Head-Scratcher
Golly this group has gone quiet lately. This has always been my go-to
place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit. I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time. I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows? I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out. I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started. And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off. Then back on, then off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off. And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha! So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila! Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had. Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk. Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good. But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead. Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again. It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer. It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off. Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off. And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop. Just cycling on/off/on/off. So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off. Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again. Pushed the button...power went off. Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on. And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts. Case power button? I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning. I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button. Motherboard? Possibly. Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days. I may have to use Newegg or Amazon. But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas? Ever experienced anything like this yourself? -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog |
Head-Scratcher
On Thu, 12 Apr 2018 10:12:36 -0500, Bill Anderson
wrote: Golly this group has gone quiet lately. This has always been my go-to place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit. I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time. I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows? I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out. I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started. And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off. Then back on, then off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off. And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha! So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila! Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had. Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk. Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good. But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead. Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again. It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer. It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off. Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off. And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop. Just cycling on/off/on/off. So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off. Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again. Pushed the button...power went off. Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on. And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts. Case power button? I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning. I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button. Motherboard? Possibly. Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days. I may have to use Newegg or Amazon. But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas? Ever experienced anything like this yourself? Next time you wonder if you are having a hardware or a software problem, just boot the system with a Linux Live-CD. You don't need to install it. If the computer crashes, as it did in Windows, it's almost certainly a hardware problem. You wasted too much time installing and updating Win 10. (still trying to figure out why you would give a PC with Win 10 installed to a charity - it'll probably be root-kitted in a very short time, and they'll lose all their cash after some ransomware is installed intentionally or unintentionally by the third parties that have access to it). HTH []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
Head-Scratcher
Bill Anderson wrote:
Golly this group has gone quiet lately. This has always been my go-to place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit. I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time. I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows? I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out. I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started. And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off. Then back on, then off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off. And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha! So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila! Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had. Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk. Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good. But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead. Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again. It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer. It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off. Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off. And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop. Just cycling on/off/on/off. So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off. Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again. Pushed the button...power went off. Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on. And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts. Case power button? I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning. I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button. Motherboard? Possibly. Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days. I may have to use Newegg or Amazon. But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas? Ever experienced anything like this yourself? In a traditional era, computers had two buttons on the front. A NO (Normally Open) RESET button which momentarily closes. A NO (Normally Open) POWER button which momentarily closes. In an emergency, you can go to the PANEL header, remove the two wires of the POWER button and move the RESET button wires to where the POWER button would normally go. Then, use the RESET button to start the machine. (Leaving you for the moment, with no functional RESET button.) Alternately, if you keep a couple spare normally open switches with twisted wire pair on hand, you can plug one of those in, to take the place of the POWER button. This covers cases where the POWER button got crushed. You can also start or reset a motherboard, by removing the sets of wires, and using a screwdriver tip, *but* that takes a steady hand and very good eyesight. It's fine to be doing that if a motherboard is sitting flat on your bench for testing. Not a good idea if the motherboard remains inside the case. Too hard to see in there. ******* THERMTRIP will turn off the power. I don't think it's supposed to turn on like that again right after a THERMTRIP event. It should take a button push. However, there is a BIOS setting on some machines, which "restores power state to previous" after a power loss. Perhaps the restored power after an event, is caused by the choice of BIOS setting. I usually leave my machine set to "remain OFF after power is restored". If the motherboard VCore that powers the processor trips on OCP (over current), the motherboard should definitely stay off until you turn the power switch on the back to OFF for 30 seconds, then turn it ON again. And then the front power button will attempt to work again. Those don't seem to trigger all that often. A "famous" one used to trip, when a certain motherboard model was combined with a certain Antec with "slow" 12V power rail. But other than that, the motherboard is just as likely to "char" all around the socket, as it is to properly shut down on a VCore short. Don't forget to inspect for bad caps. Asus is not known for epidemic proportions on those, but it still happens in a small percentage of cases. As a counterpoint, there was one Dell machine, where the motherboard was virtually guaranteed to fail (getting close to 100% failure rate after a number of years). And for a situation like that, it's not even safe to get a used motherboard off Ebay (at least, unless the seller claims it's been re-capped, which would add $50 or more to the price in effect). Use the "normal level of suspicion" about electrolytic caps (the ones with the "X" or "K" cut in the top). The polymer caps with the "solid dome" and no X or K, don't have quite the same failure modes. ******* You can look through the posts in the VIP forum for evidence of a "themed failure". http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...nguag e=en-us Paul |
Head-Scratcher
On 4/12/2018 3:44 PM, Shadow wrote:
On Thu, 12 Apr 2018 10:12:36 -0500, Bill Anderson wrote: Golly this group has gone quiet lately. This has always been my go-to place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit. I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time. I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows? I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out. I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started. And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off. Then back on, then off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off. And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha! So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila! Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had. Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk. Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good. But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead. Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again. It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer. It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off. Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off. And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop. Just cycling on/off/on/off. So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off. Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again. Pushed the button...power went off. Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on. And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts. Case power button? I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning. I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button. Motherboard? Possibly. Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days. I may have to use Newegg or Amazon. But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas? Ever experienced anything like this yourself? Next time you wonder if you are having a hardware or a software problem, just boot the system with a Linux Live-CD. You don't need to install it. If the computer crashes, as it did in Windows, it's almost certainly a hardware problem. You wasted too much time installing and updating Win 10. (still trying to figure out why you would give a PC with Win 10 installed to a charity - it'll probably be root-kitted in a very short time, and they'll lose all their cash after some ransomware is installed intentionally or unintentionally by the third parties that have access to it). HTH []'s Thanks so much for expressing your opinions! -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog |
Head-Scratcher
On 4/12/2018 4:06 PM, Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote: Golly this group has gone quiet lately.Â* This has always been my go-to place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit. I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time.Â* I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows?Â* I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out. Â*I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started.Â* And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off.Â* Then back on, thenÂ* off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off.Â* And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha!Â* So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila!Â* Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had.Â* Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk.Â* Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good.Â* But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead.Â* Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again.Â* It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer.Â* It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off.Â* Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off.Â* And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop.Â* Just cycling on/off/on/off.Â* So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off.Â* Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again.Â* Pushed the button...power went off. Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on.