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    never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off?

    i've had dozens of pc power supplies, mostly cheap and a few expensive, go out on me in spectacular and not-so-spectacular ways...while running or even just plugged in and powered off (+5v standby actually blew up 2 units). this most recent failure is a new one on me though. i installed an old 350w just pc inc. model jpc-350-12v in an athlon xp system with a radeon 9800 non-pro. a cheap build, but with good 5v (35a) and 3.3v (28a) stats for a pentium 4 psu plus it had 50% more weight than the previous ultra-cheap 500w psu that blew.

    the new power supply operated for maybe 12hrs non-continuous before shutting off unexpectedly. i can reset the psu and power the system back on, but it only runs a few sec before shutting itself off again. if i let the system rest awhile, it will run longer and even clear post before powering off and repeating the same cycle. i recall having another power supply exhibit the same behavior when its cooling fan failed, but there's nothing wrong with the fan here. in any case i swapped out the bad psu and the system operates fine now. i ran it under load for 30min just to be sure.

    was it the motherboard or the psu itself shutting off? what kind of protection circuits, if any, came into play here? my (considerable) experience is that cheap power supplies, being cheap, just blow up. i don't think many have any kind of thermal protection at all. i have opened up a number of them to salvage the cooling fans and notice the fuses haven't blown even after catastrophic failure (small fires, exploded capacitors, other components rattling around). just curious why only this failure, out of dozens cheap or expensive, was so controlled.
    Last edited by stanwebber; 04-03-2022, 02:31 PM.

    #2
    Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

    Originally posted by stanwebber View Post
    i've had dozens of pc power supplies, mostly cheap and a few expensive, go out on me in spectacular and not-so-spectacular ways...while running or even just plugged in and powered off (+5v standby actually blew up 2 units). this most recent failure is a new one on me though. i installed an old 350w just pc inc. model jpc-350-12v in an athlon xp system with a radeon 9800 non-pro. a cheap build, but with good 5v (35a) and 3.3v (28a) stats for a pentium 4 psu plus it had 50% more weight than the previous ultra-cheap 500w psu that blew.

    the new power supply operated for maybe 12hrs non-continuous before shutting off unexpectedly. i can reset the psu and power the system back on, but it only runs a few sec before shutting itself off again. if i let the system rest awhile, it will run longer and even clear post before powering off and repeating the same cycle. i recall having another power supply exhibit the same behavior when its cooling fan failed, but there's nothing wrong with the fan here. in any case i swapped out the bad psu and the system operates fine now. i ran it under load for 30min just to be sure.

    was it the motherboard or the psu itself shutting off? what kind of protection circuits, if any, came into play here? my (considerable) experience is that cheap power supplies, being cheap, just blow up. i don't think many have any kind of thermal protection at all. i have opened up a number of them to salvage the cooling fans and notice the fuses haven't blown even after catastrophic failure (small fires, exploded capacitors, other components rattling around). just curious why only this failure, out of dozens cheap or expensive, was so controlled.
    What model computer is it? If it is a HP they do weird things with their error detecting programs. I ran across about three HP that would make you think there is a real error when it is not. The last one had a power issue. The machine just shut down and would not attempt to boot up. I forced the power supply to stay on and it booted up all the way. The when I tried to boot it up again it would not boot up. Finally I disconnected power cord, Cmos battery and everything from the motherboard including Ram. I pressed the power button for 10 seconds. In this case there was a jumper that had to be switch from 2 to 3 pins on to 1 to 2 pins and then connect power cord and press power button wait 10 sec and turn off computer by pressing power button and holding it. Switch the jumper pins back to 2 to 3pins and connected everything back up to the motherboard and boot up the computer. I then got an error message that said the CPU fan was not turning. However, when one looked at the CPU van it was indeed turning. The problem was that the computer was not receiving the return signal from the fan. In this case I believe there was a FET transistor built into the fan and most likely was bad. Every time the owner booted up the computer he got a error message that the fan was not turning. He then could by-pass this error however the computer booted up very slowly. I believe because the error program could not detect the fan speed it booted up slow to protect the CPU. All HP had to do is ask the operator if the fan was turning and when the operator said yes then then could boot up normally. This computer had cost $1200 original and it was maybe 5 years old. The owner/tech was ready to throw it out. Once I had done the above procedure and he bought a new fan he has not had any more problems with it.

