Odd Problems PSU may be the culprit

[Adreankael]

Hey guys. I have an issue and not one I can troubleshoot fully and don't know where to post this. I'm posting it in PSU because maybe the PSU is at fault.

 

Here's my problem:

I recently had a few issues where my computer occasionally powered down unexpectedly during a game but the power light was staying on. I had to unplug the PSU to get the light to go off before I could power the board again. Occasionally the USB wouldn't recognize my mouse and keyboard after reboot. If I rebooted 2 or 3 times it would work but once it shut down unexpectedly again, with the power light still on, the USB wouldn't work until I rebooted 2 or 3 more times. Last week my computer shut down unexpectedly and the computer would post but my screen had weird red and green "static" and "lines" running across it. I shut down and reseated my video card and rebooted. The system posted but I all I got was a black screen with the backlight on as if the monitor was receiving the signal but the signal was empty. I knew at that point my GPU was gone so I put it in another board, my dads system, and yea it's toasted. Lines everywhere on the screen. I replaced the GTX 1050ti Saturday with an RX 580 8gb. I even got desperate and formatted the HDD and reinstalled windows 10. The system came on and had no issue until I loaded a game up and it shut down again with the power light on. Every since then the system shuts down the second the GPU is put under stress. I can load up youtube and other sites just fine but any game or any stress test on the GPU and boom the system goes down with the power light staying on and I have to unplug the PSU or flip the switch to be able to power the board back on. I don't think it's the video card, it's new and works just fine in my dad's computer, but it could cause damage to the new video card if this continues and I'd really like to get back to my games. 

 

I took the PSU out and took the cover off today and I can see a brown spot on the board under a diode (least I think it's a diode) I can't find any schematics for the PSU to find out what that diode goes to so I'm unsure if it's the PSU at fault or the motherboard. It could be the board but there is zero visible damage to the motherboard and it passes every stress test except GPU. I've tested the molex on the PSU and voltage reads 5.1 for the 5v and 12.6 for the 12v but Aida 64 says the board voltage sensor says it's 11.6v for the 12v and 4.6 to 4.8 for the 5v. What's even more confusing is HWinfo says the voltage is reading 4.8 for the 12v and 4.6 for the 5v. But as I said I tested the molex and the voltage is fine (or it's fine to the best of my knowledge).

 

Here's the crux. I'm disabled and living off a VERY limited budget of 600 bucks a month of which 450 comes right out for bills. I cannot afford to purchase both the board and PSU this month because I just blew everything I had left over after letting my phone bill go to buy the new GPU. I don't know what the problem is but I'm pretty sure it's down to MB or PSU at this point. My dad's PSU won't work with my board because he doesn't have the extra power line for the processor and it's only a 350 watt PSU. We had to use a molex to PCI-E adapter just to power the GPU in his machine to make sure the GPU works and it does for what games he has which is runescape but I can't even get that to load before the system shuts down on my machine. 

 

Here's the specs:

AMD fx 8300 processor

Biostar TA970 rev. 5.3 Motherboard

12 gigs of corsair vengence ddr 3

Thermaltake tr2 600w PSU (yes I know it's a horrible PSU but it was 30 bucks and all I could afford)

Sapphire Radeon RX 580 8gb video card. (was a gtx 1050ti but that let out the magic smoke)

Running windows 10 pro.

Keyboard and mouse are just a plain Onn keyboard and mouse combo I got at Wal-Mart. 

 

Any thoughts as to which is more likely the culprit? I think it maybe the PCI-E is halfway gone on the board and the board is triggering the overvoltage protection or the PSU is bad. I can probably scrounge up 60 bucks for a MB or a PSU but I definitely can't afford both. Any way to test the PCI-E on the board without stressing the GPU? Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Tristerin]

Is your GPU sagging on the PCIE slot?  If so get it propped up and see if the issue goes away.  The power delivery pins are on the closest to the IO of the motherboard - I had a similarly described issue when putting GPU under load and after propping up my R9 Fury so it wasn't pulling down so hard on the PCIE slot, issue completely went away.

[Adreankael]

No sag and I swapped the card into the other PCI-E slot just now to check and still the same issue. Thanks for the fast reply though.