Â* And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts.Â* Case power button?Â* I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning.Â* I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button.Â* Motherboard?Â* Possibly.Â* Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days.Â* I may have to use Newegg or Amazon.Â* But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas?Â* Ever experienced anything like this yourself? In a traditional era, computers had two buttons on the front. A NO (Normally Open) RESET button which momentarily closes. A NO (Normally Open) POWER button which momentarily closes. In an emergency, you can go to the PANEL header, remove the two wires of the POWER button and move the RESET button wires to where the POWER button would normally go. Then, use the RESET button to start the machine. (Leaving you for the moment, with no functional RESET button.) Alternately, if you keep a couple spare normally open switches with twisted wire pair on hand, you can plug one of those in, to take the place of the POWER button. This covers cases where the POWER button got crushed. You can also start or reset a motherboard, by removing the sets of wires, and using a screwdriver tip, *but* that takes a steady hand and very good eyesight. It's fine to be doing that if a motherboard is sitting flat on your bench for testing. Not a good idea if the motherboard remains inside the case. Too hard to see in there. ******* THERMTRIP will turn off the power. I don't think it's supposed to turn on like that again right after a THERMTRIP event. It should take a button push. However, there is a BIOS setting on some machines, which "restores power state to previous" after a power loss. Perhaps the restored power after an event, is caused by the choice of BIOS setting. I usually leave my machine set to "remain OFF after power is restored". If the motherboard VCore that powers the processor trips on OCP (over current), the motherboard should definitely stay off until you turn the power switch on the back to OFF for 30 seconds, then turn it ON again.Â* And then the front power button will attempt to work again. Those don't seem to trigger all that often. A "famous" one used to trip, when a certain motherboard model was combined with a certain Antec with "slow" 12V power rail. But other than that, the motherboard is just as likely to "char" all around the socket, as it is to properly shut down on a VCore short. Don't forget to inspect for bad caps. Asus is not known for epidemic proportions on those, but it still happens in a small percentage of cases. As a counterpoint, there was one Dell machine, where the motherboard was virtually guaranteed to fail (getting close to 100% failure rate after a number of years). And for a situation like that, it's not even safe to get a used motherboard off Ebay (at least, unless the seller claims it's been re-capped, which would add $50 or more to the price in effect). Use the "normal level of suspicion" about electrolytic caps (the ones with the "X" or "K" cut in the top). The polymer caps with the "solid dome" and no X or K, don't have quite the same failure modes. ******* You can look through the posts in the VIP forum for evidence of a "themed failure". http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...nguag e=en-us Â*Â* Paul Thanks for the ideas, Paul. I've ordered a new PS from Amazon -- nothing too expensive, not a PC Power and Cooling model, but something more suited for the MBO than what I have in it now. The P5Q Pro Turbo has an 8-pin 12v socket which is only half used by the current PS, which has only a 4-pin 12v plug. But it worked when I first tried it in 2013 and it's worked ever since, so I haven't worried about the empty spots on the socket. But I figured if I were going to get a new PS I might as well get 8 pins. It was the way it was behaving this morning that persuaded me the case power button wasn't the culprit. No amount of tapping around the button can set off the problem. In fact, I have no idea how to duplicate the problem. But I suppose if I install a new PS and the problem recurs, I'll be looking at that button next. And this not being the good old traditional days, there is no "reset" button on the case. In fact, the computer has been running basically nonstop all day today and after the initial misbehavior this morning, I've had no power problems whatsoever. I did manage to get the fresh new Win10 installation backed up today using my Acronis boot disk. There were no problems at all with that today. If it was the contents of the HDD I was backing up yesterday that was causing the power to die during a backup, well, clearly I know a lot less about how all this works than I thought I did. Why would Acronis True Image care what 0s and 1s it was backing up? Makes no sense to me still, but the backup ran fine this afternoon so I guess I should just be happy. I don't see any swollen caps, and I couldn't find anything in BIOS regarding restarts after power failure. So I'm setting it all aside now that it's backed up, and I'll wait for Amazon Prime to deliver the new PS on Monday. I'll come back here to report the results. Many thanks as always. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog |
Head-Scratcher
Bill Anderson wrote:
On 4/12/2018 4:06 PM, Paul wrote: Bill Anderson wrote: Golly this group has gone quiet lately. This has always been my go-to place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit. I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time. I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows? I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out. I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started. And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off. Then back on, then off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off. And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha! So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila! Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had. Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk. Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good. But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead. Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again. It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer. It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off. Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off. And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop. Just cycling on/off/on/off. So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off. Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again. Pushed the button...power went off. Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on. And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts. Case power button? I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning. I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button. Motherboard? Possibly. Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days. I may have to use Newegg or Amazon. But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas? Ever experienced anything like this yourself? In a traditional era, computers had two buttons on the front. A NO (Normally Open) RESET button which momentarily closes. A NO (Normally Open) POWER button which momentarily closes. In an emergency, you can go to the PANEL header, remove the two wires of the POWER button and move the RESET button wires to where the POWER button would normally go. Then, use the RESET button to start the machine. (Leaving you for the moment, with no functional RESET button.) Alternately, if you keep a couple spare normally open switches with twisted wire pair on hand, you can plug one of those in, to take the place of the POWER button. This covers cases where the POWER button got crushed. You can also start or reset a motherboard, by removing the sets of wires, and using a screwdriver tip, *but* that takes a steady hand and very good eyesight. It's fine to be doing that if a motherboard is sitting flat on your bench for testing. Not a good idea if the motherboard remains inside the case. Too hard to see in there. ******* THERMTRIP will turn off the power. I don't think it's supposed to turn on like that again right after a THERMTRIP event. It should take a button push. However, there is a BIOS setting on some machines, which "restores power state to previous" after a power loss. Perhaps the restored power after an event, is caused by the choice of BIOS setting. I usually leave my machine set to "remain OFF after power is restored". If the motherboard VCore that powers the processor trips on OCP (over current), the motherboard should definitely stay off until you turn the power switch on the back to OFF for 30 seconds, then turn it ON again. And then the front power button will attempt to work again. Those don't seem to trigger all that often. A "famous" one used to trip, when a certain motherboard model was combined with a certain Antec with "slow" 12V power rail. But other than that, the motherboard is just as likely to "char" all around the socket, as it is to properly shut down on a VCore short. Don't forget to inspect for bad caps. Asus is not known for epidemic proportions on those, but it still happens in a small percentage of cases. As a counterpoint, there was one Dell machine, where the motherboard was virtually guaranteed to fail (getting close to 100% failure rate after a number of years). And for a situation like that, it's not even safe to get a used motherboard off Ebay (at least, unless the seller claims it's been re-capped, which would add $50 or more to the price in effect). Use the "normal level of suspicion" about electrolytic caps (the ones with the "X" or "K" cut in the top). The polymer caps with the "solid dome" and no X or K, don't have quite the same failure modes. ******* You can look through the posts in the VIP forum for evidence of a "themed failure". http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...nguag e=en-us Paul Thanks for the ideas, Paul. I've ordered a new PS from Amazon -- nothing too expensive, not a PC Power and Cooling model, but something more suited for the MBO than what I have in it now. The P5Q Pro Turbo has an 8-pin 12v socket which is only half used by the current PS, which has only a 4-pin 12v plug. But it worked when I first tried it in 2013 and it's worked ever since, so I haven't worried about the empty spots on the socket. But I figured if I were going to get a new PS I might as well get 8 pins. It was the way it was behaving this morning that persuaded me the case power button wasn't the culprit. No amount of tapping around the button can set off the problem. In fact, I have no idea how to duplicate the problem. But I suppose if I install a new PS and the problem recurs, I'll be looking at that button next. And this not being the good old traditional days, there is no "reset" button on the case. In fact, the computer has been running basically nonstop all day today and after the initial misbehavior this morning, I've had no power problems whatsoever. I did manage to get the fresh new Win10 installation backed up today using my Acronis boot disk. There were no problems at all with that today. If it was the contents of the HDD I was backing up yesterday that was causing the power to die during a backup, well, clearly I know a lot less about how all this works than I thought I did. Why would Acronis True Image care what 0s and 1s it was backing up? Makes no sense to me still, but the backup ran fine this afternoon so I guess I should just be happy. I don't see any swollen caps, and I couldn't find anything in BIOS regarding restarts after power failure. So I'm setting it all aside now that it's backed up, and I'll wait for Amazon Prime to deliver the new PS on Monday. I'll come back here to report the results. Many thanks as always. To do a test of a PSU, you can get yourself a "PS_ON adapter", which shorts #PS_ON to GND and that causes the PSU and fan to run. Normally, I connect some electrical loads while testing. This is for standalone PSU testing, without any electrical connection to a motherboard. If it ran for a couple hours, without shutting off, I might conclude it's OK. I use cement resistors for loading the PSU. https://www.amazon.com/Uxcell-a11101.../dp/B01149WHOM They consist of a ceramic shell, and the resistor element inside is covered in some sort of fusible material. I think if it gets hot enough, it might melt. I usually point a fan at them to reduce their surface temperature. You have to work out the resistance value you want, before shopping, and decide how many resistors to use, how many watts to dump and so on. And that's a basic way of loading down a PSU. For example, a 5V rail, with a 2 ohm resistor, is 5/2 = 2.5amps 5V*2.5A = 12.5W. If I get four 2 ohm 10W resistors and do a series parallel network, I can handle the 12.5W over four resistors with ease. That's the kind of simple Ohms law arithmetic involved. +--- 2 ----+ +--- 2 ----+ A 2 ohm 40W resistor made ---+ +--+ +--- out of four 2 ohm 10W resistors. +--- 2 ----+ +--- 2 ----+ I could also do the same thing with 1/4W carbon composition resistors, but I'd need boxes of them and a large roll of solder. It would look pretty though. And if you like to recycle or use old heatsinks from your collection, this format of load resistor can be used, with a little thermal paste on the bottom to sink into some old aluminum heatsink you've got. https://www.mouser.com/search/refine...