Is my PSU dying?

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CutCutCut

1039 posts

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#177385 31-Jul-2015 17:14

This last week my PC has started randomly restarting. Didn't seem to be any consistency to it, just would happen randomly. I thought it might have had something to do with Windows 10, but all I could gather from the error report was that power was lost unexpectedly. So I tried just booting into the Bios and leaving it to see if it happened there, and it did, twice. So I'm pretty sure that would make it not related to Windows 10. I've used one of those PSU calculators and it seemed to come in about half of the PSUs rating. The PSU though is about 7- 8 years old now though. I recently rebuilt my PC with new parts but left the old PSU in as it seemed to be ok.

Is there some other basic trouble shooting I can do? I plan on opening it up over the weekend, and cleaning out any dust and checking connections etc.

kama

30 posts

Geek

#1356350 31-Jul-2015 21:12

The bios has read outs of various things. Check the 12V is just that and not something like 10 or 11.

A blown cap or part can let of a stink. Does it pass the sniff test?

Remove all unnecessary cards, hdds, even vga if you have onboard. Does it fail even then?

Check ram with memtest/+.

gzt

17105 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1356395 31-Jul-2015 23:54

Motherboard make,model,revision?

JWR

821 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1356418 1-Aug-2015 00:59

kama: The bios has read outs of various things. Check the 12V is just that and not something like 10 or 11. A blown cap or part can let of a stink. Does it pass the sniff test? Remove all unnecessary cards, hdds, even vga if you have onboard. Does it fail even then? Check ram with memtest/+.

I think that is all good advice.

It is most likely the PSU but it could also be other (cheaper) things.

I would add, open the case and make sure everything is properly connected i.e. RAM uninstall/reinstall (its prob not RAM but do it anyway), do same for all PCI/PCIe cards, make sure all connectors/cables (eg SATA etc) are properly connected.

CutCutCut

1039 posts

Uber Geek

#1356657 1-Aug-2015 15:48

It's an Asus Z97-A, I couldn't see a revision number, where could I find that? All the 5V, 12V, 3V numbers all seem to be within 0.076 of a volt at the most. No smells, no swollen looking capacitors etc. Checked all the connections etc, made sure everything looked secure. We'll see how it goes.

timmmay

20575 posts

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#1356659 1-Aug-2015 15:53

Does the BIOS show CPU temperature? If so check if it gets high. If not then maybe replace the PSU, but buy from somewhere with a good return policy and open the box really carefully.

rb99

3422 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1356670 1-Aug-2015 16:17

JWR:
kama: The bios has read outs of various things. Check the 12V is just that and not something like 10 or 11. A blown cap or part can let of a stink. Does it pass the sniff test? Remove all unnecessary cards, hdds, even vga if you have onboard. Does it fail even then? Check ram with memtest/+.

I think that is all good advice.

It is most likely the PSU but it could also be other (cheaper) things.

I would add, open the case and make sure everything is properly connected i.e. RAM uninstall/reinstall (its prob not RAM but do it anyway), do same for all PCI/PCIe cards, make sure all connectors/cables (eg SATA etc) are properly connected.

And another basic thing - check the power cable to your computer for a bad connection. Happened to me many moons ago, computer just loosing power whenever it felt like it, was all set to buy a new PSU, one last jiggle of the power cable and there was a fault inside the cable itself.

Just a thought...

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

CutCutCut

1039 posts

Uber Geek

#1356974 2-Aug-2015 09:34

rb99:
JWR:
kama: The bios has read outs of various things. Check the 12V is just that and not something like 10 or 11. A blown cap or part can let of a stink. Does it pass the sniff test? Remove all unnecessary cards, hdds, even vga if you have onboard. Does it fail even then? Check ram with memtest/+.

I think that is all good advice.

It is most likely the PSU but it could also be other (cheaper) things.

I would add, open the case and make sure everything is properly connected i.e. RAM uninstall/reinstall (its prob not RAM but do it anyway), do same for all PCI/PCIe cards, make sure all connectors/cables (eg SATA etc) are properly connected.

And another basic thing - check the power cable to your computer for a bad connection. Happened to me many moons ago, computer just loosing power whenever it felt like it, was all set to buy a new PSU, one last jiggle of the power cable and there was a fault inside the cable itself.

Just a thought...

Oh yes good point, I probably wouldn't have thought of checking that. It's been on with no restarts for about 18 hours so far so that's a good sign I think.

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JWR

821 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1357141 2-Aug-2015 14:31

CutCutCut:
rb99:
JWR:
kama: The bios has read outs of various things. Check the 12V is just that and not something like 10 or 11. A blown cap or part can let of a stink. Does it pass the sniff test? Remove all unnecessary cards, hdds, even vga if you have onboard. Does it fail even then? Check ram with memtest/+.

I think that is all good advice.

It is most likely the PSU but it could also be other (cheaper) things.

I would add, open the case and make sure everything is properly connected i.e. RAM uninstall/reinstall (its prob not RAM but do it anyway), do same for all PCI/PCIe cards, make sure all connectors/cables (eg SATA etc) are properly connected.

And another basic thing - check the power cable to your computer for a bad connection. Happened to me many moons ago, computer just loosing power whenever it felt like it, was all set to buy a new PSU, one last jiggle of the power cable and there was a fault inside the cable itself.

Just a thought...

Oh yes good point, I probably wouldn't have thought of checking that. It's been on with no restarts for about 18 hours so far so that's a good sign I think.

It might pay to run something like 'Primes' (for CPU), 'Furmark' (for GPU) etc. to give the system a bit of a workout too.

A Z-97 chipset + CPU is pretty power efficient at idle.

1101

3122 posts

Uber Geek

#1357530 3-Aug-2015 09:23

Honestly, all you can do is parts swap. Thats not an option unless you have good parts to swap with for testing
It could be motherboard, PSU, RAM, vid card, internal cables, things plugged into the USB , issues with your power(unlikely)
Have a close look at the USB connectors, I have seen broken USB connectors cause issue (rare, but worth a look)

One of my PC's does this. Its the RAM slot (not the RAM) having issues on mine
More common causes are RAM, Video card or motherboard fault .