TSGL: power supply?

[H Davis]

Lum,

Just speculating here but from your description it sounds like the 
longer you leave it off the longer it runs before failing. If so, it 
might be some kind of heat problem. Is the fan in the power supply 
turning? Can you feel any air coming out of the back of the case? How 
old is your computer? Have you heard any strange noises in the recent 
past that aren't there any more, like a squeaking fan bearing that 
doesn't squeak any more because the fan isn't turning?

There are temperature monitoring programs that will show the temperature 
of your CPU or hard drive. I can't recommend a CPU temperature 
monitoring since I have no direct knowledge of them but, hopefully, 
someone will suggest one. I think your failure is occurring too soon for 
the hard drive to heat enough to reflect the actual temperature of the 
device that's failing.

My first guess would be that the power supply fan is not working and it 
(the power supply) is shutting off because of some over temperature 
safety device. If you're really adventuresome, try opening the case and 
set up a household fan to blow a good strong breeze into the case. Boot 
up and see how long it will run compared to its previous performance. 
This isn't a solution, of course, but might give you a better idea as to 
whether it's a heat problem. You might even be able to localize the 
breeze to cool only the power supply and try to isolate the problem that 
way. I little crude, I admit, but it'll keep you busy until a better 
idea comes from the other list members.

H Davis

ytisonimul wrote:
> Hi y'all,
>
> I'm quiet most of the time, but when something happens, it really 
> happens.  :)
>
> WindowsXP Pro SP2
> 1GB RAM
>
>
> Today, my computer just *stopped*.  No BSOD, no nothing.  It just went 
> OFF. (Unfortunately, I was in the middle of doing a disk back up. oy 
> vey)  I turned it back on, and it lasted about 15 min, then died again.  
> I tried a couple more times, and it died and died and died again.  I 
> left it off for an hour, turned it back on and backed up my docs and 
> settings (yay!), and then it died after about another 45 minutes.  I'm 
> all over turning it off again for a couple of hours, turning it on and 
> then doing a complete root disk back up again.
>
> Also, a clue? When I booted back up, my active desktop was gone.
>
> My computer mgmt says my HD's are healthy. I run a complete virus scan 
> every single night because I learned my lesson well back with 
> "navidad."  Remember that one? So, no viruses.  I haven't updated 
> Windows automatically because I was told on this list about several "K" 
> updates that weren't worth updating. 
>
> So now, I don't think it's the hard drive. Could it be the power 
> supply?  Could it be a Windows update issue? (I had IE7 and uninstalled 
> it and use Mozilla's Seamonkey Suite intead).
>
> If it's the PSU, how can I tell? Switch it out with another one and 
> see?  I have some older, still-functional PSU's hanging around here in 
> the computer graveyard. Any suggestions?  Anything I should be doing 
> that I haven't done yet?
>
> Thank y'all a lot,
>
> Lum
>
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-- 
H Davis   hdavis1 at gmail.com