Hard Drives not powering on

[fritzroy15]

Hi!

I just bought a new video card, the ati hd3450, and it requires additional power to run. My old card didn't. After I connected the video card, I pressed the power button, the first screen pop-ed up displaying info about the mainboard and cpu, but the hdds didn't boot, it just freezes at that. After i push the reset button a couple of times they finally boot...

Now I have a 380W real power psu, and would like not to spend additional money on this system since it's outdated and I'll probably change it all in a year or two, and a 550W power source is quite expensive here.

My questions is, are there any damages that this can cause over time, in a year or two to any components? [I will probably want to pass the computer along to my syster once I'm done with it]

PS: tried connecting a separate power cable from the psu to the mainboard, to leave the hdds on the same band not connected to the vga card, didn't work, system still freezes at start-up.

Thanks,
Paul.

 

[rev_olie]

Does the system still boot ok with your old video card installed?
Eg set it up how it was a boot up.

You say hard driveS. How many do you have?

Some other specs would be good to if possible eg the make of the graphics card etc because i'm doubting the overall power consumption related to your current PSU

 

[fritzroy15]

Hi!

Yes, I have two 40gb hard drives, and I tested with only one of them to see if it works, but it doesn't.... so you might be right it might not be the psu.

Specs:

400W psu, it says 380W maximum on it so not sure
shuttle ak39 motherboard(via chipset)
semrpon 2200+ processor, 1.5 real clock
2gb ram
2 hard drives
ati radeon 3450 on agp 8x

that's about all.....one other interesting thing, if I turn off power from my outlet, and turn it back on, the hard drives boot fine from the first run-around it seems, have any ideas?

Paul.

 

[rev_olie]

that's about all.....one other interesting thing, if I turn off power from my outlet, and turn it back on, the hard drives boot fine from the first run-around it seems, have any ideas?

Now that suggest it could well be the PSU. Turning off at the outlet is pretty much a cold boot which could suggest something.

If you were to go back to your old graphics card and boot up what happens??.

Also make sure your boot order is correct with the Master loading first also checking the jumpers on the hard drive that one is master the other slave.

Other than that all i can suggest would be a repair install of windows. Could have been a problem installing drivers... which is another question did the driver install go smoothly? no errors?

Here's how to do a repair install
Follow them EXACTLY. don't skip.
However if you can a total reformat and install would make life easier and would give your PC a fresh feel.

 

[fritzroy15]

Well here's what I tested out:

it seems that if I don't press the power button right after turning it off, like wait 1-2 minutes, when I start it up it boots up normally. Otherwise I get a very erratic behavior, numbers start appearing on the screen, i actually got incorrect colors displayed and so on[all of this on the boot screen]

Like I said, if I wait a couple of seconds then after booting it seems to work out fine, with this in mind I can't restart When I need to reboot for changes now I shut it down, wait a bit and turn it back on.

Now the cpu,motherboard and hdds are pretty old, i think 6 years, the psu is about 1 year old, and the ram and video card are brand new.

Would it be normal for my psu to start breaking down a year and a half after I bought it? It's not of any brand but the previous one really lasted for almost 3 years.

Thanks for all the quick answers olie, really appreciate it
Paul.

 

[rev_olie]

Right,
From that then it sounds really like a PSU problem.

Would it be normal for my psu to start breaking down a year and a half after I bought it? It's not of any brand but the previous one really lasted for almost 3 years.

Really here is just bad hardware i think. Some PSU's can last for decades and you could go buy a new one from the same company same brand and it might last a few years. Its just the luck of the draw really.

Just check to make sure the inside of your case is clean and dust free.
Take a look here on that point.

Disconnect both the IDE cable and your power cable from your hard drive and spay the slot AND the cable with compressed air.
Do the same for RAM and graphics slots.

The re connect your PSU cable and other hardware and just for fun see if it boots.

If not then if you can buy a PSU tester. You can get them from plenty of places. I'm not sure were your from so i cant link to to many places there. Something like this

Also before chucking your PSU lest test everything again.

Follow the instruction HERE

You need to mount it to CD and boot from that. It will check your RAM and CPU for problems. If anything is found then generally the hardware needs replacing. Run it for 7 passes.

Then
If nothing fails on there run check disk.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/hderrcheck.htm

If problems are found usually they mean a replacement again but sometimes not.

I'm really going at it at all angles because i don't want you to buy a new PSU and then it not solve the problem. Also if you do buy a new PSU and the problem persists then its likely a mobo fault.
Post back if you have any problems.