PSU going down?

[Cvrk]

Wha' up all you techlicious out there. This is ya boy Cvrk having some problems with the pc over here.
I think my psu is falling apart. I get sudden and often restarts. At first I thought it's because of viruses. After every sudden restart I did a full scan and I found some tojans in system volume. But now a days my pc is clane and that must have been like just a coincidence, cuz I still get the restarts out of the blue.
The really strange part is that I NEVEr get restarts when I'm gaming. The way I see it, a 3D environment graphics game is the most demanding application for a PC. If I can run for hours Crysis 2 at maximum without any problems, it sould be fine in all other non gaming aplications. But It's not .... I get sudden restarts most of the time when I'm browsing the web like 95% of the times reatrts ever happen and sometimes whne I'm doing some other aplciations. I also noticed It happens when I'm multitasking alot and my uTorrent is downloading at speeds over 3mb/s .....just keep in mind these are just some examples that I can give you guys so you can realise what I'm talking about.
Again, I find it very strange that I never get restarts doring games.
Here is my PC specs:
Motherboard ASRock M3N78D
CPU AMD Phenom II X4 840 Processor
4gb ram dd3 kingston
Seagate Barracuda 1 Tb 7200 RPM
Sapphire HD 5670 1GB
Creative Audigy 2
Tv Tunner Leadtech
dvd-rw pioneer
and my PSU is a.... Casecom 450W. But I think it's not the real deal, cuz the windows doesn't recognise it. On the Control Panel/ Power Options/ UPs / Manufacturer: (None)

So there it is . Do I need another PSU, if so...what kind do you recomand and what power? I was thinking to get a Corsair Gaming Series GS600W.
Also a quick question...If I get a more powerrfull PSU does that mean my computer will eat up more energy? Example: If I have a 600W or a 800W PSU and listen to music and work on a text editor in all this time will I get the same energy consumption,regardless of what psu I use.

[Jonap_1st]

Originally Posted by Cvrk

Wha' up all you techlicious out there. This is ya boy Cvrk having some problems with the pc over here.
I think my psu is falling apart. I get sudden and often restarts. At first I thought it's because of viruses. After every sudden restart I did a full scan and I found some tojans in system volume. But now a days my pc is clane and that must have been like just a coincidence, cuz I still get the restarts out of the blue.
The really strange part is that I NEVEr get restarts when I'm gaming. The way I see it, a 3D environment graphics game is the most demanding application for a PC. If I can run for hours Crysis 2 at maximum without any problems, it sould be fine in all other non gaming aplications. But It's not .... I get sudden restarts most of the time when I'm browsing the web like 95% of the times reatrts ever happen and sometimes whne I'm doing some other aplciations. I also noticed It happens when I'm multitasking alot and my uTorrent is downloading at speeds over 3mb/s .....just keep in mind these are just some examples that I can give you guys so you can realise what I'm talking about.
Again, I find it very strange that I never get restarts doring games.
Here is my PC specs:
Motherboard ASRock M3N78D
CPU AMD Phenom II X4 840 Processor
4gb ram dd3 kingston
Seagate Barracuda 1 Tb 7200 RPM
Sapphire HD 5670 1GB
Creative Audigy 2
Tv Tunner Leadtech
dvd-rw pioneer
and my PSU is a.... Casecom 450W. But I think it's not the real deal, cuz the windows doesn't recognise it. On the Control Panel/ Power Options/ UPs / Manufacturer: (None)

So there it is . Do I need another PSU, if so...what kind do you recomand and what power? I was thinking to get a Corsair Gaming Series GS600W.
Also a quick question...If I get a more powerrfull PSU does that mean my computer will eat up more energy? Example: If I have a 600W or a 800W PSU and listen to music and work on a text editor in all this time will I get the same energy consumption,regardless of what psu I use.

do windows recognize psu?? don't even think psu its not real deal, it's heart of your computer. if your heart have a problems, then all parts of your body will down one by one.

and it doesn't always mean if you have 800W psu it will suck 800w from your socket. it will depend how much load your psu will take, on daily basis like listening to music and writing a document, it will only take power not much than 200w depends on how much hardware on your rigs..

