Hello! First time poster, long time frustrated PC user.


Fairly new problem.

My PC once got stuck in a loop of restarts, making it merely to the "Windows is starting up" screen (WinXP), until it finally got past that.

Once it restarted right after making it to my desktop.

Often times the screen will turn black for a moment, kind of just flickers randomly.

Then there's the heat issue. I play an online game (Final Fantasy 11) and it was during gameplay that I actually stumbled upon my problem. It will just lock up while I'm playing. Through special means I was able to have the game running in a windowed mode, and it got hot, fast. Eventually my CPU peaked at 73C before I manually ended it.

I've done a little research, and my guess is that my CPU is getting weak? If so, are there any settings I can tinker with to lighten the load?

Actually, as I'm writing this post it's flashing the black screen at me, and locking up (for a brief moment) right before it does it sometimes. The temp is sitting at 50C, and a little under. The lock ups seem to be shorter at the lower temp.

THe MBM5 hig/low log is attached, maybe someone can make heads or tails of it.

I'll post a log of my system specs if it is needed, but I just got an error message saying that I need to restart. My monitor stopped working for a sec, and when it came back it was in a lower resolution with the colors all messed up.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I've ran Panda and AVG anti-virus, CleanUp, and Ad-aware and Spybot. AVG found a couple things I got rid of, and Panda did as well, although Ad-aware and Spybot found nothing.

I did once get an error message about my graphics card (nVidia GeForce 4 MX) but from my understanding that doesn't mean that it is actually the problem?

Both fans that are inside are working. Also, the temp seems to be in the 60s when I start up. that is, when I can get MBM5 up after a restart it's stting in the mid 60s somewhere.

You could do with some extra fans as the temps run pretty high but im 99% sure youre problem is youre power supply , those reading look really bad.
Can you borrow an other psu to test?

Thank you very much for your reply.

Well, I suppose I wasn't really considering that, and now I have a few questions.

1) Is there any software needed for PSUs? I mean, when I put in a different one is there anything to uninstall and install?

2) I have a very old PC in my storage, it's an old HP running Win98. How can I know if the PSU will work? It also has a pentium like my current PC, but I'm not really sure what. I think it's a P2 running around 500 mhz maybe?

3) Is there any kind of a guide or FAQ out there anyone knows of for removing and putting in a PSU?

4) I did some research while I was sitting here at work, and I guess there's these "rails" that run at 3.3, 5, and 12. They're supposed to be within 4% of those ratings. Now that I've spent quite a bit of my companes money learning about a PSU I can see how those are bad I guess. Will my PSU problem have any effect on any other hardware? I notice that the voltage tends to spike, could that be getting my CPU hot for any reason?

1) Thats a easy one , no , no software needed.

2)Do you know the brand of that psu and how many watt's it is? It probebly will be to weak but what are youre current system specs?

3) I found this.

4) The "weak" voltages shouldn't damage youre hardware but im not sure about the effects of the -12v line , that has mayor spikes.


Hope it helps :-)

Thanks for the link. It seems mostly like common sense, so I should be able to handle it.? :-)

I went ahead and dumped a system summary from everest into a text file, which is attached.

The older PC I have is in storage, which is about an hour from here, so I probably won't be able to get it until this weekend if I have time.

However, I took a look at my current PSU, and here's what was written on it. Perhaps you can tell me what I need to look at? You only mentioned voltage, so does that mean any other PSU I put in has to have the same or a higher voltage rating?

? ? ?

That's the info I'm guessing is important. I pretty much tried to type it just like it was on the sticker. Not really sure what the "~" means.

So, what do I need to match up with another PSU for it to be ok to put in my PC?

Sorry if all my questions are starting to bug you, I'm sure you've answered them a million times before.? :-P

EDIT: Oh yeah, something else weird happened. My PC crashed on me, and I guess there were numerous important files missing, so it couldn't start back up again. I reinstalled XP, and shortly afterwards I started to get the black screens again, so the problem still remains. However, is this some kind of a sign things are getting worse, and starting to effect other stuff?

Attached Files

everest.txt (19.6 KB, 3 views)

The higher the amps and watts the better.
The psu you have in there is not very strong , only 160 w and low on the amps. my psu is 410w and the amps are almost 5 times as high so im not suprised that its giving probs. And those problems can be very wierd behaviour from youre pc.


It should be a standert ATX model psu but what do you want to spent on it?