d3athcarb4fatty Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 After researching for ever and ever I finally decided to upgrade my 2 month old Dell Vostro 220's video card/power supply. It uses a generic ATX power supply (300w) which almost certainly won't handle a 4830 HD which I planned on upgrading to. I bought a Corsair 400cx power supply and installed it without any problems. However, now when I press the front power button it will either blink amber a few times (which indicates a power problem sensed by the psu according to the manual) and turn right back off or begin booting up but sometime during the process will suddenly shut off. I think it seems to shut off when I do something like nudge the case or plug in a mouse. I was able to get windows to load completely but when I plugged in a mouse, it wouldn't work. I tried another usb port and the computer immediately shut off! After shutting off it tries to boot up again continually. I have tried alternating RAM sticks or using just one, but that didn't help. I also switched back in the original power supply and everything seems to work properly again. I can't determine the make of my motherboard but it has a standard 24-pin socket and 4-pin auxiliary socket. Any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FEAR6655 Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Sounds like you had a loose connector. Have you tried the Corsiar PSU again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d3athcarb4fatty Posted April 13, 2009 Author Share Posted April 13, 2009 Ok so I tried the Corsair PSU again, the only thing I noticed that might have been different was I was able to get the 24 pin connector to insert maybe another 1/32" so that it's completely flush with the socket, before I was unable to get it to go further. When I turned on the computer the fans would turn on but whatever the main hum sound is from the computer would never fully rev up. It would just waver up and down about every half second. I tried turning off the psu switch in the back and turning it back on, but the same thing happened. Then I tried turning off the psu switch, holding down the front power button for a few seconds to ground the system board, and then turning back on the psu switch. After that I was able to start my computer normally and haven't been able to get it to shut off with any combination of plugging and unplugging various usb peripherals. I also loaded up the processor with some programs and games and everything seemed ok. I don't know if this really solves the problem though as I have to ground the system board each time before I turn it on (or awaken it after hibernating) and I'm unsure how stable my system is at this point. I want to add a video card but I want to make sure everything else is good to go first. I've heard these aren't accurate but just for fun I downloaded fan/temp monitoring program (SpeedFan) and the only thing that stood out was -12V: -5.86V. That seems off, but maybe so off that it's probably inaccurate? Is there anything else I can try to test it out? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted April 13, 2009 Corsair Employee Share Posted April 13, 2009 Sounds like either a grounding problem or a compatibility issue. I would first remove the PSU from the case and see if there is any change when running the system with the PSU outside the case. I would then recommend that you contact Dell to see if they can verify that a standard aftermarket PSU built to ATX 12v 2.01 spec would be compatible in this system. Many OEMs will either use proprietary PSUs or PSUs that are built to older ATX specifications to cut costs, and sometimes a current ATX PSU may not work in its place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d3athcarb4fatty Posted April 14, 2009 Author Share Posted April 14, 2009 removing the psu seemed to allow it to get about a second further in the boot process when it didn't work, but otherwise the same. Dell said that the system cannot support anything over 300W :mad::[pouts: so I guess I'm out of luck. I wish I knew all of this before I bought the system... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted April 14, 2009 Corsair Employee Share Posted April 14, 2009 removing the psu seemed to allow it to get about a second further in the boot process when it didn't work, but otherwise the same. Dell said that the system cannot support anything over 300W :mad::[pouts: so I guess I'm out of luck. I wish I knew all of this before I bought the system... Sorry to hear that, I had a feeling it may have been compatibility, Dells (and other OEMs) are usually a little picky when it comes to upgrades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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