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grohde
12-31-05, 11:51 AM
I am trying to upgrade a Dell PC with a new Gigabyte motherboard and AMD Sempron 2800+ CPU. The case and power supply on the Dell did not fit with the new motherboard so I picked up a new case with 400W power supply.

The problem is that when I connect the hard drive to the power supply and start up the PC, the power supply and fans only start for 2-3 seconds and then shut down. If I disconnect the power to the hard drive the PC will start up and I can get into the BIOS. In order to isolate the problem I disconnected every component except the motherboard and didn't even connect the ribbon cable from the drive to the motherboard, just connected the power, and it still would not start. Thinking that the drive may have gone bad I put it back in the old computer and it worked fine. The drive is a basic 40GB IBM Deskstar drive.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem? Is it a power supply problem or a drive problem or something else? Since I had so little connected to the supply and it still wouldn't work it seems surprising that even a cheap power supply could be that bad.

Know Nuttin
12-31-05, 12:07 PM
:welcome: to the forums.

It's possible the cheap power supply just can't cut it. Not unusual, and not a good idea to keep trying with it either. Cheap PSU now can equal a lot of problems in the future, especially if it takes out other components (like Deer-made PSU's are known to do).