ATX power connectors

MY friend's system, which I have been helping her with, has an odd issue. She doesn't have any problem using her PC for normal things, such as browsing and word processing. However, when she goes to play here Sims 2 game, her computer randomly shuts off completely. No warning, just a loss of power. The PSU has to be reset before it will turn back on. It happens even more frequently with the new expansion for the game.

Sometimes though, she will play for hours and it won't happen. Her temperature monitor (using ASUS Probe, which gives identical readings to Everest Home on my PC) shows her CPU temperature to be 37-40 C even when she's been playing for an hour, so I don't think overheating is the issue.

But, she just bought a new motherboard. It's an ASUS socketA board. It has the 12-pin ATX connector, but not the 4-pin one for the CPU. It is nowhere to be found either on the mobo itself, or in any diagram of it. Now, my only experience with putting a system together was a P4, which had the 4-pin, and my current AMD64, which also has the 4-pin connectors. Could this be the problem? Is there a lack of power under load? Or, do SocketA CPUs not require the 4-pin connector?

Any suggestions on what the issue may be, and perhaps a suggestion on a solution?

System specs:
Athlon XP 1400+ at stock speeds (2 years old)
ASUS A7V880 motherboard (2 months old)
1024 MB of PC 3200 RAM (Samsung, bought in October)
80 GB SATA HDD (bought at same time as mobo)
ATI Radeon 9200 SE 128 MB (which may be overheating)
Three 80 mm case fans, two intake (top and side) and one exhaust (back)
350 W PSU

 

No, some AMD boards also utilize this 12V connector in addition to the main ATX power header. It is NOT Pentium Specific - varies by mfg and board.

 

I think that the top fan, if it's not part of the psu, should blow out (exhaust). Double check it; you may want to turn it around.

 

Should I rotate the fan if the CPU temperature only reaches 40 degrees under load? And, it was like that when she bought the case, so why change what the company did? It's not a part of the PSU.

The thing is, it is likely a cheap PSU, since the case was about $70 CDN, PSU included.

Does it sound at all like a CPU issue?

 

???????
Whats going on here?

OK, this doesn't sound right - Thought 1600+ (1400MHz) was the slowest Palamino made but there could have been a 1400+ (it just doesn't ring a bell with me). If the CPU is only two years old, this adds to my concern that you may have mis -ID'ed the processor - how sure are you? Do you have any #'s from the top of the CPU that you'd like to share with us?

No, thats an excellent temperature.

Enough said - get off the temperature hang up.

If the processor really was a 1400+ ????? why would one buy 400MHz memory for a 266Mhz system? (yes, I know its backwards compatable)

IF, and its a very big IF this is a hardware problem, I'd be more inclined to say what ails you is a misconfigured system re: BIOS setup. And if your problem is restricted to the one application you've referenced - uninstall it and run for a while before you try re-installing it.

 

Idle Mind,

My top of case fan clearly exhausts; if you don't feel that fan blowing air out, yes turn it around if you can, otherwise unplug it temporarily and observe the results. At least you'll have a chimney.

Rockster2U is correct that the CPU temp is fine - that means the heatsink and fan combo are doing a good job; but you said "ATI Radeon 9200 SE 128 MB (which may be overheating) ". What makes you think so? Certainly there are lots of other chips on the mobo beside the CPU; and I'd get as much cooling as possible.

The 4 pin power connector is not necessary, as Pete said. When you buy a case, the psu doesn't know what mobo you'll install, so it has to be ready for all.

 

I would like to look at it from another angle. The problem occurs when the game is run. Games are graphics intensive. You say that the graphics card may have overheating problems. I have just purchased the same card (9200se 128mb) second-hand, this one does not have it's own fan only a heatsink. I do think that the case fan setup would be important for helping to cool the graphics card and agree that the top fan should exhaust (the way I would see it, as an intake it would only move air straight across to the PSU and back exhaust, not across the motherboard or add-in cards). So I do think the fan system is important, at least for cooling the graphics card.

