Power Supply Auto Power Down??

For those who may or may not remember... or just don't care :p... The PSU in my mother's computer died out and I had to replace it, that was a while ago. Well the replacement has a switch to turn it on/off on the back of it, well today my mom told me there's something wrong with the computer, it won't even turn on, nothing on the monitor, no lights, no sounds...

So i'm just about to replace the PSU when a crazy thought comes to mind, since we leave the computer on 24/7 maybe the PSU got to hot and when that happens it will automatically shut itself off or something... So I switch the Power switch on the PSU to off and then turn it on again and it worked... So am I correct? Do some PSU's have this feature?? Or did my computer for whatever reason all of a sudden required to much power for the PSU to handle? I doubt that though because it's a good 400 watt PSU.

So then what exactly happened, because to tell you the truth I don't know a whole lot about the inside of the PSU since the safest thing to do when there's a problem is to just replace it...

The Duck I will be selfish here.................please DO NOT attempt to repair a PSU............I would miss your company here :zap:

Yes, a good PSU would normally have a thermal check that would cut out if it got too hot.............

Is it unobstructed? is the fan working?

Personally, I don't leave stuff 24/7 as it costs money and is a fire hazard ;)

Yes the fan is working, and it's an HP so everything is jammed in tight so I can't imagine there's much air flow... I think it just got to hot, because my mom turned on the heat for the first time this year, heat is expensive now :p...

Duck, do you know anything about static pressure, backpressure or air exchange principles in general? It's pretty intresting.

Name brand PSU architects, design the PSU without any concern for good cooling. On top of that they have caps physically downsized, this is for the lack of room in the circuitry. Maybe you have some swollen caps. Do you know what one will look like? On top of this, it's HP generic crap components they push off on people. It should be illegal. Also, PSUs that I know of don't have emergency temp cut-off circuitry. They do have emergency temp fan regulators on them that regulate the fan speed. I'll have to look into that. A cool case (PC) will have a somewhat quite fan noise, a hot case will have a loud PSU. Post the specs name etc..ect....


The PSU can get very complex.....I think this is a cooling issue inside the PSU and the whole PC case for that matter. I got the rare Yate Loon fan running in mine....it's high-pressure is sought out. They come inside Fortrons.

It will also be a good idea to blow out the psu with dry!!compressed air..The dust inside the psu can cause it to overheat over a period of time..I have found that since i have been blowing them out they last longer as well..Once a month or so..Just look at television sets for an example..They tend to loose their colours and might sometimes blow the supply line,s fuse if not cleaned after a while..I know all of us do not have compressors and all of that but i am sure someone around you will be able to help..I use to take mine either to work or to the petrol station to use their air...

Hmm very interesting indeed, maby your mother while attempting to switch the computer on or off might of hit that on/off switch on the back of the box.
My compaq running Phlak has this type of switch on the back, and i know when i leave the casing on it overheats quickly. and once it's reached it's designated temp that it can handle it will simply switch of without any type of warning.
And you can try and try to boot it back up but it won't until it's cooled to the prefered temp.

Maybe because you have left it on 24/7 maybe it's gone a little faulty, so maybe you might need to loosen the wallet and go purchase a new or second hand one.

just a thought.

Oh and compressed air is fun to play with, and it has many many useful purposes ;)

front2back:.

Hi, The Duck

You might take a look in the BIOS to see if there are any operating temperature settings? I was thinking it might be a sensor elsewhere in the box that turned it off?

I am not sure about today's PSUs but I seem to recall that in the past some had a "Schmitt trigger" in them?......................I am talking quite some time ago :eek:

If there is enough space you might try fitting an exhaust fan?

:)

Thank you all for the replies, I am at school right now, when I get home I will post specs... Thanks again :)

Sorry about the late response, I have been extremely busy lately, which explains my recent low quality, one sentence posts these last couple of days :p...

Well, for those who were interested, this is the PSU and the specs that I am using...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...543965&CatId=0

It's not an HP PSU, there used to be one in the HP computer but it died and I replaced it with this one... This is also the one in my gaming box.

I doubt it is something to do in the bios... it seems as if something was actually going on inside the PSU to make it shut down, because it only started working again once I switched the PSU to off and then back on... but I'll check anyway when I go back, just to be sure.

Duck, those coolmax's are OEM ATNG's. They aren't the worst, they aren't best. At least the UL file # shows them to be ATNG's. They are average quality, which is why they are priced like they are. It looks to me that's a dual +12v @ 12A-13A. On really good single rails it's 35A on the +12v. Again we're talking about component quality here. I'd bet money that heat is messing with your 12 here. On seasonic's for example, they rate theirs at 40ºc. Yours is more like 15ºc. Even at normal operating temps they won't do much amperage. The problems is compounded by hot ambient. I believe this is your problem. How much stuff you running?

Get some wire management in there if you can and make sure that PSU fan is moving? What's Everest saying? Post a list of your hardware, not brands just what type you're running.