Enchantermon on 7/12/2010 at 00:41
Here's an odd one. My parents have a Gateway that's fairly old; 2002 or so, I think. Possibly older. It has XP Home Edition. Recently, on occasion, when they try to bring it out of hibernation, it gets power for about a second, then shuts off and refuses to come back on. If we let it sit for a few minutes, then come back and try it again, it will power on fine.
No big software changes have been made recently; it's usually just used for Freecell, e-mail and accessing old files. The only hardware change made to it was a stick of RAM I added, but that was back in September and this problem started withing the last couple of weeks. It can't be overheating; the case has two out fans and never gets overly warm, and after hibernating it would have cooled down anyway.
I'm beginning to suspect that the power supply may finally be dying, but I've never heard of one doing this before, so I wanted to get some other opinions as well. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Al_B on 7/12/2010 at 07:51
How far through the boot process does it get when it shuts down? The first second of coming out of hibernation should be the same as turning on from a full shutdown so do you get the same effect if it has been turned off?
My first hunch would also be the power supply tripping but why it would only do it when starting from hibernation is a bit of a puzzle.
Enchantermon on 7/12/2010 at 17:10
It doesn't get through any of it. As soon as the power button is pushed to bring it out of hibernation, it powers up and immediately down. The only reason I know it gets power at all is because the fans get just enough to try to start turning before it's cut off.
Also, I tried turning it on this morning from being shut down and the only thing that happened was the power button lit up. Nothing else; no fans, no hard drive, nothing.
ffox on 7/12/2010 at 19:21
I had exactly the same problem a couple of years ago. It only happened when the PC had been in hibernation long enough to get stone cold, eg overnight.
Putting in a new (more powerful) PSU cured it.
Enchantermon on 7/12/2010 at 19:30
Yeah...my dad just tried it again and he said it came on for about 45 seconds before it shut off again. So it's definitely sounding like a dying PSU.
lost_soul on 9/12/2010 at 19:45
I would just buy a cheap $26 power supply. My step-dad had an old Celery CPU machine with half a gig of RAM from 2004. The light would just blink when you tried to turn it on. The cheap power supply solved the problem. It isn't worth spending $40+ on such an old machine to get a high-end PSU. I must admit I was nervous though because the replacement one we got has very thin wires and is very light.
It claims to be 380 watts, which I honestly doubt, but he isn't going to be pushing it very hard with that old machine and its onboard video anyway.
Enchantermon on 9/12/2010 at 21:05
Is that really safe, though? If a power supply dies, it can potentially take everything else with it, right?
Enchantermon on 9/12/2010 at 23:34
Wow. They don't really need a new computer (though I wouldn't be opposed to it; theirs is slow as molasses, even with the extra RAM I put in a month or two ago) though, just a new power supply. I might try to talk them into it anyway, though; at least it'll give me a reason to reinstall the OS, which hasn't been done since the computer arrived at our door in 2003. But since they don't use it for much to begin with...
At any rate, I'll look into Nupower as well. Thanks. :)
june gloom on 10/12/2010 at 07:58
Just FYI don't ever buy Coolmax either. EVERRRR