The minimum system requirements for Sims 2 are a Radeon 7500, but I don't think the 9200se is rated much higher than the 7500, so you would be running the card at near full capacity. Firstly, try reducing the video settings in the games options and see if it becomes stable.

Try reinstalling the grahics drivers (remove them in Add/remove programs). If there is a chance that there was another graphics card installed prior to this one, all the drivers for that card need to be removed (was it using onboard graphics at some stage??). If you have any problems installing the drivers, go into Safe Mode and change the Display Adapter to a "Standard" Display Adapter.

When you have a good install of the graphics drivers, update or reinstall DirectX.

Matt

 

Yeah, I always thought that it was a 1700+, but she was convinced otherwise, and it runs at 1100 MHz, so I figured I wouldn't argue.

Because I bought three at once, and it was dirt cheap. I added to my 512 MB, and increased it to 1.5 GB, but my mobo (K8V SE Deluxe) clocks down the RAM to 200 MHz if all three DIMM slots are occupied, so I took the third out and gave it to her (she originally went from 256 PC100 to 512 PC3200, but my extra added to make it 1 GB).

I have tried the configuration with the top as an exhaust, but the CPU temp increased a several degrees. Maybe I will try it again.

Like mattman said, it's a low end card, and is likely being used to near-full capacity when running the game. It has no fan, only a small heatsink.

mattman, all she was running was onboard video, but when I installed the new mobo, that's when the new vid card (an old one of mine) was installed. So everything was fresh. The first thing I had her do was install the most recent ATI drivers, which were in place before she installed the Sims 2.

The video settings, I believe, are autoadjusting based on what your system has, so that shouldn't be a problem. I will get her to try it, however.

I was thinking that she should get one more fan, and that's a 120 mm fan at the front, to blow air across the vid card. But, before she does that, I will switch the top case fan again. I don't see how it will make much of a difference as an exhaust.

 

"I don't see how it will make much of a difference as an exhaust. "
Mainly, because hot air rises and blowing it downward just keeps it in the case unless the rear fans are pretty strong.

 

Wow, excellent point. I surely should have thought of that...

 

No arguements with exhausting top fan unless it raises temp as previously stated. Norm is exactly as Sparrow states.

Two other things to investigate if temp becomes or can be isolated as an issue. One can purchase a slot exhaust fan for placement next to a video card - roughly $8-10. Works quite well in cooling some video cards especially thsoe with HS only, provided there is a source of cool air to draw from inside the case. Secondly, a second front mount intake may be possible depending on the case itself or one can cut a side mount intake using a hole saw and position this for a cool air source to feed a video card.

Still think this machine is misconfigured re: BIOS, CPU setup and perhaps memory timings among other things.

 

If that's the case, how would I go about checking?

 

For starters, I'd download and install Everest. See what that tells you about each memory module and the CPU. I'm not sure if this will properly ID your CPU or not but lets try it for starters. Then you are going to have to check several BIOS settings - can I assume that you have a manual for that new MoBo?

 

Idle Mind

Download amdcpuinfo , run it on the machine, and it will tell you all you need to know about the processor.

 

Rockster, I do have the mobo instruction manual still. And I have Everest already somewhere, but I will make sure she installs it. What is it going to say about the CPU and memory modules that I will be looking for?

sparrow, thanks for the link.

 

Slow poke here - been busy. Run thta utility Sparrow sent you or Everest and see if you can confirm what the CPU is. Post back and we'll go from there.

 

That's what the link at the bottom of my last post is. But it doesn't specify what the CPU is, it just says "AMD Athlon ".

Some of the other numbers may be indicative though.

 

Unfortunately, I sure can't figure anything out from that - stepping should be a 5 letter code and model should be something other than one number. Processor is a K7 so I guess 7 is OK there. What does Everest give you for a cpu?

 

Okay, well Everest says the same thing, but I'm pretty sure it says Athlon XP 1700+ when it's booting up, so that's what the BIOS thinks it is.

Where to go from here?