[Adreankael]

2 minutes ago, Caroline said:

There's no way a TR2 can power a 580 under load, maybe some expert can clarify it but I think it's about ripple and lack of current balance (or something like that) with the 12V rail being overloaded while the 5 and 3.3 are only delivering a small amount of current.

 

I've seen one die with only a 4100 + R9 270 so one could imagine how more power hungry components are stressing it.

So the PSU needs to be bigger than 600w? So it might be the PSU after all?

 

[Founders]

A couple of things you can try if you haven't already:

• If you are using a surge protector, PDU, or UPS try plugging your PSU directly into your wall outlet for testing.
• Clear CMOS on your motherboard
  • Unplug your PSU
  • Remove the battery from your motherboard
  • press the power button on your case 10-15 times to clear any remaining power from your board
  • put your battery back into your board and test it

It sounds like your PSU is the most likely culprit, if money is tight go to a local computer shop. They'll have a pile of PSU's to chose from usually 10-15 bucks. If that doesn't work they may even have a board that will work for you. If not check craigslist or a similar market place.

[Adreankael]

1 minute ago, Caroline said:

It's not about wattage, it's about current and low quality components, there are 450W PSUs with way more quality than a TR2, we have a PSU list in the forum and if I recall correctly the TR2 is at the bottom of it, junk tier.

Yea the PSU is awful but to be honest I didn't know anything about PSUs when I bought it, still don't to be completely honest. It did the job for 3 years with the gtx 650 and for like 2 years ish with the 1050ti until that moment when the issues started. I know it's probably a good idea to replace it with something better and I'm looking at a corsair 650 as the replacement if the PSU if it's the culprit. Any thoughts?

[Founders]

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1116640-psu-tier-list-40-rev-202/

[Adreankael]

8 minutes ago, Ehmc130 said:

A couple of things you can try if you haven't already:

• If you are using a surge protector, PDU, or UPS try plugging your PSU directly into your wall outlet for testing.
• Clear CMOS on your motherboard
  • Unplug your PSU
  • Remove the battery from your motherboard
  • press the power button on your case 10-15 times to clear any remaining power from your board
  • put your battery back into your board and test it

It sounds like your PSU is the most likely culprit, if money is tight go to a local computer shop. They'll have a pile of PSU's to chose from usually 10-15 bucks. If that doesn't work they may even have a board that will work for you. If not check craigslist or a similar market place.

I reset the bios before I did the reinstall of Windows 10. Even pulled out the battery and left it for an hour just to make sure. I live in Gaffney SC that's about as far into the woods as you can get really so unfortunately for me there are no computer repair shops around for quite a bit. I think Spartanburg has one that's like 60 miles away but they don't stock parts. He can order it but it'll take 4 days and I can have one shipped to my house in 2 days and save the gas lol. I thought about going to good will and seeing if they had anything but they don't even have computers at the Good will near me except like 20 year old Dell machines. 

[Adreankael]

There is a Corsair 650w CX for 60 ish bucks That's on the B+ tier if I'm reading the list right. Would it do?

[Adreankael]

44 minutes ago, Caroline said:

It should work as long as we're talking about the CX with the gray label. You'll have some headroom for a mild overclock as long as the board still works, the 580 will ask for more CPU power if you plan to run AAA games.

Thank you for the info. I'm asking a friend on facebook if they'll let me use their PS to test to see if it's the board If it isn't the board then I'll order that PSU you guys have been a great help. Thanks so much

[Adreankael]

Update:

I decided to throw caution to the wind and test the PSU's short protection by creating a short in the molex. The PSU and MB do the same thing as before when the short occurs. The PC shuts down but the power light stays on. I cannot reboot the PC until I flip the switch. Does this mean the PSU is shorting when I put the GPU under load and it's doing what it should, shutting down? If so does that means the PSU is not the problem and the board is shorting something when the GPU is under load?  Is that even possible? OR does it mean the PSU is shorting when the power draw increases? That doesn't make much sense since I can stress the CPU, the memory, the FPU and the HDD in Aida64 all at once and have no problems. The only time the shut down occurs is when the GPU is stressed. Again though the GPU works just fine in another machine. Banging my head against a wall here.

[Adreankael]

The new CX650 is installed and am currently playing the outer worlds. Thanks for all the help peops.