Windows 10: PSU failing?

Hi all.

Within the past few days my Acer here has been faltering. First it started with my monitor. While rebooting it posts, the BIOS screen appears then the monitor shuts off. It boots up fully, but I needed to turn the monitor off and back on. With each added day I need to turn it off and back on more and more. I'm up to 15 to 20 times before it stays on. It starts out dim then gets brighter with each time. It flickers a little too before remaining on.

I thought ok, the monitor or graphics chip is going out, for after all it is 8 years old. But then today I goes to try and make a bootable ISO thumb drive with Rufus to load 10 with and that failed with a warning that the formatting process failed. Fat32 is the default for the drive and Rufus is performing NTFS. I thinks ok, I bought the wrong kind of thumb drive?

I scrapped that and went to my optical drive to burn to a DVD. That returns an error code 0xc0aa0301, of which is a faulty hardware problem.

So I started thinking that what are the odds of all this going wrong all at once? PSU comes to mind. Am I thinking right? If so, can it be tested with a volt meter? I would think it puts out different voltage for different peripherals?

Edit:

The optical drive reads and plays music & video media and reads files on all ready formatted/made DVDs, but it just blinks when I put a blank DVD in. Strange.

:)

 

Error: "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" on Windows 10

so it is not a PSU problem ? because I have heard that karnel problems because of the PSU

 

Since Win10 PC freezes and black screen in certain games but not graphic intense other ones

Some update.

I've replaced the PSU on the weekend as planned. The game I had the black screen/dead PC every few minutes into starting it had an update at the same time. At least Sunday it ran smoothly for hours. Not sure if it was the patch or the PSU.

Another game I had infrequently the same problems in full screen (but not in window mode) I had no issues Sunday since replacing the PSU. No patch there but I had no time yesterday, not convinced yet it was enough time to assess if the problem is really
gone for this one too.

After going over the readings from HWinfo with the old PSU and the new PSU I realized that the readings are not 100% identical, the old PSU was always a bit below 3.3V - not a lot but 3.292V usually. The new PSU is at 3.31V mostly.

Not sure if that indeed could make such a difference but since the 3.3V rail supplies the graphic card too ...?

 

Sure you can but it is tedious. I would suggest to get a power supply tester.
Amazon.com: 1.8" Digital Readout LCD Display 20+4-Pin Power Supply Tester With 8/6/4-Pin Connectors - Retail Packaged: Computers & Accessories

 

Thanks for that. *Smile

Do you think I'm thinking right that it's the PSU?

 

I will concure that the PSU has a high chance of being bad.

 

Hi Tony. As an Electronics engineer I can say without doubt the PSU is failing. Most likely this will be a relatively low power output device such as 300 W.Hopefully it is a normal ATX type as you can replace it yourself easily. All the symptoms, trying to burn DVD, formating USB etc will cause this. Eventually it won't boot and could crash and cause damage. Replace ASAP.

 

Did the PSU come with the PC?

If so, I really wouldn't be surprised if the PSU is going bad, Acer doesn't really have a great reputation. *Wink

 

Thanks, guys. *Smile

This Acer has been a good machine. Never any problems with it. A PSU isn't that expensive.

Yes, it's a standard 250 watt PSU. Have been thinking about upgrading and installing a video card for more dedicated memory and to multi monitor. Wanting to get a touch screen. One of the reasons why I bought this Acer at the time was that it is expandable. And luckily 8.x ran great on it. From what I've read, 10 will also.

Therefore, I will probably get a higher watt PSU to do so, yes? I'll have to research these peripherals to see how big. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

From what I've heard, some are good and some are bad. Guess you got a good one! *Wink

Just to point you in the right direction, think Corsair or Seasonic. *Smile

 

Thanks, Chuck. Yes, like anything else sometimes we get a lemon. *Sad

I'll be researching and start another thread as to what I'm doing to make sure I get it right.

I'll mark this solved. I guess I'll have to postpone 10 for awhile to stay off this machine. *Sad

 

If I got right manual: Acer Aspire T690 Service Manual (Page 65 of 82) PSU is of normal standard ATX type and could be switched without trouble. As you are contemplating of upgrading video card, may I suggest you decide which one it's going to be first before PSU. There's wide range of GPUs out there with many different power requirements ranging from GPUs that do not need extra power connectors ( for PCIex up to 75W) to ones that need a LOT of power to run. Judging by the rest of system there's no need for anything powerful. AMD R7 250 ( AMD Radeon ) would be maximum economical to get. it does ot require extra power from PSU either. If you are not doing to complicated 3D stuff or playing "power" of the GPU is not that important, most of GPUs, even best and most expensive ones run 2d at same speed of 300 - 400 MHz and only memory speed (DDR3 or DDR5 ) on them can make a difference. Newest ones with DirectX 12 support, Dx 12 support would be preferable.

 

Thanks for that input and info, Count. Most kind of you to take that time to consider and research. *Smile

What I'll do is to start another thread and link it here. I'll title it "HG's PC upgrade".

 

OK. should get more opinions like that.

 

The new link: https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-and...tml#post151348