[Bubba]

My "super computer" still keeps crashing. Not as often, but it crashes harder now. Now after a crash it won't even boot fully into the BIOS screen (it sticks on "detecting IDE" portion) unless I open it up and fiddle with stuff lol.

The screen will freeze up, nothing works, and it makes a sound like if you hold a key down and it hits the end of the line, only lower pitched. I can imitate the sound but sadly (or mercifully) you can't hear me lol.

The time before last when I tried to get it to boot the Vista install disc to repair it, I got an error message saying the DVD was not detected, so I checked the power and SATA cables to the DVD. I am using a serial SATA power cable for both my HDD's and my DVD (total of 3 connections on one cable). It is connected to the 1st rail which is 12v, all 4 rails are 12v BTW. The 5 case fans are also connected to that rail (only rail those components can connect to). my GFX card is connnected to the 4th rail with both a 6 pin and 8 pin PCI cable. I just made that connection, before I had one cable on the 4th rail and one on the 3rd rail, i screwed up when swapping out from 2 cards to one, the manual says each card should have both connections from the same rail, IE 1 card on the 3rd and 1 card on the 4th. While it's too soon yet to know if that was causing the problem, or even if it's possible for it to cause the problem, I'm wondering if my PSU is bad, or maybe my DVD drive. How can I tell?

Also, I ghave a Razer Lachersis gaming mouse. Occasionally it goes a bit haywire and won't track smoothly, and I have to reboot to get it working right. What would cause this? Am I making any sense lol?

[Hybr!d]

I would be swapping the PSU.

[Bubba]

Ouch, it's less than a year old lol. I wonder if Fry's would take it back or if I would have to RMA it. It's a thermaltake toughpower 1200.

Is there any way I can test it? I'm not the best with electricity, but I have a buddy who is an EE, well he WAS an EE before he became a brain surgeon, (seriously), he still keeps up with it somewhat and he has testing equipment. I can take it to him if there is a way to test it.

[Hybr!d]

Reasoning being power loss to the drive causes the crash, then the loss of them on reboot confirms that.

[Hybr!d]

Don't know if you can test them, we just swap them out and run the system up.

Get a cheap generic one and see if it cures it.

[Bubba]

The power connector on the DVD was a bit suspect (dodgy lol) when I got it, should I try that first? I have an extra DVD or two laying around, but I don't have an extra PSU anywhere near powerful enough to swap out for a test, (I think I have an old 300 watt one)

EDIT for the Britishism Dodgy, been waiting for a chance to use that word lol.

[Hybr!d]

A dodgy :) DVD power connector wont cause the crash. Loss of power to the HDD will tho'.

You can't be sure until you start swapping things mate. PSUs mostly being crap and unreliable are one of the first things to look at, that and your loss of power to various drives again point to it.

A dodgy PSU will still power a system and do various random stuff. Seen it all to often.

[Bubba]

OK, thanks. I'll get to it.

[Carbon]

Toughpowers have been having a few QA problems. I wouldn't throw a generic in there even to test: Dave, his setup is independently verified to be overkill (and he's admitted it too!). I'm pretty sure what he has can run on something like a 610W Silencer, if i remember it right, and that should be pretty cheap. I'd be willing to bet that's the problem, but no guarantees.

[Bubba]

So would a dodgy (getting my money's worth lol), PSU also account for the GFX problems I've had trying to run 2 9800 gx2's? i know it kept saying it was driver errors, but could that occur due to intermittent power outages? Well as stated above, I also had the cards each running off of two rails, instead of 1 rail for 1 card, but besides that. Also i am assuming intermittant is the correct term, because if they were not getting correct power most of the time I would crash most of the time instead of some of the time.

Or am I grasping at straws about my vid card problem by trying to pile it on to the PSU?

Actually, writing this out clears my tiny little mind a bit. I should fix the PSU problem THEN see if I still have the Vid problem and go from there, correct?

EDIT: By see if I still have a vid problem i mean, install both GFX cards, see if it crashes, if it does, take one out run it. Swap, run it ect............