Can a faulty motherboard cause power failure error?

[Kris Sinclair]

I have a Dell Precision 490 that I have been using as a simple home server which has recently been powering off randomly. The bios is set to automatically boot the machine after a power outage and no memory dumps had been performed on Windows, I would simply find the machine in the standby state and the Windows Event Viewer would report that the machine was shutdown unexpectedly.

I replaced the power supply in the hopes that this would resolve this issue but the machine continued to randomly power off as it did before, and today I found the machine flashing a diagnostic code on the front panel LEDs indicating a power failure. The Dell manual describes the error code as: "A possible power supply or power cable failure has occurred."

Short of my luck being awful and the new power supply being damaged, is it possible this issue can be motherboard related? (Capacitor failure for instance?) I would like some advice before pouring any more money into this ageing machine.

 

[Viking2121]

Yes, a Motherboard can cause that symptom, My old DFI Lanparty board took a lighting strike and the board seemed to work, and I was able to get into windows, but it would power down randomly as if I held the power button down.

 

[Kris Sinclair]

Thanks for your input, I have a replacement motherboard but the power failure status still persists. I can only assume the the original motherboard was causing the random resets and the new power supply I bought to attempt to fix that issue has also now failed. So poor luck on my part.