[theorw]

Originally Posted by Cvrk

The really strange part is that I NEVEr get restarts when I'm gaming. The way I see it, a 3D environment graphics game is the most demanding application for a PC. If I can run for hours Crysis 2 at maximum without any problems, it sould be fine in all other non gaming aplications. But It's not .... I get sudden restarts most of the time when I'm browsing the web like 95% of the times reatrts ever happen and sometimes whne I'm doing some other aplciations. I also noticed It happens when I'm multitasking alot and my uTorrent is downloading at speeds over 3mb/s .....just keep in mind these are just some examples that I can give you guys so you can realise what I'm talking about.
Again, I find it very strange that I never get restarts doring games.

I think your problem is network related.I dont have much experience on programming etc but i can confirm that if you tress the PSU so hard like gaming for long time and you have no problems but you have in almost no load in surfing and d/l ing then its prolly software related.Or even your network card might be malfunctioning.Try updating all the drivers in your system
I dont know if it fixes it but as an electrology engineer (student) if the PSU is stable at heavy games then failing at surfing would be really hard to believe

[Side Effect]

It could be flash player related? A friend of mine upgraded to flash player 10 on XP and his PC constantly crashed on youtube and sites alike.

Try downgrading to flash 9 and see if it helps. My 2 cents

All the best with your problem.

[Cvrk]

Sife Effect....yeah I will try downgrading my flash player.
And yes it never crashes on full load gaming.
Man It's a bummer. I wil see whant happends next. will keep in touch.

[Cvrk]

Nope I downgraded my flash player.Same thing. I still get restarts. And I am almoust 99% sure that my PSU is fine, from what this guy told me.
"The problem sounds like its related to the HDD, overheating, or virus/malware.

5670= like 60W at 100% load
your processor has a 95W TDP, (meaning 100% = 95W)
hdd are like 10W
optical drive while in use are like 30W
fans are like 3-5W each
ram are like 2W/stick
motherboard is like 30W

So at 100% system load while using your dvd drive, you system will pull probably around 250-300W. So your PSU is fine.
PSU hit peak efficiency when at 40-60% load. (275W is 61% of a 450W psu) so you are about right on with PSU wattage for your system. So you will get the least amount of power wasted in that 40-60% area, meaning less on your electric bill.
Going way over on wattage isnt too good, not only are you wasting money on the actual PSU, it will make your PSu at like 10-20% load constantly, which wont be peak power efficiency."

I just formated my hole hard drive, reinstaled windows, new drivers etc. I still get restarts when I am downloading at high speeds, more then 3mb/s .
I will try if maybe the uTorrent I am using maybe the problem. I will get a old version.
Alsow,at the speed of 5mb/s download my HDD temperature is about 38 degrees celsius. And I dont think that it's too much.
Anybody have more ideas?

[Thrackan]

Originally Posted by Cvrk

But I think it's not the real deal, cuz the windows doesn't recognise it. On the Control Panel/ Power Options/ UPs / Manufacturer: (None)

Just to clarify: that Control Panel option is for a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), which is something different than a PSU (Power Supply Unit).

See Wikipedia for an explanation.

EDIT: also, after reading your last post, I would suggest to scan your hard disks for bad sectors. Something like HDTune might be able to help you out there.

[bokou]

that and if you're getting the "windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown" thing - go into your Windows Event Viewer and see what the last problem that came up before it shut down was.

[Cvrk]

I did a scan with HDTune, it found no bad sectors.
There is no message after sudden restart. And I check'd the logs and there was nothing bad there.
Pls don't close this thread. I will come back with more news.

[Joe Public]

It looks like a very cheap PSU, and from what I can tell from the pictures I found, it's not very capable with only 14A (168W) on the 12V rail. That actually makes it not a 450W, but more like a 200W PSU. Since there are no laws or rules for how a manufacturer can rate their PSU, they can pretty much take a bad PSU and put whatever wattage they like on it. I've seen "1000W" PSUs that blow up even before they reach 500W.

[lilhasselhoffer]

I second the low grade PSU.

I would guess that the PSU is actually incapable of powering your computer whenever the power demand spikes. Here is the logic:

Disk drives park and spin down whenever they are not being used. Basically, the system putting components to sleep saves power. Whenever they need to be woken up they take more power than when they are operational. You may only draw 300W when running everything, but waking everything up may well spike the system to 350 or even 400 watts (under non-ideal conditions). The power supply you specify is just this side of absolute crap. MTBF of 10,000 hours (2 years if you ran it 20 hrs/day for 250/365 days a year) is treading water on the very cheap end of things, even given the rated wattage.

