System randomly shutting down

[jverkoey]

Alright, here's the scoop.

I run my computer 24/7 without a hitch. However, when I stick a cd in to my DVD-RW drive, I can hear the cd starting to spin from the autoboot, and once it sounds like it has reached the "fast" spinning speed (when the pitch isn't changing anymore), my system just shuts down.

Sometimes it shuts down before the CD's even fully sped up.

Now, before you go saying this is a software thing, I booted up my puter in the BIOS, stuck a CD in, and it started spinning and bam, my puter shut down. While I was in the BIOS.

So that eliminates software.

Next I tried figuring out if it was something with the motherboard or something, so I unplugged the IDE cable from my cd drives but left the power cables in. I booted up my PC, stuck a cd in, and bam, it shuts down again.

So now I'm thinking, ok, it has to be something with the power.

However, my PSU is 450 watts...and here's the specs for my computer:

3000+ amd 64
200gb hdd 16mb cache
GeForce FX5700LE
DVD-RW 4x
CD-RW 40x
2 led-lit fans
1 led-bar across the clear side panel

So....what I don't get is how these hardware specs are causing my system to reboot.

Before you say anything about the CD drives also, I tried it out with just my DVD drive plugged in, and it rebooted. I tried it with just the CD drive plugged in, and it rebooted. Every time I stick in a cd, regardless of what's happening, my computer shuts down.


The only thing I can rule out is possibly my PSU is faulty, but I just bought it 6 months ago...how could that be possible? Any suggestions?

[The Brain]

I agree with you that it is probably a power issue.. take a trip down to the local pc shop and pick up a new power supply for like $30

[biosninja]

get yourself one of these: True Power PSU

[B0bDole]

It's either A) bad drive, b)bad psu.
I don't remember ever seeing a bad drive restart a computer, so my educated guess says bad psu.

[ober]

I have to agree with the others... sounds like a PSU, and spinning up your drive is enough to overpower your rails.

I'm going to totally disagree with the following statement:
>>take a trip down to the local pc shop and pick up a new power supply for like $30

After going through 2 PSUs in the past 5 months, you'll save yourself some money by buying a decent PSU. Make sure your 12v rail has at least 22A or more, preferrably around 30A.

I have a similarly loaded system, and trust me, if you don't get a decent PSU now, you will keep burning through them.

I recommend http://www.pcpowercooling.com/produc...hp?show=S47ATX

I know it's a little expensive, but I spent $65 on a POS thermaltake and burnt through that one in about 2 months. That is the model I'm replacing my Thermaltake with. The guys at pcpowerandcooling are top notch and build quality stuff and always rank very high if not 1st in all the gamer mags for PSUs.

[B0bDole]

I agree with ober, and if the PSU is infact bad it may cause even more serious damage to the system. I've seen 10s of systems that the PSU burned up the mobo/proc/ram just from PSU failures, like the fan going dead, or just a messed up PSU. So be careful when purchasing one, spend a few extra bucks, power is important when it comes to electronics.

[jverkoey]

Alright, I'll just avoid using the cd drives until I get a new PSU then. Thanks for the link to that PSU Ober.

[Jez]

Sounds like PSU to me too. In my experience they often fail sooner than later, i.e. the most reliable one is something scavenged from a 486 a million years ago. Bear in mind that a dodgy PSU could fry your whole system if it fails, so I'd get a new one ASAP. Go for quality, not watts.
A standard 350W jobbie should be plenty for your system spec. I've run high power Athlon systems with RAID + multiple CD drives on 250W PSU with no trouble (although I wouldn't recommend this! - just making a point).

[Glirk Dient]

I am guessing your power supply is good on watts, but the rails are most likely unstable and you are overloading that particular rail when you add an extra component on it.

Go with a nice expensive PSU...this is the reason you don't go cheap when it comes to PSUs, make sure it has good rails above all, watts don't matter nearly as much, as you can see in this case.

Here are a few other links if you want to shop around or prefer newegg, or just for variety.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103488
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103464

This next one isn't as high quality but is definately good enough to run with a demanding system. It has blue LEDs so it looks nifty if you have a window, but if you don't care for looks go with one of the others mentioned in this thread.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103914

[jverkoey]

Alright, you're all talking about "rails" what are these exactly in relation to the PSU?

[no-one]

>System randomly shutting down

thats because it hates you and your doing bad things with it... they all either get into it and start doing it for you, or they turn against your evil.

as for good PSU's

Antec, or Stealth(Quiet Antecs, soooo nice with a seagate)... they make the best PSU's
Enermax is good... but the fans dont seem to last...

[ober]

I am guessing your power supply is good on watts, but the rails are most likely unstable and you are overloading that particular rail when you add an extra component on it.

Go with a nice expensive PSU...this is the reason you don't go cheap when it comes to PSUs, make sure it has good rails above all, watts don't matter nearly as much, as you can see in this case.

Here are a few other links if you want to shop around or prefer newegg, or just for variety.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103488
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103464

This next one isn't as high quality but is definately good enough to run with a demanding system. It has blue LEDs so it looks nifty if you have a window, but if you don't care for looks go with one of the others mentioned in this thread.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103914

I personally don't recommend Enermax PSUs, mainly because I haven't heard great things out of them, but of the 2, I'd take the first one.

The Antec barely squeaks by the current requirements for the processor you're running. I don't recommend that one at all.

None of them mention anything about smart fan control being built in or the use of Active PFC. You don't need either of these, but both could benefit your PC and the life of the PSU.

[Jez]

>Alright, you're all talking about "rails" what are these exactly in relation to the PSU?

Rails are the individual supply lines from the PSU to the mobo.

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[jverkoey]

Latest update:

I got a good PSU at 350W that's designed specifically for AMD boards, and well, I stuck in a cd and it didn't reboot and hasn't rebooted randomly yet.

The new problem is now my cd drive and dvd drive don't work at all. *sigh*

I stick in a cd to either drive, and it takes about 40 seconds to read it, and this test cd happened to be C&C Generals. So I tried running it, and it just freezes and crashes.

I can't win.

So then I tried burning a dvd, I opened up CDBurnerXP Pro, started burning a test dvd, and right away I get this bogus error:

Writing Error: (3) Error occurred writing data to disc.
Communications with drive unit failed (1003).
Error Sense Data: SENSE KEY: 4 ASC: 8 ASCQ: 3

[B0bDole]

The bad PSU might have ruined the drives, I'm not sure. Make sure all cables and jumpers are set correctly. If so, try sticking a different cd drive in there and if that works, then well, that sucks.