"David A. Mann" wrote: > > 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.
Don't think so Zane. I've got 1 HDD, 1 CD, 1 floppy - pretty standard. 2 ISA cards (modem, soundcard) and an S3 PCI card. > 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. I don't think the PSU was overheating. When the incident happened, the computer had been off for over a day, and it halted within 60 seconds of turning on. Last night I used the computer for 2-3hours with no problem. > 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. Good point. I did check it, but not very closely. It's one of those Pentiums that are mounted in a slot on the main board. Forget what it's called now. > Dodgy hardware could also be the cause... bad solder joint or > hairline crack on the motherboard, bad memory chip, .... I suspect this is the likely cause. I scavenged the parts from a student flat I was staying at in Melbourne when I was there for a conference. It had been sitting there for months and was going to get biffed. Cheers, -- Carl Cerecke, Assistant Lecturer|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Computer Science, |Phone: +64 3 364 2987 ext. 7859 University of Canterbury, |Fax: +64 3 364 2569 Private Bag 4800, |http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~cdc Christchurch, New Zealand. |
