Strange crash problem

[WyrmMaster]

I really don't know where to put this post, maybe cause i don't know what the problem is.

Sometimes it just shuts off. Totally off. Push the power button an nothin happens, you have to reach around back and flip the power switch off and then back on again before it will work.

Do i need a new power supply, or does anyone know what the problem might be. Seems like its only happened since i got Folding@home

[Fiz]

How many watts is the ps? And, does it only crash when you are using the folding prog? Or does it lock up when you are just doing whatever?

[WyrmMaster]

300w I think the brand is L&C technologies, or something like that. I think the problem is only with folding, but i am not totally sure.

[Fiz]

I had a similar problem with a 250W ps, Whenever I would OC past 1100, it wouldn POST, the fans would turn on and all that, but to get a POST I would have to turn off the power switch then turn it back on and it would boot right up. If yours is only shutting down when its under load I would say that the ps is your culprit. If you havent already tried, get prime95, or some other cpu burning prog to see if it happens. I use Motherboard Monitor 5 to keep an eye on the different voltages, I notice that on my old ps, when I would run prime95 my 5V and 3.3V would drop way below where they were supposed to be. I have since upgraded to a 300W ps and its fine. You may want to look into something a little higher than what you have now, maybe a 400 or so. I hope this helps a little. Good luck. :-)

[Kriegster]

yeah it could be your power supply. if your computer is crashing randomly check your irq assignments. my stupid iwill had 5 devices loaded into the same irq and my computer would crash every 15 minutes or so...so i shiufled my pci cards around and it hasen't crashed all day :) trouble is with all these ide and raid controllers and other stuf there doesn't seem to be enough irq addresses to go around :( my power supply was being taxed too. with my 300 watt psu i would get the beep of death at anything over 1300, now with my cheapo-brand 400 psu i can post in the high 1300's, although i can only run stable up to 1300. hope this helps you

[NUTNDUN]

There does seem to be a memory leak with the Folding program, how often it locks up is dependent upon how much memory you have installed. I noticed a couple times redoing my web pages and using paint shop pro it would lock up or since I let them crunch 24/7 about once every 2 days it would not come off of standby and I would manually have to restart it. The thing that is really weird it is only happened to my OC'd machine, the wife's 1 Ghz will run as long as I let it with no problems. So I just restart the puter once a day and all is fine.

[WyrmMaster]

Just yesterday it did the same thing when i was just moving files around. Nothin running. And when i got home from school today my mom told me that the computer wouldn't turn on. I had to mess with the switch. But nobody had used it, it did the "no start thing" without first doing the "crash thing".

So you think that a better power supply would possibly allow more of an overclock.

[WyrmMaster]

My voltages are all running a little low tell me what you think, are they too far off.

3.26v 4.78v 11.77v

[Fiz]

After seeing the voltages I really think a new powersupply will do it for ya. 4.78 is really low, i started having probs when mine was at 4.88. Try a 400 watt one(stop by amd.com to see what the recommend). I think the random crashes were cause by a dying psu, a new one should fix you right up. And yes, a better power supply can help with the OC, if you think about it, the procs pull huge amounts of power, 50, 60, 70 watts, so the better the power supply, the cleaner the power to the proc. Good Luck :-)