&Ntt=177068861 On modern dual forward conversion supplies ("80+ type"), you might want to load a minimum of two rails. When converters have multiple outputs, you can save a little money on cement resistors by not loading everything. I think I have at least one resistor for each rail on mine. ------- main -----+------ +12V === load here | +--- 3.3V/5V converter --- 5V === load a rail here --- 3.3V Just to give some ideas how the newer 80+ generation might be treated. Rails like -12V are weak, so I don't put a huge load on them. I think I used a 50 ohm cement for that one, which is 0.25A and close to the 0.3A limit printed on the label on the side of the supply. On modern motherboards, the actual load is the loading of a single TI 75232 RS232 chip for a serial port. So probably 0.05A or less. The time constant of your on-off behavior, doesn't sound like thermal cutoff on the PSU, but what do I know. Usually a PSU gets blazing hot if there's trouble, and it takes a bit of time before it cools enough for more "antics". Regular cycling in the 1-2 second range, suggests a control problem somewhere. Not a thermal limiter. Paul |
Head-Scratcher
On 4/13/2018 12:45 AM, Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote: On 4/12/2018 4:06 PM, Paul wrote: Bill Anderson wrote: Golly this group has gone quiet lately.Â* This has always been my go-to place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here? About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit.Â* I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use when I'm not around, which is most of the time.Â* I think it's seldom used that way, but who knows?Â* I'm not around most of the time. The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting out.Â* I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started.Â* And as Win10 was loading, the power cut off.Â* Then back on, thenÂ* off...so I brought the thing home to work on it. At first it powered right up, then the power cut off.Â* And then I noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha!Â* So I fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila! Problem solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued. As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older version with an apology that the update had failed. So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology. Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems on 32 gigabytes of RAM. All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back up what I had.Â* Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk.Â* Didn't boot Windows--booted from CD and so far, so good.Â* But after setting up the backup parameters and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap, the computer power went off. Dead.Â* Just like that. But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went off again.Â* It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning. So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer.Â* It was a fresh install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted -- nothing left over on the hard drive. And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this morning where I left off.Â* Just a few more programs to get right, and I can take this thing back to the nonprofit. And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at most a second and a half, then went off.Â* And as I stood there looking at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and again...this wasn't going to stop.Â* Just cycling on/off/on/off. So I pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped with power off.Â* Then I pushed the button again and the power came on and the cycling started again.Â* Pushed the button...power went off.Â* Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on.Â* And it has remained on with no problems at all for about the past hour. So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking place well before the computer even posts.Â* Case power button?Â* I no longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and power up this morning.Â* I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in BIOS...not that button.Â* Motherboard?Â* Possibly.Â* Loose cable? Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system. Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all. I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though things like that are getting harder to find locally these days.Â* I may have to use Newegg or Amazon.Â* But I'd hate to buy a new power supply only to learn it was something else. Ideas?Â* Ever experienced anything like this yourself? In a traditional era, computers had two buttons on the front. A NO (Normally Open) RESET button which momentarily closes. A NO (Normally Open) POWER button which momentarily closes. In an emergency, you can go to the PANEL header, remove the two wires of the POWER button and move the RESET button wires to where the POWER button would normally go. Then, use the RESET button to start the machine. (Leaving you for the moment, with no functional RESET button.) Alternately, if you keep a couple spare normally open switches with twisted wire pair on hand, you can plug one of those in, to take the place of the POWER button. This covers cases where the POWER button got crushed. You can also start or reset a motherboard, by removing the sets of wires, and using a screwdriver tip, *but* that takes a steady hand and very good eyesight. It's fine to be doing that if a motherboard is sitting flat on your bench for testing. Not a good idea if the motherboard remains inside the case. Too hard to see in there. ******* THERMTRIP will turn off the power. I don't think it's supposed to turn on like that again right after a THERMTRIP event. It should take a button push. However, there is a BIOS setting on some machines, which "restores power state to previous" after a power loss. Perhaps the restored power after an event, is caused by the choice of BIOS setting. I usually leave my machine set to "remain OFF after power is restored". If the motherboard VCore that powers the processor trips on OCP (over current), the motherboard should definitely stay off until you turn the power switch on the back to OFF for 30 seconds, then turn it ON again.