Browsing is not process intensive, and so the system will start saving power. Your system will then crash whenever resources need to be woken up. This means games will run fine because they do not let anything sleep. Browsing and word processing will eventually crash the system because any spike in resource demand will overload the PSU.


In order to test this theory disable the paging file on your computer. Run the browser as you normally would, without saving anything to the hard drive. It should operate without issues (no paging file-> minimal HDD writes and reads, assuming not a lot of temporary files are being created). Once the paging file is re-enabled the instability should return. Alternatively, measure the actual voltage going to your HDD or fans. The power supply should produce a rather substantial flux (not constant 12 volt).

As others have stated, a substandard PSU is a foolish expense. If you spend more on a decent hard drive than your PSU (barring SSD) your priorities are really in the wrong place. Given the prices I found on the PSU (sub $30 in some places), you're really not purchasing a PSU that is reasonable. An investment of approximately $50 would likely purchase a name brand (Corsair being the one that comes to mind, though there are others) PSU that you can be assured will actually deliver the rated power.

[Fourstaff]

Shitty power supply does not explain the symptoms though, because the computer should crap out during gaming. Take a look at everything inside and make sure everything is fine?

That said though, when my old psu was about to crap out, it took out the network cards first, and then died after that. Luckily it didnt kill everything else.

[OneMoar]

wtf is a casecom ??
I would start with the psu test it with a mulit meter or in a known stable system

[OneMoar]

Originally Posted by lilhasselhoffer

I second the low grade PSU.

I would guess that the PSU is actually incapable of powering your computer whenever the power demand spikes. Here is the logic:

Disk drives park and spin down whenever they are not being used. Basically, the system putting components to sleep saves power. Whenever they need to be woken up they take more power than when they are operational. You may only draw 300W when running everything, but waking everything up may well spike the system to 350 or even 400 watts (under non-ideal conditions). The power supply you specify is just this side of absolute crap. MTBF of 10,000 hours (2 years if you ran it 20 hrs/day for 250/365 days a year) is treading water on the very cheap end of things, even given the rated wattage.

Browsing is not process intensive, and so the system will start saving power. Your system will then crash whenever resources need to be woken up. This means games will run fine because they do not let anything sleep. Browsing and word processing will eventually crash the system because any spike in resource demand will overload the PSU.


In order to test this theory disable the paging file on your computer. Run the browser as you normally would, without saving anything to the hard drive. It should operate without issues (no paging file-> minimal HDD writes and reads, assuming not a lot of temporary files are being created). Once the paging file is re-enabled the instability should return. Alternatively, measure the actual voltage going to your HDD or fans. The power supply should produce a rather substantial flux (not constant 12 volt).

As others have stated, a substandard PSU is a foolish expense. If you spend more on a decent hard drive than your PSU (barring SSD) your priorities are really in the wrong place. Given the prices I found on the PSU (sub $30 in some places), you're really not purchasing a PSU that is reasonable. An investment of approximately $50 would likely purchase a name brand (Corsair being the one that comes to mind, though there are others) PSU that you can be assured will actually deliver the rated power.

lolno

[OneMoar]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

Shitty power supply does not explain the symptoms though, because the computer should crap out during gaming. Take a look at everything inside and make sure everything is fine?

That said though, when my old psu was about to crap out, it took out the network cards first, and then died after that. Luckily it didnt kill everything else.

O_o
yes it does

[Fourstaff]

Originally Posted by OneMoar

yes it does

And your reason is?

[OneMoar]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

And your reason is?

Because it doesn't matter if its under-load

[lilhasselhoffer]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

Shitty power supply does not explain the symptoms though, because the computer should crap out during gaming. Take a look at everything inside and make sure everything is fine?

That said though, when my old psu was about to crap out, it took out the network cards first, and then died after that. Luckily it didnt kill everything else.

Perhaps you are seeing something I am missing? As I view it, the problem is hard accessing of the hard drive and networking resources. Both power spike during intensive usage, and would cause failure if the overcurrent protection (generally a thermocouple on cheap PSUs) kicked in.

Gaming would not utilize insane amounts of power, given the components cited would draw a continuous power level. I view this as a question of peak power draw (highest when waking components and using parts that spike in power while active) versus average power draw. Gaming draws more power on average, but will not pull an extremely high peak. The failure situation, as described, seems to be a failure when peak power is drawn. Given that the HDD and OS have checked out, the next cheapest component to verify is the PSU.