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      #3
      Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

      motherboard is an iwill kk266plus-r, athlon xp 2100+, 512mb pc-133, radeon 9800 non-pro, awe64 gold, nec usb 2.0

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        #4
        Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

        [QUOTE=stanwebber;1122983]motherboard is an iwill kk266plus-r, athlon xp 2100+, 512mb pc-133, radeon 9800 non-pro, awe64 gold, nec usb 2.0[/QUOTE


        So, who is providing the bios to the motherboard or who wrote the bios for the motherboard? iwill? Or someone else? in other words a motherboard manufacturer can make a motherboard for a Company to the Companies specifications. Then, the Company puts their own program in it. The program sets up the motherboard when turned on. So, it can talk to what is connected to it then, what error codes to provide and actions to take on failures.
        Last edited by keeney123; 04-03-2022, 08:12 PM.

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          #5
          Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

          The iWill K266+ is a notoriously wonky board....I remember them well. This would be my number one suspect.
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            #6
            Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

            maybe it could be cross-flashed.
            but i wouldnt try unless the flash was in a socket

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              #7
              Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

              that brand name brings back memories
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                #8
                Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                The iWill K266+ is a notoriously wonky board....I remember them well. This would be my number one suspect.
                i wrote off your comment at first, but i'm starting to reconsider. the board is quite idiosyncratic, but it performs very predictable in its weirdness. here are a few of the 'features' i've run across so far:

                - irq is happily shared when usb 2.0 card is in pci slot 4 UNTIL usb legacy support is enabled then the hpt372 onboard raid is nonfunctional
                - irq is happily shared when usb 2.0 card is in pci slot 5 in winxp, but ide controller is not recognized in win98se UNTIL irq 14 is reserved for legacy isa
                - cpu and system fan display 0 rpm (even in lmsensors) EXCEPT when cmos defaults are loaded
                - bios displays a +2.5v rail which seems to track the +3.3v rail +0.01v
                - memory test runs 3 times before continuing when quick power on self test is disabled

                i'm now on my 3rd, albeit cheap, psu in as many weeks. the first 500w psu blew up; the 2nd 350w 'died' as described above and the 3rd 350w is now questionable since the psu sometimes powers on immediately when the power button is pressed and other times there's a significant delay before response (or not at all). also, there's a high pitched whine when the system is off and the psu is plugged in.

                it runs beautifully, otherwise.

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                  #9
                  Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                  Originally posted by stj View Post
                  maybe it could be cross-flashed.
                  but i wouldnt try unless the flash was in a socket
                  cross flashed to what? there are 4 specific bios releases for the kk266 boards so i don't think they're overly generic:

                  - kk266
                  - kk266-r with ami raid
                  - kk266plus
                  - kk266plus-r with hpt raid

                  i did upgrade the hpt372 firmware to the last released version, but i don't know what else can be modded in the bios--would love to add microcode for barton athlons.

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                    #10
                    Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                    i meant using the flash from something else - like asus or gigabyte

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                      #11
                      Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                      Originally posted by stanwebber View Post
                      i did upgrade the hpt372 firmware to the last released version, but i don't know what else can be modded in the bios--would love to add microcode for barton athlons.
                      FWIW, I have an Iwill XP333R that supports Barton's (supposed to anyway)...still in the box, it never worked. If you're feeling frisky, pay the shipping and it's yours. As part of the process of elimination, I even recapped it....Iwill notoriously used horrendous Hermei caps, it's full of Rubycon's now. I did swipe the fan off the northbridge, heatsink is still there though. My only Iwill success story was the DVD266u-RN that I did a Voodoo5500 build around....and that one was a battle too!

