OT: Weird Hardware Problem

[Tim Daneliuk]

On 5/19/20 8:46 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> I was recently given a Dell Inspiron 3847 which has an i7-4790 and 16G
> of memory.  Perfect for multibooting BSD and Linux.  It needed a new power
> supply but now that this is installed, it's exhibiting a very strange
> problem.
> 
> The machine will work for hours flawless and then - for no apparent reason -
> reboot randomly.  The former owner reports that this was also happening
> when they last had it running Win8.
All signs point to an inadequate power supply.

When I initially got the machine, I had to replace the onboard
supply because the fan bearings on it were bad and loud.  The former
owner reported that the machine had - in fact - been experiencing
random reboots of late.

I replaced the old supply with a "good" used  500W ATX supply and
the reboot problem was still noted as above.

This morning, I pulled the used supply and put the only new PS I have
in stock - at 350W ATX unit - and tried to recreate the problem I'd
been able to force consistently before during Linux install.  Voila!
It worked.

Now I need to monitor this thing for the next day or so to ensure that
the problem is - indeed gone.

Interesting that a new 350W supply does the trick when an apparently working
500W didn't.  As someone pointed out, this could well be old electrolytics
not holding the rail voltage well under stress.



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Tim Daneliuk     tundra at tundraware.com
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