In case of a failing PSU, does data corruption occur?

[Raj]

I mean does data corruption occur? Like getting errors while installing software, extracting archives etc..

Thanks

Raj

 

[cherryp00t]

not that i heard of.. but reboots and killing hardware is common =d

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

It's possible, but there are a lot of other things that could easily do it... my old motherboard did some of that because of bad capacitors connected to the chipset. Another machine I worked on was fussy with memory and had a bad IDE cable - was constantly corrupting the hard drive. Memtest caught the bad memory in that one.

The only time I had a PSU do this on me is with my old Deer (Allied/Foxconn/Eagle/Austin/L&C/US-Can) 250w. It was a very poor quality unit and was slowly killing hard drives the whole time I used it. However, unless you have a PSU of this level of ineptitude, your problem is likely elsewhere in the system.

 

[Raj]

hmm....thanks for sharing you experience.....my psu was all along failing...i.e i couldn't play games coz. the +3.3V was very low but it was good enuff to support the system...basic tasks i mean...but now of late i cant install anything....even after doing formats and complete installs.....i get data corruption errors when i try to install an application or try to extract any zip file

Thanks

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

What kind of PSU do you have?

 

[Raj]

an old AOpen 300W PSU

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Aopen is usually either Fortron/Sparkle or Sirtec... neither one are really poor quality, but it's still possible it's causing the problems.

Have you measured the rails with a voltmeter? If you're getting fluctuations between idle and load when measured this way it's time for a new PSU.

 

[Raj]

thanks man..whatz the best way to measure the voltages under idle/load conditions ? I cant load MBM for the same data corruption nor cant I load any game or app.......so how do I measure it? plus i do not own a voltmeter!......all i can do is look at the hardware monitor in the bios...

can you suggest something?

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Tricky situation this is... about all I can suggest at the moment is perhaps borrow someone's voltmeter or multimeter, or perhaps another known good PSU. This would be a start in tracking down the problem anyway. You don't mention much about your system, but if this problem has been creeping up over time along with the decline of the 3.3v rail, it's definitely possible the PSU is at fault; but it's hard to tell at this stage as MBM/BIOS readings are usually highly inaccurate, unless one rail is significantly outside spec (but that can still point at the motherboard just as well as the PSU - why I usually recommend taking readings with a meter).

 

[Raj]

Here''s my config :

AMD Athlon 1.4 Ghz T-Bird 266 FSB with retail HSF
PC2100 512MB DDR RAM
MSI K3T Ultra-ARU (With onboard ATA133 Promise RAID Controller + 4 USB 2.0 ports)
Maxtor 6L040J2 40GB 7200RPM 8.5ms access time, ATA/133, 2048K Cache HDD
Liteon 40X/12X/48X CD-RW DRIVE LTR-40125S
Liteon DVD 16x LTD-163D
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro All in Wonder 128MB
Philips Acoustic Edge
Creative DeskTop Theater™ 5.1 DTT2200 Speakers
Realtek chipset 10/100 Network Card
Sony 1.44MB FDD
LG FLATRON 775FT PLUS 17"
Microsoft Intellimouse (Optical) Explorer 3.0 USB
Func3D Surface 1030
Microsoft Sidewinder GamePad
TVS Gold 104 Keyboard
HP Deskjet 640C
Aopen QF45A housing with a Aopen ATX-300GT 300w PSU

btw, I can give you some idea abt how bad my PSU has been of late.......I get bleeding and corrupt graphics when playing any kind of a game or while running a heavy screensaver........the last time I remember I checked...the 3.3v line was running at 2.91 and all this has been gradual.....my system was still fuctioning well.......and now I cant even installl anything.......sometime i changed the psu (took it from a friend) and the graphics and the games worked like a charm...

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Time for a new PSU methinks - pretty sure that one is a Sirtec, and it looks like your system is a little too much for it. I would personally suggest going to a Sparkle/Fortron 350w or 530w, or Antec Truepower 430 or higher. If you can find them, the Channel Well 430w and up units will work well too.

Did your 3.3 go up with your friend's PSU?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Radeon 9700 a pretty demanding card of the 3.3?

