Power supply does not power up system when hard drive is connected


  #1  
Old 01-10-07, 06:12 PM
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Question computer will not power up system when hard drive is connected

I built my system (Antec P180 case, Antec Neo HE 500 Power supply, Gigabyte GA-M55plus-S3G motherboard, 2 Western Digital WD2500JD hard drives, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor, Corsair 1 GB DDR2 RAM) and had it running acceptably well. Tonight I swapped out one of the hard drives, reconnected everything, now it will not power up. The led on case lights up and fans start spinning for 1/2 to 1 second then it dies. If I disconnect the power from both of the hard drives it will power up, get to the boot screen and ask for a bootable disk. I have tried it several times and every time when one of the hard drives is connected, it will not power up. I swapped cables, swapped connectors on the power supply, and tried different disk drives and it always does the same thing - no power when one or both disks are connected to power. I put the disks into a USB disk case, they power up and work fine. The power supply was purchased on December 29, 2006. What else should I try?

Thanks,
Ross
 

Last edited by raharold; 01-10-07 at 06:23 PM. Reason: Added puchase date & clarified subject.
  #2  
Old 01-10-07, 07:10 PM
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Sounds like a bad PS to me.. If you have a voltmeter, check the 5 and 12 volts at the HD connector plugs..
Black to Red - 5 volt
Black to Yellow - 12 volt
 
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Old 01-10-07, 08:37 PM
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put it back the way it was originally and see if it works.
 
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Old 01-10-07, 09:45 PM
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Is there a 4 pin connector from the power supply with yellow and black wires that you disconnected from the MB and didn't reconnect?
 
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Old 01-10-07, 11:32 PM
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I would try another PSU. The newer Antecs cause a lot of headaches and often ends up being the culprit in a multitude of problems. I agree with tae though, does it work like it was before?
 
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Old 01-11-07, 09:11 PM
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Originally Posted by tae
put it back the way it was originally and see if it works.
It worked! This seems really goofy...why would the PS care what drive is installed? But now how do I install my new drive?
 
  #7  
Old 01-11-07, 09:31 PM
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Unhappy

Well now after I installed the drive back into the case, it doesn't work again... I'm gonna try to return the PS to Fry's.
 
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Old 01-11-07, 09:34 PM
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Can you guys recommend a good efficient PS? I don't really need a high power one. I'm using the on-board video. 500W is overkill.
 
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Old 01-12-07, 12:16 AM
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Fortron makes a good reasonably priced PSU.
 
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Old 01-12-07, 04:15 AM
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If you put the drive back in, and it didn't work again, doesn't that tell you something?
Take the HARDDRIVE back, not the PSU..
 
  #11  
Old 01-12-07, 11:22 PM
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Originally Posted by AxlMyk
If you put the drive back in, and it didn't work again, doesn't that tell you something?
Take the HARDDRIVE back, not the PSU..
I tried 3 different hard drives, all of which were known good prior to installation.
 
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Old 01-13-07, 05:02 PM
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you might want to check out this page:
http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
eXtreme Power Supply Calculator....take what it says, and then add some for the future.


i would never go under 400 watt p.s.
Having a little extra power is ok. not having enough is bad.
video card is only a small user of power....cd's, dvd's, floppy,ide card, dual drives, modem, nic, case fans, cpu fans,any possible external devices, usb things, and who knows what the future might have in store for it....power supplies are fairly cheap, and very important.
 
  #13  
Old 01-14-07, 05:08 AM
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Originally Posted by tae
i would never go under 400 watt p.s.
Having a little extra power is ok. not having enough is bad.
video card is only a small user of power....cd's, dvd's, floppy,ide card, dual drives, modem, nic, case fans, cpu fans,any possible external devices, usb things, and who knows what the future might have in store for it....power supplies are fairly cheap, and very important.
Thanks for the advice Tae.

I took the PS back to the store where I purchased it. The salesman was really skeptical and questioned everything about my setup. He kept praising Antec about their quality and reliability. All the while I am getting more and more annoyed. Finally, he took it over to his test bench and it turns out somebody had ripped off their tester! I thought it was quite amusing seeing how he was so confident that I was wrong.

Anyway the store ended up refunding my money. I ended up getting another Antec from them but this time the Smart Power 2.0 500W model. I reinstalled the disks (the same setup that was causing power problems with the Neo) and the system powers up and boots normally.

Thanks for your help guys I really appreciate it.
 
 

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