power problem???

[Guest]

I have troubles when I would like to turn on my computer. When I press the ON button I can hear that fan on CPU started and red light on case (hard disc) is on, but computer doesn't start. I have to press reset button and then computer start working. Is it possible that I don't have enough power? I bought computer 2 years ago and I think that inside is 230 V. How can I check?
I have Abit VT6X4 motherboard with Pentium III 733 on slot 1, two hard discs, CD-ROM, CD-RW, graphic card ATI. When computer is working I don't have any problems. My problems are only when I starts it.
Do you have any idea what’s wrong.

Regards
MATT

 

[Guest]

I have had power problems of a different kind and I looked here and there for answers. According to some of the pages I visited, your problem might be with your power supply not giving enough wattage to feed all your components. Especially at startup, when your hard drive spins up and other components initialize, there is a larger than usual load on the power supply, and this is the situation where weaker ones give in.
Apparently a lot of people have the exact same problem you described. When you press your power on button, the hard drive spins up, and at the same time your video card tries to start itself. However, because you have a weak power supply, the hard drive basically sucks away too much power (remember, this is only at the initial spin-up), not leaving enough for the video card to function properly. When you press the reset button, your hard drive is already spinning at its operational speed, requiring less power, which allows the video card to post properly this time. Sounds like you are in for a PSU replacement.
Remember, I am not a pro, the explanation I provided is what I can remember from the articles of other people I read. However, it seems pretty certain that your PSU in not enough for your machine. By the way, didn't you mean 230 W(watts)?

All the best!!

Scott me up, Beamie!!!
(old one, but hey, it's still funny)

 

[FatBurger]

That could be, but the first solution I'd check is to make sure the wires are plugged into the motherboard right. Did you build it yourself, and if not, where did you get it from?
Basically, if your power/reset buttons are plugged into the wrong pins on the motherboard, it'll cause some problems. I'm not sure exactly what you'd have to do to cause a problem like you're describing, but that's the only thing I can thin of.

Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[HandOfDragon]

Sound to me like the PSU problem. I got a similar problem myself when I build my new system but using the old PSU. I didn't find any problem in the beginning (My old comp is IBM Aptiva, micro-ATX with 145W PSU + AMD K6-2 475MHz). I change the MoBo and CPU to MK33 and AMD T-1.2GHz with new graphic card (ATI Radeon 64 DDR VIVO). I can use the comp without any problems. Then I start to notice that I cannot start up my comp if I disconnect the power cord (for o/c and change components). I need to wait a little bit before I can actually boot up my comp (push the swicth on the back of the comp to start it up).

Anyway, the problem gone when I change the PSU to 250W. But the system run rock-solid even with 145W PSU and, well, I rarely disconnect my power cord anyway when I get the config I want. Up to you, but I suggest get a good PSU with at least 250W PSU (if your MoBo is ATX, 300W should be easy enough to get you hand on at low cost) and your problem should be fixed (micro-ATX PSU is a bit difficult to find at high Wattage =)

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your mail. I thought that power is the problem. The strange is that sometimes when I press the ON button nothing happened. I had to pull computer from electricity completely. When I connect electricity back to computer the power button will work again and to start computer I have to press reset button. I’m not sure but I have 200 V PSU. Probably I will buy new one. Which do you suggest?
Best regards
MATT

 

[Guest]

I think I'm having a similar problem, I just got my new drives and RAID controler. When I put in the raid controler the system will not show the post screen, I can hear the clicking as it normally counts up the ram. I'm assuming my video card is underpowered.

On a 160Watt PS I'm running 1 SCSI drive 2 ATA/100 drives, 2 DVDs, 1 CD-rom, an athlon 1.2GHZ and it's fan, another fan on the southbridge chip, 2 contoller cards (one scsi, one IDE RAID), ATI Radeon 32mb DDR, modem, ethernet card, DVD decoder card.

If I pull out the RAID card the system runs (thus disabling the ATA drives), but pulling the scsi card doesn't seem to help.

Oh well, a 300watt A1 electronics PS sells from newegg for 25 bucks. I'll see if that fixes the problem.