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February 5th, 2007 22:00

Power supply problem?

I have a really annoying power problem.About 3 weeks ago,I came home from work,to find an amber blinking light coming from the power button.My Dimension 8300 would not turn on.A few hours later,it worked fine,but not even 5 minutes later turned itself off.Same problem after that,the amber light would blink,and it would not work.I call Dell,and went through some steps to find the problem.The tech told me to pull out all the cables from the drives and cards,and test to see if we could narrow down the problem.Anyway,she said my problem was a power supply problem or a motherboard problem.I had ordered a power supply from Dell(they shipped me 2)installed one and got the amber light again.After switching the power selector in back of the power supply,over and back again,bingo,it worked.Now all of a sudden,2days later my PC will only turn on at times like before,and it shuts off right after loading to the desktop.Today is the first time it has worked in a day or 2. Please help.I use my PC for work and need to get this fixed. Specs:Intel P4 HT 3.0GHz 1024 mem 200 gig HD ATI radeon 9800 pro 128

13 Posts

February 5th, 2007 22:00

rk3004,
 
Sorry for your troubles. Theres not too much defintite I can suggest as these are typical symptoms of many different problems...but I do think its safe to say that your problem does not lie with the PSU in itself.
 
Next usual step in this situation is to check the motherboard for any signs of physical damage and to ensure that all cards are properly seated.
 
If the problem still persists then a typical cause of these symptoms is a failing CPU fan. Your computer is primed to shut off if the CPU begins to overheat...the solution here is a new fan. This would be a nice cheap and quick answer to your troubles.
 
If this isn't the problem however, you could find yourself systematically changing hardware to pinpoint the problem (eg is it a failing harddrive? an overheating graphics card?..etc..etc) Worst case scenario is that it is your mobo and you'll only find this out by eliminating all the other hardware.
 
Hope this helps in some little way.
 

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