Zane Gilmore wrote: > Anything that is plugged into the power supply that is dragging down > the voltage (i.e. drawing too much current) and/or just getting things > hot could cause those prob's.
The voltage itself should be perfectly stable. If it dips out of spec the "power good" signal will disappear and the machine will halt (or whatever the motherboard is programmed to do under that situation). This will happen due to overheating or current limiting, as you mentioned. Considering the PSU needs to be switched off for a few minutes before restarting, it could be a thermal problem (heatsink needs a few mins to cool down enough to allow a restart). The PSU overheating may be due to a lack of airflow. The power supply has a fan to move air out, but that air has to get into the case from somewhere. See if the problem goes away with the lid off the case. Alternatively there could be heaps of dust inside the PSU, or IDE cables blocking the vents. Just in case I'm talking rubbish, try checking the heatsink & fan on the CPU. It could be clogged up with dust, or the fan may have died, causing the CPU itself to overheat. Dodgy hardware could also be the cause... bad solder joint or hairline crack on the motherboard, bad memory chip, .... I can't explain the cd playing spontaneously. That's weird. Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/ (out of date)
