Power Supply Tales of Woe, Advice Needed

metalhead1965 · Post by **metalhead1965** » Wed May 03, 2006 5:24 am

Hi Folks

I have a tale of woe and, if you bear with me, I'd like some advice at the end of it.

A few months ago I had to have a new hard drive installed due to start up problems with the original. A new O/S and the relevant drivers were installed and the original hard drive was slaved to the new one
Recently my nephew came visiting and bought the latest Tomb raider game with him which I installed. I'm not a gamer so my system was more than adequat for my work needs. It turned out that my graphics card was not up to the job and so I bought a GeForce 6600 which, unlike the original card, needed a power supply. I didn't have a spare molex anymore but the box came with a splitter cable which I used. Things worked fine untill I tried to watch video when my computer would shut down and re-start. It didn't matter if it was stored on my hard drive or streamed over the net.
It turns out that my power supply is not up to the job as I have currently a 250 watt supply. A new PSU is on order and being delivered tomorrow (An Akasa 460W Active) but still I have a problem.
My original start up problems were due to the S M A R T which means I always have to press f2 to fire up the computer but I can't. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard which are both working but the reciever is not. Is it possible that the power to the USB ports is off for some reason and will installing the new PSU work. I have tried all 5 USB ports. I don't really want to buy a new keyboard and mouse if I don't need one. Sorry about the long winded description. A bit more infomation AMD Athlon 64 3200, 512 RAM, MOBO I don't know about.

Thanks for reading

Michael

BigA · Post by **BigA** » Wed May 03, 2006 1:40 pm

Are you sure that your problems relate to your inability to press F2?

If so, you might try disconnecting the original hard drive. Since the original hard drive will no longer be connected, the SMART message will not be displayed and the machine should boot at that point.

However, if the keyboard's receiver isn't working, getting the machine to boot won't make the receiver suddenly start working. Do you have an old (wired) keyboard you can plug into the computer? Do you have any friends or neighbors who might loan you a spare keyboard or let you use their PC's keyboard for long enough to diagnose your problem? Or you might try going to a secondhand store and purchasing a used (wired) keyboard for a few dollars.