Power dodgy?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (More info?)

Quick question,

When turning on my PC it has fairly recently started to fail to boot
correctly.

It starts to power up but before it gets to the BIOS display screens
it powers down. If I try again - it may fail again -but more often it
will start up fine and be fine for as long as I want.

It looks like as long as the graphics card is recognised (i.e. it
takes the monitor out of power save mode) it will be OK. I still have
to do more checks but my intilal thought is that my power supply may
be struggling. I did not add any new hardware in the weeks before I
first started see this but the PC has been upgraded and has a fair bit
more kit to drive over the years. Specs are

Chieftec power - 300W
KT4V MoBo
Ath 2400+
DVD ROM
DVD R-RW
2 X Hard drive
Floppy drive
Couple of USB dvices - none taking power - except mouse
Modem
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro (requires power from PC - cant get enough
from AGP slot).

I am assuming that on boot it takes a lot of power as it checks
devices etc - which is why I have prob at startup. I have not started
to unplug bits to conseve power and see it it helps yet but think I am
on the right lines?

Cheers

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (More info?)

How long has it been since you installed/replaced the computer battery?
Perhaps you are having boot problems due to bios setup errors. Also, are
you getting any "beep" codes during bootup?

"Justin Thompson" <Justin.Thompson@removethisntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:fq32v0h3l1bqh2pcph64kb0sgt4h15hael@4ax.com...
> Quick question,
>
> When turning on my PC it has fairly recently started to fail to boot
> correctly.
>
> It starts to power up but before it gets to the BIOS display screens
> it powers down. If I try again - it may fail again -but more often it
> will start up fine and be fine for as long as I want.
>
> It looks like as long as the graphics card is recognised (i.e. it
> takes the monitor out of power save mode) it will be OK. I still have
> to do more checks but my intilal thought is that my power supply may
> be struggling. I did not add any new hardware in the weeks before I
> first started see this but the PC has been upgraded and has a fair bit
> more kit to drive over the years. Specs are
>
> Chieftec power - 300W
> KT4V MoBo
> Ath 2400+
> DVD ROM
> DVD R-RW
> 2 X Hard drive
> Floppy drive
> Couple of USB dvices - none taking power - except mouse
> Modem
> Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro (requires power from PC - cant get enough
> from AGP slot).
>
> I am assuming that on boot it takes a lot of power as it checks
> devices etc - which is why I have prob at startup. I have not started
> to unplug bits to conseve power and see it it helps yet but think I am
> on the right lines?
>
> Cheers
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (More info?)

Sounds like my G6 400. If you powered down and kept it off for any length
of time it would beep 1 long 2 short which meant according to the code I
came across that the video card was screwy. As result, I keep the computer
on 24/7 now, but I've been told that it could be the power supply, the
computer battery or the video card going bad. My OS is 98SE and the card is
a NVidia 32MB FX2.

Chipperdad

"Tom Clydesdale" <t.clydesdale.nospam@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:GKqdnSYfLaOgpGzcRVn-vQ@comcast.com...
> How long has it been since you installed/replaced the computer battery?
> Perhaps you are having boot problems due to bios setup errors. Also, are
> you getting any "beep" codes during bootup?
>
> "Justin Thompson" <Justin.Thompson@removethisntlworld.com> wrote in
message
> news:fq32v0h3l1bqh2pcph64kb0sgt4h15hael@4ax.com...
> > Quick question,
> >
> > When turning on my PC it has fairly recently started to fail to boot
> > correctly.
> >
> > It starts to power up but before it gets to the BIOS display screens
> > it powers down. If I try again - it may fail again -but more often it
> > will start up fine and be fine for as long as I want.
> >
> > It looks like as long as the graphics card is recognised (i.e. it
> > takes the monitor out of power save mode) it will be OK. I still have
> > to do more checks but my intilal thought is that my power supply may
> > be struggling. I did not add any new hardware in the weeks before I
> > first started see this but the PC has been upgraded and has a fair bit
> > more kit to drive over the years.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (More info?)

Spring for a couple of bucks to buy a new C2032 battery at Wal*Mart. It won't
hurt, especially if the battery has never been changed.

When nVidia cards fail, one of two things usually happens. The interior of the
graphics chip starts to break down and develop short circuits due to excess
heat. Often, strange and wonderous artifacts appear on the monitor screen, sort
of like being on LSD so I've been told. Or the card fails and dies once and for
all never to work again... Ben Myers

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:45:22 -0500, "Chopperdad" <scotty@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>Sounds like my G6 400. If you powered down and kept it off for any length
>of time it would beep 1 long 2 short which meant according to the code I
>came across that the video card was screwy. As result, I keep the computer
>on 24/7 now, but I've been told that it could be the power supply, the
>computer battery or the video card going bad. My OS is 98SE and the card is
>a NVidia 32MB FX2.
>
>Chipperdad
>
>"Tom Clydesdale" <t.clydesdale.nospam@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:GKqdnSYfLaOgpGzcRVn-vQ@comcast.com...
>> How long has it been since you installed/replaced the computer battery?
>> Perhaps you are having boot problems due to bios setup errors. Also, are
>> you getting any "beep" codes during bootup?
>>
>> "Justin Thompson" <Justin.Thompson@removethisntlworld.com> wrote in
>message
>> news:fq32v0h3l1bqh2pcph64kb0sgt4h15hael@4ax.com...
>> > Quick question,
>> >
>> > When turning on my PC it has fairly recently started to fail to boot
>> > correctly.
>> >
>> > It starts to power up but before it gets to the BIOS display screens
>> > it powers down. If I try again - it may fail again -but more often it
>> > will start up fine and be fine for as long as I want.
>> >
>> > It looks like as long as the graphics card is recognised (i.e. it
>> > takes the monitor out of power save mode) it will be OK. I still have
>> > to do more checks but my intilal thought is that my power supply may
>> > be struggling. I did not add any new hardware in the weeks before I
>> > first started see this but the PC has been upgraded and has a fair bit
>> > more kit to drive over the years.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (More info?)

I have a similar problem on my 300W custom ath 2400 3yr old rig. It
doesn't start completely on boot up, but the fans, etc come on. A push
of the restart button then powers up the sys. Second symptom, on
restart, it shuts down but doesn't start up until a second push on the
button. It may be the PS not having enough volts to start the whole
rig. On second push, with some subsystems already running, the smaller
load then is reachable. I haven't checked this with a voltmeter yet, as
I either don't have one, or don't remember where the one I may have
currently resides (olde dusty box in the attic, glovebox of the car i
sold 5 yrs. ago)? Take the meter and connect to the red black wires of
a free PS plug in and look for 5 or 12V reading on bootup when load is
highest. Then try it on the green, black (?) other two leads (Ben, Ed
help me out here). A variance of more than 10% might be a problem. As I
said, I haven't done this yet as the problem is minor (except when
installing a new OS and you have to be there to restart manually half a
dozen times). Cheers and good luck, and keep in touch.