For the last 7 years several power supplies have been failing on my system. Even the first one lasted about 3 months. The longest one lasted about 3 years. Which is why at first I was blaming the PSUs. Most last 3-12 months, sometimes 1 month. Lately it's usually been every 3 months. I have tried all the reputable brands, 400-600 watts, $30-$130, 2+ different surge protectors, have lived in 3 different locations, have had 3 different cases, swapped the video card, reinstalled windows multiple times and tried different hard drives. The system I had before this one (7 years ago) had one bargain basement brand power supply for its entire life and I used it in two of the same locations, with and without surge protectors. It didn't really cross my mind to protect the power on my previous system because it never had any issues
Every time I get frequent blue screens of death, especially under load but it can happen any time. That's what led me to replace the video card I thought games were doing it. When it failed again I reinstalled windows and swapped hard drives to no avail. Every time the blue screen message is different but IRQ errors and video driver failures are the most common. Every time a replacement PSU fixed the problem. On the new video card it freezes instead of blue screening. The most recent time I replaced the video card and PSU at the same time and it lasted about 3 months before the freezing began. But swapping back to the old video card led to blue screening again.
The only components I haven't replaced are the motherboard, CPU and RAM. Even the peripherals, monitor, case and cables are different. I performed a RAM test a long time ago so I'm buying a new motherboard+CPU combo soon and hoping that will fix it. But I have no idea. Wtf is going on?
It's an Abit Fatal1ty motherboard with an intel dual core E2140 I think. I've measured total power consumption at the outlet to be 120-170 watts (idle-load) including the ~15 watts of monitor and speakers. RAM is Corsair 2x1 GB 4-4-4-12 800 MHz DDR, CM2X1024-6400C4D. Possibly related or unrelated were randomly failing USB ports after high load. That no longer happens. And the sound port randomly disconnecting and connecting prompting a popup from the audio driver software. Still persists, resolved it by removing audio management software but while still keeping the driver.
Every time I get frequent blue screens of death, especially under load but it can happen any time. That's what led me to replace the video card I thought games were doing it. When it failed again I reinstalled windows and swapped hard drives to no avail. Every time the blue screen message is different but IRQ errors and video driver failures are the most common. Every time a replacement PSU fixed the problem. On the new video card it freezes instead of blue screening. The most recent time I replaced the video card and PSU at the same time and it lasted about 3 months before the freezing began. But swapping back to the old video card led to blue screening again.
The only components I haven't replaced are the motherboard, CPU and RAM. Even the peripherals, monitor, case and cables are different. I performed a RAM test a long time ago so I'm buying a new motherboard+CPU combo soon and hoping that will fix it. But I have no idea. Wtf is going on?
It's an Abit Fatal1ty motherboard with an intel dual core E2140 I think. I've measured total power consumption at the outlet to be 120-170 watts (idle-load) including the ~15 watts of monitor and speakers. RAM is Corsair 2x1 GB 4-4-4-12 800 MHz DDR, CM2X1024-6400C4D. Possibly related or unrelated were randomly failing USB ports after high load. That no longer happens. And the sound port randomly disconnecting and connecting prompting a popup from the audio driver software. Still persists, resolved it by removing audio management software but while still keeping the driver.