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Processor Problem
I'm building a computer from scratch for my mother-in-law and i've never run into this problem before.
I have a D865PERC mboard and 3.0E GHz processor. I bought a case from antec that came with a 350watt powersupply. After i connected everything, nothing turned on except the fans. I checked the RAM and verified my mboard supported 1MB L2 Cache.
I then swapped out CPU's and replaced it with my old 2.4GHz cpu. Everything worked perfectly. Using the 2.4ghz cpu, i updated the bios drivers to the most current one for the mboard then swapped out the CPU again. Still nothing, no power to my keyboard/monitor. I hear no activity in my hdd.
Could the problem be with the powersupply? Not sure if a 350watt P/S can handle 2 fans and a 3.0GHz processor. Any ideas?
Thanks
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Hmm... Definitly try swapping out PSU's... 350 watt is probably BARELY pumping the 2.4, especially if it is just generic brand. NEVER use generic brand PSU's unless absoulutly necessary, their PEAK power is 350 watts, and it almost never reaches that, it averages closer to 250.
Have you thought about possiblity of dead proc? Try swapping the 3ghz into another computer and see if it works there, if not, it's a pretty good bet that's the problem.
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I would have swapped psu's with my 550 but i was too lazy, gotta get up early tomorrow. Thanks for your help!
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Hey Hey,
What does everyone have an obsession with more power.... I'm constantly being reminded of Home Improvement? I bet if you monitored your actual power consumption you'd never come close to utilizing the complete 350W. Before you say I'm full of ****.. I've already been told that... To prove it's true my roommate and I ran a complete system on a 145W mini-atx power supply. We still had more than enough power for everything to function. Now granted their are systems with higher power needs, but they'll never exceed 350W... at least not currently.
I'd be inclined to go with a processor problem..... It's either a dead processor.. or it's because Intel (Sorry... had to throw that in... I always try to push AMD)...
Peace
HT
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Intel's are powerhogs, HT, I bet his system was AMD... ;)
My friend owns the local computer shop and he wanted to see what would work with cheapy PSU's and he couldnt' get his 2.6 system to boot with a generic 250, and it ran unstable with the generic 300. Needless to say, he never puts those in anything above a celeron that is going to be sold. He tried an Antec 300, and it ran perfectly fine.
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Quote:
Originally posted here by The Grunt
Intel's are powerhogs, HT, I bet his system was AMD... ;)
My friend owns the local computer shop and he wanted to see what would work with cheapy PSU's and he couldnt' get his 2.6 system to boot with a generic 250, and it ran unstable with the generic 300. Needless to say, he never puts those in anything above a celeron that is going to be sold. He tried an Antec 300, and it ran perfectly fine.
Hey Hey,
I'll accept that... other than my laptop every PC in here is an AMD... so I can't exactly test it...
Since this is already related (kinda).... since hardware is my weak area... is there software to measure the power consumption of your PC? without making a modified power cable to do it... Is there software that can read the power usage off the ATX PS or where it connets to the Mobo and monitor and record it? This will let my hardware retardism show :)
Anyways,
Peac
HT
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A 350W power supply is MORE than enough for most systems. Study the relationship between Volts, Watts and Amperes, and you'll know why. If your box needs 450W, it's time to start taking out some of your fancy ****...
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Hmm... I have never came across one... http://mbm.livewiredev.com/download.html MBM might have some feature that does it, but you'll have to know everything about your motherboard for it to read correctly. Other than that, good luck, have fun googling, and PLEASE post it once you find it :D. I have only ever used the actual thing you plug into your hard drive. My friend has one down at the shop, they are pretty cool. Just plug in any cable and it tells you how much power and fluctuations there are. With PSU's, it's usually not the voltage being a problem, it's the fluctuation of the rails that causes things to go wrong in cheap ones.
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Quote:
Originally posted here by Negative
A 350W power supply is MORE than enough for most systems. Study the relationship between Volts, Watts and Amperes, and you'll know why. If your box needs 450W, it's time to start taking out some of your fancy ****...
Or buy a better power supply. :D
As a note, a Dual NV 6800U in SLI on a PCI-Express board alone would easily push 150W (just the video cards under peak load).
At any rate, I'd check the processor in another board before assuming it's dead. So you're aware, the no beep codes during POST indicate the problem is definitely processor related, as that, a motherboard fault (already been ruled out), or a nonfunctioning power supply are the only things that will prevent a system from booting. A system that is underpowered will still generally POST, but might exhibit symptoms such as rebooting when drives are powered up and under load.
You could also consider picking up a PCI Diagnostic Card which are always handy to have if you are servicing hardware, and can report on these kinds of errors and give you more detail about what's wrong.
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Thansk for all your help. I'm still going to swap out PSU's just to scratch a potential problem off the list, but you're definatly right, it could be the processor itself. There are no POST beeps, only a green LED which is the same LED that lights up with the 2.4GHz cpu.
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It's not only the power in watts that counts, but more the quality, read stability on the various 12v and 5v leads. Antec has very good reputation and I bet an Antec 350w can easily outperform generic 350w powersupplies.
About the power question, with todays high performance graphic cards a good powersupply is essiantial, those 6800's and X800's are real hungry. For other purposes everything around 350 or 380w is more than enough.
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Your issue could be a Power Supply issue, or a processor issue. I don't know how a motherboard boots without a CPU, or what error codes come up. Find a known-good and powerful powersupply and see if it boots. Hopefully it will solve your problem.
Antec is a good brand, but they also have their own generic powersupplies. You are safe if you buy a TruePower or NeoPower, but anything else is just as bad as the generic powersupplies from other companies. Usually the cheap 450watt PSU's all operate with marketing numbers. It will never reach that power output because of how they calculated it. Generally, they keep the PSU at well refergirated temperatures to increase effeciency and power output, and they test rails one at a time until the powersupply blows up. They add the blowing point for each rail up to get their final number. There is no way it has any more power for the other rails when the powersupply decides to crap itself, so the number is all marketing (who has a PSU at 32 degree F?). Generally, running a PSU near its rated output reduces effeciency and causes its insides to get hot and more ineffecient and instable. So a safety space is needed.
If you want to see a factor in China where most PSU's are built - check this link out - http://66.58.10.5/images/psufactory/psu_factory.html
Of course, not everyone really needs a whole truck load of power, and many times the cheap powersupply will make a Celeron system happy. But I wouldn't trust it to my overclocked Dual CPU machine. My power-requirements pretty much begin at 300watts when my computer sits idle (which is rarely does). When it is Folding@Home and playing games, the requirements go insane. My (parent's) electric bills reflect this. At LAN parties, the 20amp circuits start blowing once I boot up. My monitor takes probably 1.5amps from a 120volt circuit (~180watts), and my computer takes about 3.5 amps (~400watts). Which is why I have a Vantec Stealth 520watt PSU, which is a heavy and fairly expensive beast. (I wish I could afford PC Power and Cooling though...)
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Or maybe your mobo supports 1mb cache but maybe 3.0 gigs processor is to much for it, see if your mobo can support that speed...
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Sorry for the 22yr delay, it was the processor, not the PSU. Hope this helps somebody in the future.