                      There's a reason Iwill ended up defunct before many of the others....they were the most finicky & fickle boards I've ever encountered.
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                        #12
                        Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                        Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                        FWIW, I have an Iwill XP333R that supports Barton's (supposed to anyway)...still in the box, it never worked. If you're feeling frisky, pay the shipping and it's yours.
                        you make it sound so attractive...thanks for the offer, but an isa slot is a prerogative. besides, i had a pair of abit kv7 boards i gave away that i could probably get 1 or both back if i asked to run an xp barton if i really wanted to.

                        i think the kk266plus-r will ultimately work out. it's nice to have the arsenal of overclocking options back that i gave up with my last retro build. i got the fsb to 140 stable without even trying (no vcore adjustment or anything). i even have a kk266plus non-raid as a backup to try out as well.

                        oh yeah, 1 more feature i forgot to add to the above list:

                        - bios indicates the fully warm cpu temp is 35C which i think is cooler than my body temp

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                          #13
                          Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                          Originally posted by stanwebber View Post
                          you make it sound so attractive...thanks for the offer, but an isa slot is a prerogative. besides, i had a pair of abit kv7 boards i gave away that i could probably get 1 or both back if i asked to run an xp barton if i really wanted to.

                          i think the kk266plus-r will ultimately work out. it's nice to have the arsenal of overclocking options back that i gave up with my last retro build. i got the fsb to 140 stable without even trying (no vcore adjustment or anything). i even have a kk266plus non-raid as a backup to try out as well.

                          oh yeah, 1 more feature i forgot to add to the above list:

                          - bios indicates the fully warm cpu temp is 35C which i think is cooler than my body temp
                          No worries....everytime I throw this in the gaylord for the scrap motherboards, I pull it out for some reason....I guess it just wasn't meant to be shredded & smelted...
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                            #14
                            Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                            so i have about 30hrs on this new (old) psu and my system hasn't crashed or restarted even under sustained stress testing. however, there is still a somewhat consistent delay from when i push the power button until the system powers on--sometimes 10 sec or more. the system always powers off immediately. which component is likely responsible for the startup delay? the motherboard or the psu?

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                              #15
                              Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                              Sometimes boards are just slow POST'ers.... If it's consistent, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you otherwise found the iWill 'sweet spot', pat yourself on the back!
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                                #16
                                Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                                Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                                Sometimes boards are just slow POST'ers.... If it's consistent, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you otherwise found the iWill 'sweet spot', pat yourself on the back!
                                Some boards have a long timeout trying to detect IDE drives. Go into the cmos and disable any IDE ports you're not using
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                                  #17
                                  Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                                  Originally posted by Uranium-235 View Post
                                  Some boards have a long timeout trying to detect IDE drives. Go into the cmos and disable any IDE ports you're not using
                                  If I understood his post (lol, punny) correctly, the issue was the lag period between power-on and actual system POST, not detection lag after-post.
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                                    #18
                                    Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                                    oh sorry, i didn't realize there could be so much interpretation about the symptoms.

                                    the delay has nothing to do with system post. the entire post process (pre, during, post) proceeds at a predictable pace.

                                    when i press the power button nothing happens--complete silence. no hdd or fans spinning; no video card output signals. then after an indeterminate delay of up to 10sec or so the whole system whirs to life and then proceeds to boot normally. ocassionally, the system will respond immediately after button press.
                                    Last edited by stanwebber; 04-13-2022, 10:44 AM.

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                                      #19
                                      Re: never had a psu fail this way: what would cause psu to repeatedly shut itself off

                                      Originally posted by stanwebber View Post
                                      when i press the power button nothing happens--complete silence. no hdd or fans spinning; no video card output signals. then after an indeterminate delay of up to 10sec or so the whole system whirs to life and then proceeds to boot normally. ocassionally, the system will respond immediately after button press.
                                      Now that is a bit of a strange symptom....albeit, iwill was notorious for things like that. Just for giggles, what caps are on this board? Post some pics....this could definitely be cap-related.
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