# Computer freezes due to bad power supply?



## weston_skye (May 20, 2012)

Sorry if this is very similar to other posts. I have done my research and I believe my problem is due to a bad power supply, but I just want to confirm since the one I bought is known for being very reliable.

I built my first computer about a year and a half ago, running Windows 7. Lately my computer has been freezing about once per day, with everything remaining on the screen and my mouse locked in place. The computer becomes completely unresponsive (mouse, keyboard, DVD drive, etc) until I cut the power and reboot. I have also noticed that either a fan or the hard drive spins quite rapidly when this occurs. I did not have this problem when I first built the computer, and from what I can tell the crashes have been more frequent in the last few months.

I originally thought it might be my hard drive, so I ran chkdsk /f and did not find any issues. My reliability history does not show any patterns suggesting that software is the issue. My event viewer, however, shows 40+ critical errors from Kernel-Power saying that "The system rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

Following advice from other posts I checked my voltages and temperatures. Here are the results from CPUID Hardware Monitor. The most glaring problem is unusual results for the +12V and -5V voltage readings. I am not sure what to make of it since my bios shows +12.302V for my +12V reading.








I also ran power supply / CPU / GPU tests from OCCT to check my voltages and temperatures. These plots show that my idle CPU temp is typically around 50-59 C (verified in BIOS) and when the voltage ramps up for 30-40 seconds to about +12V my CPUs reach 82-92 C. The test stops if the core temps exceed 85 C.















The only other possible issue that I can think of is that I may not have applied the paste quite right when mounting the CPUs. Could this also cause my problems?

Here are my computer specs. The power supply is supposed to be very good which is why I would be somewhat surprised if that caused the problem.
Power Supply: Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
Motherboard: Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4P LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I7860
GPU: Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100284L Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

My BIOS voltages and temps:
Vcore 1.220 V
SSR15V 1.584 V
+5V 5.107 V
+1V 12.302 V
Current system temp 32 C
Current CPU temp 63 C
Current CPU fan speed 2303 RPM


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## weston_skye (May 20, 2012)

Update - I took a multimeter to the power supply pins as discussed in this post:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f210/test-your-power-supply-with-a-multi-meter-151526.html

Here are the voltage results:
+3.3V +3.39V
+5V +5.15V
+12V +12.18V
-5V Missing because apparently -5V is not used anymore
-12 -12.27 V

All continuity PSU connections were correct except for the orange +3.3V connections. They were reading 30-35 ohms. According to the guide any wires less than 50 ohms are potential problems.

I did not check the motherboard for continuity because I did not want to remove the CPU yet (are there alternative ways to test the motherboard?)


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