Windows 7 killed my power supply?

[jbrad]

Okay, I've had this problem twice now. Windows 7 by default automatically sleeps, which is okay, or so I thought.

The first occurrence was when I went to Indiana. I came back to find a computer with a flashing PWR LED. Well, the power led flashes when it goes to sleep, so I thought I'd wake it up and play some TF2. To my surprise, it turns on for a few seconds then turns off. I managed to get it to stay on, but receiving no signal from my video card using DVI, I didn't have the adapters to try other ports.

So, I started unplugging peripherals one by one to see which was causing the problem, it was none of them. Unplugging adapter cards one by one also resulted in no change. I removed my CMOS battery hoping maybe it was the BIOS to no avail. So all that was left was the power supply. I put a tester to it; turns out, its dead. So I thought, no biggie; I'm working now, I'll just buy another. So I went halvsies with my dad (i'm a struggling college student) and bought another bigger 1000W power supply. Great! It worked again! I booted into windows just fine. Well, that was with Windows 7 RC1.

By the time I get my computer re-situated, RTM had been released. Installing was smooth, and everything worked great. Installed all the programs I needed, Firefox, AntiVir, Steam, Foobar2000; you know, the good stuff. Well, about 3 or 4 weeks later, the sleep mode bandit robbed me of my computer. It no longer powers on and suffers from the same symptoms.

I don't have the money anymore to purchase another power supply. It doesn't boot whatsoever. Almost like it's bricked. Everything I've tried does not work. I seem to be the only one with this problem. I've even considered the possibility of a short.

Can anyone provide a workaround? Anything please; I'm desperate.

Computer Specs:

Koolance PC2 Watercooled case (I think this is somehow relevant)
Intel Core2Duo 2.66ghz
2GB Patriot PC6400 DDR2
160gb Western Digital Hard Drive
2x 7950GX2 1GB (with SLI Bridge)
24" Viewsonic 2433vm LCD Monitor

 

[jbrad]

My powersupply is a Coolmax model 1000B, not sure if thats a crap brand or not.

I never thought about the standoff. Doesn't explain why it's only happened with windows 7 during it's sleep mode, though.

Edit: Older power supply was an OKIA 650W, I've heard it was a crap brand. I didn't buy into it until I switched to Windows 7.

 

[cjl]

Yeah, that's pretty much crap.

Considering your specs, I'd go with something like a Corsair TX650. It's a good PSU, and would last a long time.

 

[rambo117]

^1+ cjl

go with that 650 corsair, its a beast. 50A on the 12v rail or look at antec, i love my earthwatts 500
not coolmax *blahh*

 

[Shadow703793]

^+1. Get a better PSU, while you'r at it hope that your Koolance dosen't start to leak (Koolance = low/midrange WCing stuff).

+1 for 650TX

 

[jbrad]

Okay, thats fair enough. So most of you are saying it died because they're unreliable? So it wasn't a short both times? I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary underneath my motherboard; nothing that would short it out. Corsair, here I come (after saving a *** ton of money because I'm poor.)

 

[cjl]

Honestly, I doubt it was a short. The main reason that I think it wasn't is simply because it didn't immediately die. The timing is most likely coincidental. If it did die due to a short, the Corsair will still be fine - it has overload protection, and will simply shut down if you try to overload it because of a short or something similar. It also has an excellent warranty.