Computer shutting off?

[Deneb]

Guys, i'm having the worst of luck here with my computer!

I formatted a computer of mine and got it set up for recording.

I have installed on it, Cool Edit Pro 2K, Windows XP SP1, at first a Geforce FX5900 gainward card, but now a Geforce FX5500.

The vid card swap story. I've got a high wattage power supply, to supply the juice to the gainward. The powersupply is loud, so I don't want it. I take it out, put in a 250W supply, take out an extra cd drive, the floppy drive, and 2 extra network cards, thinking that would take the power draw down low enough for it to work.

Well..., it did! So I thought.

I turned on cool edit pro 2000 today, started to record, and the computer just restarted. Said I had a huge error, and gave me numbers as the error, and microsofts database ain't sayin' shit about those numbers.

So I thought, oh...probably just bnecause I installed Line6 PODXT Live drivers.

Again, restart. 3 more times. I go, okay maybe it's too much power draw with the video card afterall.

I put the 5500XT into it, and go to start up the recording software, restarts again.

Does anyone have any idea what the hell is up here? Should I nuke the drive and reinstall everything again? Any ideas?

[Cygnus X1]

Sorry to say, I think the power supply is insufficient.
I'm running a good quality ( I forget the brand name, I paid 120+ US Dollars for it) PS, 400 watts, and my mysterious reboot problems disappeared.
I was at the point of thinking my mainboard was bad before I replaced the PS.
Try to get your money back, and get a good quality one.

[marcus]

Well, taking out unused floppy and cd drives, and unused network cards is going to save you pretty much nothing in terms of power. If you weren't getting enough power before removing these things, that is probably still the problem. 250 W is not a very big power supply these days.

[Deneb]

I took out the higher draw video card, and put in the 5500, which takes a lot less to run.

It has ran fine in this configureation before.

[Deneb]

I believe i've ruled out the ram, because typically when one stick is bad, it's not just with one application, it's with anything memory intensive.

I don't think it's the mainboard, because I don't see running a specific application doing that.

I'm stumped beyond that though,.

[DrDoug]

Yup, taking out that stuff saves very little as they use most of their power when being accesses/used. Most newer P4 (and up) systems (good ones) use at least a 300 watt ps. I have a 550 watt ThermalTake in mine now. Lots of juice and quiet to boot.

Edit:To add that I put it in because my 300 watt unit was not enough for my hardware. It ran fine for a while, but when I loaded it up with anything heavy, it would crash. The new ps solved the problem.

[Cygnus X1]

To be more accurate, power supply problems can show up as ram trouble, OS problems, slow spinning up of CD or DVD drives, MB overheating (low current and or voltage is bad for mainboard power stages), and many other assorted issues, none of which seem to make sense.
I bought two Asus mainboards, four years ago, and loaded them up with the same type CPU's, memory, and video cards and drives. One repeatedly failed, one ran fine. So, after screwing around with things long enough, I took the suspected faulty board back to the retailer. He hooked it up, ran fine. Even this experienced genius didn't figure it out. So, I stuffed it away for a year, and when I went it the other one to do annual cleanup and maintenance, I said, let me try that other one. Guess what, it worked.
Took the first one that never showed a problem and put it in the other case. It worked, for a while, then gave errors, BSOD, etc. I saw some power supplies on sale, bought one, put it in the questionable PC, and not only did the MB come back to life, clean, but a DVD player I had given up on miraculously started working again. You be the judge.
Get a quality PS. Wattage ratings don't mean squat if you aren't getting "clean" power. A good 350 watt will outperform a budget 500 watt.
If that doesn't cut it, change out the memory. I've seen strange things happen from cheap memory sticks, too.

[Deneb]

This configuration ran 100% just fine before, no problems what-so-ever.

I'm leaning away from the Power supply.

Here's the computer, as it stands.
DVD burner
Geforce FX 5500
Pen 4 2.0
1 gig of ram, 2 sticks, matched pair
80gig hd

This set up ran forever. No problems.

The problem?

When I use my POD XT Live with Cool Edit Pro 2K, as soon as I click to record the 2nd track, the computer restarts. It works in every single other aspect.

[Deneb]

The ram is Kingston

[Cygnus X1]

Logic 101. What was the major component you changed, because you stated it was too noisy?
And now look at the symptoms.
I am afraid you don't want to admit what the problem is.

[442w30]

Is it rebooting or bluescreening? You may just have a bad stick of RAM or something and your system is set to rebooton BSOD.

If it isn't set this way already, right click on "My computer" then go to the "Advanced" tab. Then click on the "Settings" button in the "startup and recovery" box. uncheck "Automatically restart" in the "system failure" area.

After it fails next time, you should get a good old BSOD instead of a reboot, but it might help you isolate the bad part.

[Deneb]

CygnusX1, I appreciate your help, but either A; I'm being unclear, or B; you're just not paying attention.

Please read what happened.

I had a Gainward FX 5900 XT card in it, with a larger power supply that is loud. I took out the compents, that brought the current draw DOWN on the computer, so I could run it with a 250W (turned out it's 300W anyway).

That said, I tried my recording software, and it started rebooting.

So I thought, maybe there's too much power draw, and I put it to a configuration that I KNOW works, and has worked for years in the past.

Geforce FX5500, instead of the gainward 5900. The physical difference in these cards is tremendous, and I'm sure the power usage is there too.

Anyway, still have the problem, so now, since my last post, I put the larger, louder power supply back in...and it so happens that it did it again.

BCCode : 7f BCP1 : 0000000D BCP2 : 00000000 BCP3 : 00000000
BCP4 : 00000000 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 0_0 Product : 768_1

Those are the error codes.

I'll be my gear, that's it's not a power supply. After the 300W (which I don't know why I thought was 250w) and this other, louder supply. I still have the same problem.

442, I'll check that setting, and change it to see what happens.

[Deneb]

Also Cygnus, I apologize for sounding brash, or harsh. I'm just really frustrated. All I wanted to do tonight is record some jams before Nip/Tuck. It's like, bleh who wants to foul with computer parts! Haha

[Cygnus X1]

Yup. I missed the part where you replaced the new, insufficent power supply, with the old, insufficient power supply. Sorry. I'm done here.

[DrDoug]

At least you eliminated that variable. Have you done anything (hardware or software wise) with your system lately? How is the system cooling, and does your BIOS show your CPU temp in it? About the only thing you can do in examining the motherboard is to check for bad (visually) caps. I have come across some systems that had bulging tops on their caps. If the cap is aluminum, it degrades slowly, and if it is tantalum, it will maintain a good charge until the day it fails.

Any odd processes running in your Task Manager? I am about tapped out after that. Good luck!