Question What's wrong here

[Holynight22]

Okay I have a custom built PC
Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L
Intel Xeon x5450 (stock 3ghz)
4gb PLEX HD ram
Asus Gtx750-ti oc boost (stock)
Rocket fish 500w 80plus
Aftermarket PCI mini WiFi card

I'll start my PC I can do everything from browser to watch Netflix and play CC but recently my computer just black screens fan spins up just a hair not loud or like its hot just like you started an app on a okay computer only I loose video entirely no power down on my PC no beep no loud sounds no anything except loss of video video card still has power fans still spin computer still plays music but absolutely no video and no response from pressing sleep key but restarts just fine like nothing happened

 

[AllanGH]

I'm going to hazard a guess that your "Rocket fish 500w 80plus" may be the root of your issue. These are known to be extremely low-quality power supplies. I would imagine that you're losing stability on the 12V rails, causing your loss of video output.

A new, high quality PSU certainly can't hurt the situation. I don't know what the overall power requirement of the build is, but I'd lean in the direction of a Corsair RM or HM 550W PSU; and seeing the low price differential between the 550W and 650W units, recently, if you find nearly equal pricing on them, you might just go with a 650W unit in the RM or HM category.

 

[Karadjgne]

You are looking at @ 250w-300w max draw on that pc, it is after all a 120w cpu, 75w gpu and 50-100w for the rest. Figure on regular, decently hard usage being roughly 70% of max, so about 180-220w nominal usage.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f6snWfd1v7M


Your Rocket Fish psu falls right in with any of the psus in the video, and can be said to be worse than some of them for quality of build and outputs. To call a Rocket Fish psu a Firestarter isn't a stretch of the imagination by any means. It's also not unheard of for low quality power supplies to damage components they power, so even if replacement doesn't fix the issue, I'd be looking at the gpu as being a victim.

 

[Holynight22]

The list I have is all that's in my PC and 2 WD blacks and a random segate that came with the original computer (I salvaged the case years ago)
I'll have a look for a new PSU I did notice changing my vcore or any of my other CPU overclocking options immediately gives me an over clocking boot error but I wouldn't have thought a PSU could cause is

 

[Karadjgne]

Easily. DC voltage is supposed to be a straight constant voltage, but with cheap psus that's never the case, you'll get voltages that bounce around and look more like the AC voltage they are supposed to convert. To get stability, your pc is running higher than necessary voltages on auto. If you change anything manually, you lock in a set voltage, and with that junky psu, you are getting errors. It's one of the reasons why high overclock pc's are using Gold or better rated psus, they'll normally have the circuitry to get a more stable voltage as a result of all that's necessary to get the efficiency.

For you, even a Bronze psu, such as the Seasonic S12-II/M12-II 520w or a Corsair CXM 450w will be plenty adequate. Far, far better quality and stability than what you have now.

 

[Holynight22]

Well I haven't had anything like the video but damn had I known I would have went cool master or thermalake I'll have a look at the corsair and seasonic I don't need much right now just enough to keep my PC running oc is not my thing so if you think those 2 are good enough I'll have a look

 

[Holynight22]

And when you say my voltage you talking about my 12 v and 5 v as my main lines from my PSU right? I have seen it drop below 11 but it usually sits just over 12 (12.345 roughly at most) and bounce as low as 10 I would check my 5 if I had a way but I'm just going by what bios says

 

[Unolocogringo]

Those numbers are way out of spec.
Time for a new power supply.
A quality one this time. It will save you money in the long run.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yeah, 12v rail should stay within 11.7v and 12.3v±. When you start getting funkier than that, wierd things start happening.

 

[Holynight22]

i was looking at the corsair and the seasonic out of the 2 I think I'm gonna take the corsair 550
thanks for the help I'll let you know as soon as I get it if it fixed I'm hoping its not my video card

 

[Karadjgne]

Hope so too. Seen more than a few gpus damaged by bad outputs from bad psus.

 

[Holynight22]

I have a little more info or more of a test result I tried prime 95 ran fine opened OCCT v5 and the minute I clicked run test (the little play button) the computer crashes milliseconds after I click I also get a bios single beep error

Hopefully this confirms it my PSU or is it something else?

 

[Holynight22]

Can you confirm its causing it ? Or Ami just stuck with trial and error between PSU GPU and CPU

 

[Karadjgne]

Literally trial and error. There is no definite easy answer. When something breaks, it's almost always at the weakest point, almost never the strongest. That particular psu is a known and verified extremely weak point. To what extent any damages are done, or not done is totally unknowable at this point. Your pc is broke. So fix the weak point.

It could cure everything, or nothing. If the old psu has damaged the motherboard or gpu, that damage won't disappear, it'll still be there, even with a good psu. If there even is any downstream damages. You might be lucky and there be none and be back gaming as usual 10 minutes later.

 

[Holynight22]

Well till then I'll keep it off I thought I herd a bit of whine on start up but couldn't confirm it a second time and nobody else seemed to hear it so I'm unsure I'm looking at the corsair as its more readly available