Barring voltage testing, the fastest way to test the thing (assuming no testing equipment) is with a good PSU. It may not me ethical, but getting a PSU to test the system is easy; walk into a technology store with a decent return policy, purchase a respectable 450W PSU, test out the system, if it solves the problem return it and get something in your price range, if the problem isn't solved return the PSU and tell them it caused system instability (you're going to try a higher wattage PSU). Again, ethics here are murky at best. Given you'll pay a premium at a brick-and-mortar store, the ethics seem somewhat less complex to me...

That said, there is little else that can be done to the system if it isn't the PSU. I would presume that the memory has been tested, the BIOS is up to date, and all drivers are current. If that were not the case any tech worth a damn would start checking there (I hope I'm not proven wrong...).


My insight is not perfect, so if I'm missing something please tell me. I'm going with what I've observed personally on cheap PSUs. Partial failure like this is a sign that the overload may soon trip permanantly (cheap PSUs tend to degrade quickly once any problems arise). While it doesn't slag the system, it is an annoyance that can be avoided.

[Fourstaff]

Originally Posted by OneMoar

Because it doesn't matter if its under-load

Random shutdowns only occur when there is underloading, not when fully loaded, if we discount the underloaded, then the PSU is fine

Edit: lilhasselhoffer, I think you might be right about the peak draw problem.

[OneMoar]

I don't trust non-name brand psu's as far as I can throw them
and given how much the cheapons weight I could probly throw that one a good 40ft

[Fourstaff]

Originally Posted by OneMoar

I don't trust non-name brand psu's as far as I can throw them
and given how much the cheapons weight I could probly throw that one a good 40ft

Still does not explain your position. A car able to do 60mph should be able to do 30mph. If you have the same idea as lilhasselhoffer, then I wouldn't bug you anymore

[lilhasselhoffer]

OK, I'm part of a crowd arguing something I am only conjecturing at.

Rather than become a troll, I will seceed any claims to knowing anything worthwhile about your system. It's not like anyone versed in simple mechanical engineering (yes, I am) could tell you an HDD is a motor, which takes little power to keep spinning when it reaches running velocity. They couldn't tell you that speeding up an electric motor requires several times the amperage required during operation. None of this would make any sense...

I will not apologize for that bit of snarkiness. It is simple fact.

I submit to the fact that the system is under load in both cases. I even agree that the "under-loaded" situation has less average draw. Utorrent must continuously access the HDD to keep it awake...assuming your torrenting program works completely different from the majority of them out there. Otherwise it will only write to the HDD when new pieces are available.

Browsing the internet is extremely data intensive. I mean, it's not like a cellular phone that barely competes with my calculator's power can access the web. The phones that currently access the web require at least 800 GB of storage attached and six phones to be linked to get a 1200 Baud rate.

Wow, I'm dating myself with the baud rate. Really a joke for the people who started on old token ring networks.


Yes, I admit that I can't see the problems with my own two eyes. I may be barking up the wrong tree. What I submit to you is Occam's razor. The simplest explaination is usually the correct one. Failing system during power requirement spikes, but stability during sustained high draw, is indicative of a low ceiling. Cheap power supplies generally do exactly that, assuming windows hasn't decided to jump the shark. There are other, more complex, answers that could solve the problem. This may be the time that Occam gives in. I would not bet on it if it was my rig, given that a $30 PSU can cost $400 in fried components if it decides to power spike your system before dying.




Edit: Sorry, I have entered trolling. My apologies if I have offended anyone. I will not post anything else in this thread unless specifically asked. Again, my apologies for letting my idiot side rule over reason.

[Fourstaff]

lilhasselhoffer, no one is arguing against you

There is something called "transient test" or something like that which describes what you are explaining, and based on TPU's charts and crmaris's reviews, even supposedly high end models fail at the test, so I think you are barking up the right tree.

[OneMoar]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

Still does not explain your position. A car able to do 60mph should be able to do 30mph. If you have the same idea as lilhasselhoffer, then I wouldn't bug you anymore

bad analogy
a engine might have low oil pressure at lower rpm
a transmission might have a problem with first or second gear
the car might have a vibration at highway speed but be ok at non highway speed

[OneMoar]

back on topic anyway can you post a screenshot of HWmontior or speed fan showing the voltage's its reporting