is 200 watts off. I believe it is either a problem with the PSU shorting out or another hardware problem. But I just don't know why it would be the same problem with a new PSU of the same type where I used a different model PSU before and it had no problems.

By the way the computer in my sig is not the one with the problem, this is the downstairs family computer we are discussing.

Sidicas:

Are you sure it's not a house power problem?  Did you try a different outlet in a different room? Did you test to be sure your grounds are good?

I thought that may be a problem, so I moved it to my room and it still shuts off randomly. I tried to see if maybe it was a RAM slot, so i switched them around, but the same problem still occurs.

I will have to wait until I can get a hold of a different power supply to test again and see if it just this certain model of power supply. That's the only thing I can think of unless anyone can give me anymore things to try.

I appreciate the help very much!

Sorry for the double post, but I have figured out the problem is indeed the power supply like I originally suspected. Even more so I took into consideration your suspicions of a faulty ground in that part of the house and am investigating this. This problem could not have happened to two power supplies without an outside source acting upon them.

Thanks very much for you suggestions.