PSU Turning Off

N

notoriousone

New Member
When I turn my computer on it begins to boot but a few seconds into the boot it will restart and continuously do it over and over again. I have ran a memtest on it and there are no errors. i noticed that when i unplug my hard drive's power cord it seems to boot and i can get into the bios no problem. i also know that the hard drive is not the problem because i plugged it into another computer and it worked fine. what i was wondering is if it is probably the power supply that is causing it to restart. thank you.
 
The largest draw on a supply is generally seen when first powering up a system. That's when all drives are tested and other hardwares are also detected by the bios itself. Is this being seen on a prebuilt system or a cusom build where the case came with a supply included? It does point at a cheapie supply with a bad cap as being the cause there.
 
Well we bought it from a local computer shop a few years back and its worked fine up until now. i just checked it out and its only a 200W supply so i am assuming that it has a cheap power supply and its probably getting worn out. the system specs are P4 2.6GHZ, geforce mx400 and 512 ram
 
Running a P4 with a 200w supply will do that for sure. That would be the first replaced fast there. You should be running a 350w or above standard atx supply. A 200w supply is something that would come from an old IBM 386! :eek: What kind of a system was that used on a prebuilt or a custom case?
 
it was in a custom built system, but i didnt build it, it came from a local computer shop. i kinda figured that 200W was stupidly low lol. i cant say that i have ever seen anything under 300 for a long time until i actually open this case lol.
 
For a P4 system and even a new build down the road you will want something far more suitable like a 430w or higher. It sounds too much like that one was simply thrown in just to sell the case there. Do you know the make and model board? A 350w bare minimum would be the supply that should have been found with the case.

Depending on your budget you can order a heftier and far more reliable make and model for about $60-80 that will still be good later for a new build. One model that has worked out here quite well with two hard drives and two burners(cd/dvd) is the Antec True Power II 480w model like the one seen at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103930
 
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