Over the last few months, main PC has been running a little bit warm.
It's only a non overclocked 1.3 Duron, with a Cooler master silent
heatpipe. But it has been running at CPU temps in excess of 70C.

Last night, it started crapping out copying from one drive to another
even though the temps were below 60. Thought the drive was dying, no
biggy as it is only an old Seagate 8gig. Looking at the event log, it
confirmed that Drive D was having trouble. No biggy thought I, Maplin
have some 120Gig ATA drives at £70 a pop, not my first choice but they
are open Sunday, cheaper than PC world, and right round the corner.

The it froze solid.
Then when I rebooted, took 2 hours to reboot, Not Good.
Then when it did, it said it had restored a backup registry as the old
one was corrupt. Yikes.
Then i checked in Computer management, all drives healthy, so I thought,
OK, chkdisk and defrag.

Drive D did indeed need a disk check.
But it rebooted defragging it after.

Then when I tried to power cycle it, nothing. Nada, no boot. PSU had
died.

An Enermax 450 watt PSU, that has been doing almost 24/7 for 4 years
(bar the reboots) has toasted it'self finally. The internal fans in it
were still blowing when it last worked, and turned freely, so I guess,
it must have been slowly overheating, and running hot, and cooking the
CPU.

Stuck in the biggest thing that the local Maplin had (400watt Q-tec
£39.99, "Oh yes sir, special offer on 450Watt Q-Tecs, £29.99, except we
haven't got any, and the new ones in will be back to full price).

Now it is running much better. Temps are arround 45-55C, a drop of 15-20
degrees, at this is at the warmest point.

And the HDDs are workig again.
--
Carl Robson
(The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)
http://www.bouncing-czechs.com

"MeatballTurbo" <carl.robson (AT) bouncing-czechs (DOT) com> wrote

ah good good, my AMD gets hot sometimes but i think that's cos it's under my desk and there's not
much air flow, considering adding a top and side fan to help it out but i want it to staty quiet as
i've got the PSU and CPU cooler from quietpc.com and they wasn't cheap!

"MeatballTurbo" <carl.robson (AT) bouncing-czechs (DOT) com> wrote

When Nom gets here, hes gonna tell you what those Q-Tecs can do

--
Dan

In article <2huk4cFh27nhU1 (AT) uni-berlin (DOT) de>, dan405 (AT) danontherunspam (DOT) com
spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

I needed a PSU like today, and it is the middle of a bank holiday
weekend. What else am I supposed to do?

I did have a 250watt of unknown parentage, but to run a CD writer, a DVD
rom, a floppy, 3 HDDs and a full rack of PCI/AGP cards, I needed
something minimum 400 watts to have some leeway.

Tell me this wasn't a bad idea.
--
Carl Robson
(The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)
http://www.bouncing-czechs.com

MeatballTurbo wrote:
Qtec PSU's have a reputation for being unreliable and the wattage
ratings are very optimistic. I use a 550 watt one, which gives about 300
watts in real use, but it only cost £20. If you can, take it back as £40
for one is an absolute rip-off.

James

"James Grabowski" <jpgrabowski (AT) ntlworld (DOT) com> wrote

I've told when they die, they don't just die, that take mainboards, CPU's,
drives, everything and anything with them...

--
Dan

In article <2hur1vFh6q8qU1 (AT) uni-berlin (DOT) de>, dan405 (AT) danontherunspam (DOT) com
spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...
Bugger, well I need it, becuase all they had was Q-tec, Q-tec, or Q-tec,
or a Seventeam (not a bad brand) 250Watt, at more money.

Had a quick look in PC world, and they had nothing with a brand that i
would trust either, and more expensive.

Bastard, bugger and shite.
--
Carl Robson
(The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)
http://www.bouncing-czechs.com

"MeatballTurbo" <carl.robson (AT) bouncing-czechs (DOT) com> wrote

Just cos they have a bit of a rep, is no reason to say yours will die. It
might give 20 years of faithful service...

Like an Alfa innit

--
Dan

"MeatballTurbo" <carl.robson (AT) bouncing-czechs (DOT) com> wrote


Bugger, forgot it was a silly weekend. There goes me getting bits in the
post tomorrow I suppose
I run an XP, 2 hard drives, AGP, USB and PCI bits, a CD drive and a DVD
burner. All off a generic, loud as hell, crappo 300W PSU. I needed one in a
bit of a hurry when my original reasonable 350 died, got what I could fairly
quickly. Works fine, although I'd like a better one so it's not getting hit
quite so close to full capacity when everything's running, and something
quieter with a more powerful fan would be handy.
I've never had a PSU take out a mobo, but I've seen it happen. I don't think
it was a bad idea as such, just one of those "did you really need it"
moments. My PC's in the bedroom, running 24/7, and I think soon I am going
to need a better PSU, with the weather getting warmer and the noise getting
slightly louder now and then.

In article <c9djb2$7p4$1 (AT) news (DOT) freedom2surf.net>, merde (AT) theworld (DOT) com
spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...
I think the old enermax was really dieing, and I got lucky that it
didn't take anything else out.

This morning the CPU was in the high 60's.

Last couple of days it was running in the high 60's to mid 70's.

Since the PSU swap, started up got to a fixed level and has stayed at 51
all day and this evening.

Thats 20c+ less than it has been running normally.

unbelievable. I thought it was just because the room had been warm.
--
Carl Robson
(The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)
http://www.bouncing-czechs.com