 

[Raj]

oh yeah it was back to normal....i wish i could buy one of those PSUs you have listed. I live in India and there is no Antec, No Fortron, No Enermax, No Thermaltake, No Zalman.......no nothing...just cheap and crappy taiwanese ones which have real weird names and weird markings on them. Have you ever heard of Frontech, Quantum, Mercury? All of these are the same company with just some different sticker......Its upto the end user to decide what is best for him by testing it himself...

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

In that case, I'll point you toward Larva's sticky (will a xxx watt power supply run this) - it will help you find a decent one.

Since you're in India, you may have better luck finding Channel Well (CWT) than over here - they are very good. Other than that, I'm afraid you'll have your work cut out for you to find a good one. Never heard of Frontech, Quantum, or Mercury.

Edit: half asleep so I missed the obvious - if you are still able to get Aopen PSU's, look for the ones that have model numbers starting with FSP - those are the Fortron ones.

 

[larrymoencurly]

I'm darn sure that your Aopen ATX-300GT was made by Fortron/Sparkle because I have a Sparkle with the exact same model number (one of the few with a model number that doesn't start with "FSP"). Its combined +3.3V and +5V power rating is only 145W, so maybe this is the limitation, even if it can put out way more than its rating, as is typical of this make, because I think your mobo gets all its CPU power from the +5V rail, and your graphics card may also put a heavy load on this rail. But what happens when you remove the optical drives or try a slower graphics card?

 

[Raj]

larry

thanks for the reply...yes i think too it is made by fortron / sparkle ...TCO is 145W combined..that's what the label says......the problem with this PSU is that sometime back my PC blew up due to a power surge.....most of the components fried but somehow the PSU was ok...well that's what I thought then...but later like 3-4 months after that incident I just checked my voltages one day and the 3.3V rail was like at 2.9V!!...it still is........I'm planning on sending this PSU to a local repair shop and see what can be done...generally can PSUs be easily repaired?

Thanks

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

It can likely be repaired, but the question is usually is it worth it to do so... in your case it certainly won't hurt to get an estimate since it's so hard to find decent PSU's where you are. Whether you do go for a repair or not will depend on how much you're willing to spend, and what the techs say it will cost to fix

 

[Raj]

I'm a bit ashamed for this........I was like 100% sure that this problem was due to my PSU but today I discovered that the data corruption was due to a bad memory stick. I have two sticks of 256MB and one of them went bad. Now my system is back up and running in full throttle.

My PSU problem too has been solved by a purchase I made yesterday. I got a new PSU named Mercury (300W, 3.3 + 5v = 180w Max) and now I have no problem playing games as well. No texture bleeding no graphic corruption etc.....btw, I would like to test this unit and see how good it is ? OklahomaWolf said that I could test it with a multimeter but how? I also called up a repair shop and asked them if they could fix my old Aopen-Fortron PSU and they said they answered in the affirmative. Repair charge is gonna be like $4

Oklahomawolf...Thanks for your help ..I wish I had known the problem earlier...I would have saved me time as well as your online time

Thanks everyone

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Don't worry about it, I have no life

Testing with a multimeter or voltmeter is easy once you have one... just set it to measure DC volts, connect the black probe to any black wire coming out of the PSU, and touch the red probe to these wires to measure voltage:

3.3v - any orange wire at the ATX connector
5v - any red wire at either the ATX connector or any 4 pin drive connector
12v - any yellow wire at any 4 pin drive connector, or the 4 pin P4 connector
5v standby - violet wire at the ATX connector

-12 and -5 are irrelevant for modern systems - no need to worry about them.

Glad to hear things are working better for you

 

[Raj]

Thanks man ...I'll test them out today...what is the optimal way of measuring both under load and idle conditions? For load do I think I'll use Prime95...but how abt idle conditions? Do I need the comp. at all? I could just use the PSU wire trick and power the PSU and then take the readings right?

Raj

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Best to take an idle reading with the PSU in the system - most need some kind of load to stabilize the regulation. I would suggest doing the idle reading while you're in BIOS setup looking at the page with the hardware monitor... then you can tell right away how far off the onboard sensors are (at idle at least).