mountfoc

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help.

I recently installed a PCI card so I now have two firewire ports.

Ever since, my PC shuts down suddenly when certain applications are running. It shuts down when I play some games (particularly Age of Empires), and also when transferring and encoding mpeg2 video from a dvcam via firewire link, also when re-encoding DVD files using DVDShrink.

I have a compaq EXMs (which I'm having difficulty finding info about on the web). Can anyone suggest how I might determine what is causing the PC to shut down. There is no warning when it shuts down, the power just cuts out, as if there was a power cut.

Please tell me what kind of information I need to find out to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks in advance
Craig

dai

if it can be restarted immediately check you have sufficient power to run everything
if you have to wait to restart check tempretures

mountfoc

Aha, thanks for this. I can resatart the machine immediately after this happens.

Sorry, this is where I prove how little I actually know; how can I find out how much power something is using or needs. Is there any application I can have runnign in the background that could diagnose exactly what is happeneing when the PC shuts down?

Also, I have PCI cards installed in all three available slots; a PCI modem, a network card and the firewird card. I never use the modem, as I use the network card. Is it possible that I could remove the PCI card to conserve power?

thanks in advance!
craig

whodat

greetings
yes you can remove your modem from your motherboard
unplug your machine first,naturally then uninstall it in your device manager in your control panel-system-hardware-device manager|

while you are in there, make sure there arent any yellow conflict symbols.

what is the size of your power supply? it should say right on it.

good luck

dai

check power requirements here
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
add 30% to the result based on a quality supply

mountfoc

erm, it is 200W. I realise now it may not be enough, although it is a wonder this problem did not manifest before.

Its a Compaq EXmS which came with an optical drive, a hard drive, a floppy, a single SDRAM DIMM, a seperate graphics card and a modem PCI card installed.

i have added an extra harddrive, a second SDRAM DIMM, an extra optical drive, and a PCI network card.

The problem only started when I added the Firewire PCI card.

I removed the modem card, and found that with some of the more intensive appications/games, they were lasting longer before the PC shut down. then I removed the power from the floppy drive, as it is NEVER used. I was then able to do a lot more.

Now, the PC only shuts down when it is trying to encode large video files. Only then , after about 40 mins. Before it woud shut down after 5 minutes.

Perhaps I need a larger power supply, and perhaps this explains the mysterious "power calibration" errors i occasionally had when buring DVDs on the second optical drive.

mountfoc

As changing the power supply is a new thing for me, and I knwo very little about power supplies, can anyone tell me, do they come in a standard sixe? Will other power supplies necessarily fit in my PC case? or do I have to get a certina kind of power supply?

dai

you will probably find it is propriatory and need to order a supply for a compaq

Raggedtoad

You could try going to a nice site like www.newegg.com and looking at their various power supplies. Usually they have dimensions of them in the product descriptions. If so, you could actually measure your power supply and compare dimensions. Chances are, if they are the same size, you could fit an aftermarket power supply in your current case. If not, you could always just buy a new case for $30 and a new power supply for $30 and move everything over, which would be pretty cheap and not too difficult.

Since you seem to add a lot of things to your computer anyway, it might be a good idea to upgrade the case so it is ready for the next upgrade.