Â* And then the front power button will attempt to work again. Those don't seem to trigger all that often. A "famous" one used to trip, when a certain motherboard model was combined with a certain Antec with "slow" 12V power rail. But other than that, the motherboard is just as likely to "char" all around the socket, as it is to properly shut down on a VCore short. Don't forget to inspect for bad caps. Asus is not known for epidemic proportions on those, but it still happens in a small percentage of cases. As a counterpoint, there was one Dell machine, where the motherboard was virtually guaranteed to fail (getting close to 100% failure rate after a number of years). And for a situation like that, it's not even safe to get a used motherboard off Ebay (at least, unless the seller claims it's been re-capped, which would add $50 or more to the price in effect). Use the "normal level of suspicion" about electrolytic caps (the ones with the "X" or "K" cut in the top). The polymer caps with the "solid dome" and no X or K, don't have quite the same failure modes. ******* You can look through the posts in the VIP forum for evidence of a "themed failure". http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...nguag e=en-us Â*Â*Â* Paul Thanks for the ideas, Paul.Â* I've ordered a new PS from Amazon -- nothing too expensive, not a PC Power and Cooling model, but something more suited for the MBO than what I have in it now.Â* The P5Q Pro Turbo has an 8-pin 12v socket which is only half used by the current PS, which has only a 4-pin 12v plug.Â* But it worked when I first tried it in 2013 and it's worked ever since, so I haven't worried about the empty spots on the socket.Â* But I figured if I were going to get a new PS I might as well get 8 pins. It was the way it was behaving this morning that persuaded me the case power button wasn't the culprit.Â* No amount of tapping around the button can set off the problem.Â* In fact, I have no idea how to duplicate the problem.Â* But I suppose if I install a new PS and the problem recurs, I'll be looking at that button next.Â* And this not being the good old traditional days, there is no "reset" button on the case. In fact, the computer has been running basically nonstop all day today and after the initial misbehavior this morning, I've had no power problems whatsoever. I did manage to get the fresh new Win10 installation backed up today using my Acronis boot disk.Â* There were no problems at all with that today.Â* If it was the contents of the HDD I was backing up yesterday that was causing the power to die during a backup, well, clearly I know a lot less about how all this works than I thought I did.Â* Why would Acronis True Image care what 0s and 1s it was backing up?Â* Makes no sense to me still, but the backup ran fine this afternoon so I guess I should just be happy. I don't see any swollen caps, and I couldn't find anything in BIOS regarding restarts after power failure.Â* So I'm setting it all aside now that it's backed up, and I'll wait for Amazon Prime to deliver the new PS on Monday.Â* I'll come back here to report the results.Â* Many thanks as always. To do a test of a PSU, you can get yourself a "PS_ON adapter", which shorts #PS_ON to GND and that causes the PSU and fan to run. Normally, I connect some electrical loads while testing. This is for standalone PSU testing, without any electrical connection to a motherboard. If it ran for a couple hours, without shutting off, I might conclude it's OK. I use cement resistors for loading the PSU. https://www.amazon.com/Uxcell-a11101.../dp/B01149WHOM They consist of a ceramic shell, and the resistor element inside is covered in some sort of fusible material. I think if it gets hot enough, it might melt. I usually point a fan at them to reduce their surface temperature. You have to work out the resistance value you want, before shopping, and decide how many resistors to use, how many watts to dump and so on. And that's a basic way of loading down a PSU. For example, a 5V rail, with a 2 ohm resistor, is 5/2 = 2.5amps 5V*2.5A = 12.5W. If I get four 2 ohm 10W resistors and do a series parallel network, I can handle the 12.5W over four resistors with ease. That's the kind of simple Ohms law arithmetic involved. Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* +--- 2 ----+Â* +--- 2 ----+Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* A 2 ohm 40W resistor made Â*Â*Â* ---+Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* +--+Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* +---Â*Â* out of four 2 ohm 10W resistors. Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* +--- 2 ----+Â* +--- 2 ----+ I could also do the same thing with 1/4W carbon composition resistors, but I'd need boxes of them and a large roll of solder. It would look pretty though. And if you like to recycle or use old heatsinks from your collection, this format of load resistor can be used, with a little thermal paste on the bottom to sink into some old aluminum heatsink you've got. https://www.mouser.com/search/refine...&Ntt=177068861 On modern dual forward conversion supplies ("80+ type"), you might want to load a minimum of two rails. When converters have multiple outputs, you can save a little money on cement resistors by not loading everything. I think I have at least one resistor for each rail on mine. Â*Â* ------- main -----+------ +12VÂ* === load here Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* | Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* +--- 3.3V/5V converter --- 5VÂ*Â*Â* === load a rail here Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* --- 3.3V Just to give some ideas how the newer 80+ generation might be treated. Rails like -12V are weak, so I don't put a huge load on them. I think I used a 50 ohm cement for that one, which is 0.25A and close to the 0.3A limit printed on the label on the side of the supply. On modern motherboards, the actual load is the loading of a single TI 75232 RS232 chip for a serial port. So probably 0.05A or less. The time constant of your on-off behavior, doesn't sound like thermal cutoff on the PSU, but what do I know. Usually a PSU gets blazing hot if there's trouble, and it takes a bit of time before it cools enough for more "antics". Regular cycling in the 1-2 second range, suggests a control problem somewhere. Not a thermal limiter. Â*Â* Paul I may or may not have solved the problem with the new PS, but there have been no failures since I installed it on Saturday. I will continue to keep fingers crossed, but apparently it's fixed. We shall see... Thanks for the help, Paul! -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog |
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