PC Crashing

Danger Phoenix · 19 Aug 2007 at 09:55

I leave my PC on 24/7, and since yesterday it has been crashing. I turn the monitor off and go to sleep, and when I wake up it has frozen and need to be reset.

This problem started two days ago, since I added a 4th hard disk... so could this be a problem? Problem with power or something?

Even then, why does it happen at night, and not during the day when I am actually using it?

DavidB · 19 Aug 2007 at 10:30

Maybe its a rare environmentally friendly version

Do you really need it on 24/7 ?
Cant think why the new hard drive would make a difference, is the system overclocked at all ? Oh just read that PSU comment, what PSU is it ? and what spec does it have ?

Danger Phoenix · 19 Aug 2007 at 11:17

System has been overclocked for the past 2 months, without a single problem.

I only added the hard disk in on Friday, and since then it has been crashing during the night!

I have an Enermax 500W PSU

Danger Phoenix · 20 Aug 2007 at 13:01

I figured it out... I re-arranged my power connections so that the load was shared more evenly over the cables coming out of the PSU. Everything is stable now

Danger Phoenix · 20 Aug 2007 at 22:59

Hmm... it still hasn't fixed it

I was watching a video and the PC froze

HangTime · 20 Aug 2007 at 23:22

Try running everything at stock at see what happens.

I know you may feel this is unnecessary as your overclock was stable for months, but that doesn't mean to say it still is. Good way of starting to isolate the fault.

Also it may be worth running memtest86+ and a cpu torture test such as Orthos.

Danger Phoenix · 1 Sep 2007 at 23:34

Alright... the problem is still happening, especially when I have other USB devices connections, so I used this:

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

It tells me I need a 497W PSU, and after a little bit of checking, I have the Enermax EG465P-VE which is around 450W.

No wonder my system keeps messing up... what new PSUs do you guys recommend?

mugwuffin · 2 Sep 2007 at 00:48

Could be PSU but first try reseating the RAM, somehow mine randomly came loose once and were causing the same problem as you're having!

BigBazz · 2 Sep 2007 at 03:58

If your systems not pushing 8800 GFX or high end components then a 550 to 600 Watt PSU should do you fine.

To give you some idea here are some examples of the systems ive got

skt A 2600+ system with a 360w PSU
6800 agp + 1.5 gig ram
80gig HDD

A skt 754 64 3400+ system with a 580w PSU
7800GS agp + 2.0 gig ram
250 gig IDE
2x160 gig sata

and my Ultima system quad core Q6600 with an 850w PSU
8800 GTX + 2.0 gig ram
1x500 gig sata

Check, check and re check that the fault with your system is with the power supply though....

Q-Tec PSU's in my experience though cheap have been somewhat unreliable.. have owned 2 650w'ers and both have failed on me within a year...

Danger Phoenix · 2 Sep 2007 at 10:15

How accurate would you say that Extreme Calculator is? If that is right, a 520W won't be enough when I add another HDD

Danger Phoenix · 4 Sep 2007 at 13:20

Danger Phoenix said:
How accurate would you say that Extreme Calculator is? If that is right, a 520W won't be enough when I add another HDD

Anyone?

I am currently running the following with a Enermax 450W PSU:

1 x Opteron 165 overclocked to 2.7Ghz (no increase in voltage)
2 x 512MB PC3200 RAM Modules
1 x ATI X1900XTX (not overclocked)
1 x Audigy 2 PCI Card
1 x DVD-RW
4 x Western Digital SATA Drives
1 x Fan Controller powering Front, CPU and Rear Fans

Do you think the crashes are caused by the PSU, or just Windows messing up? I plan to reinstall XP in the next week or so before I go back to University, or I am thinking of upgrading to Vista (will try it out on a separate partition soon, to make sure all my components and major softwares work)