Seasonic S12 500W Problems..

[adam3223]

I decided to upgrade my Antec TrueBlue 480W so i bought a Seasonic S12 500W.

Other Spec:
Amd X2 4400
Asus A8N Premium

Installation went fine but when i turn on the pc, it starts for about 1 second then turns off. (i don't even get to the bios boot screen)
So i push the on button again, and does it again. But it lasts a little longer say 2 seconds.
I keep doing this and about the 4th time or so, it turns on, and stays on and goes through the bios and runs fine.

So I turn my pc off from windows. Turn it back on again and i goes staright through no problems. I relax thinking it was just required a 'first use warmup' or someting.

Then I turn my pc off for the night, the next day it does it again - cuts off a few times then runs fine. This has reoccured over 3 days now, and it seems it needs 3/4 attempt to start after its been off for a while.

After that it seems perfect, no crashes in windows, and i've played games and watched dvds, and its been on for at least 10 hours straight at one point.

Does anyone know whats wrong/what i can do?

 

[adam3223]

It did it again today.

1st attempt lasted about 4 seconds and cut off, the 2nd lasted about 1 sceond, the 3rd about 2, and finally on the 4th is booted up normally.

Last night i recorded the volatages for about 2 hours:

+12v, +5, +3.3v had only minor fluctuations which didn't even show up on the graph.

the VCore was fluctuating quite a lot though, im not sure if thats normal?

Can anyone help?
Should in RMA the Seasonic??

 

[raja]

When a pc is powered up from cold, all the caps have been discharged, they short for a while before they charge up. This puts a higher demand on the rails until the charging phase is over, however the demand is not so massive that it should cause the power supply to trip. The only way it would be too high is if the capacitors are too large in uf (micro-fards), this is definatley not the case.

Seasonic supplies are generally over engineered quite generously, so there should not really be a problem, unless you have a duff one.

I take it everything was ok using the other psu?
What graphics cards are you using?

I would try to test the power supply on another system if you have access, if it is within spec of your graphics cards then I'd go for an rma, then perhaps shoot up to a higher wattage psu. Check the spec sheets and see the rails provide adequate margin for your setup, especially if you have high end gfx cards.


Raja

 

[adam3223]

Yes, everything worked fine on my old PSU, which only had a 20 pin mobo connection.

My graphics card is Radeon X300 SE. One of the cheapest i could find. I was intending on buying a new PSU so i can get a more powerful gfx card.

 

[raja]

I think yo can unclip the four extra wires from the atx connector, or use a concertor, have you tried this, (sorry if I'm not helping here....)

 

[Dutch Guy]

Does anyone know whats wrong/what i can do?

Even though the PSU works after a few tries it is NOT normal behaviour.

I would send a e-mail to Seasonic support to see if they recognise the problem and go from there.

The fluctuating VCore might be because the power draw at idle is very low, is it also fluctuating at load?