kaitanuva

I have a one year old refurbished HP m8100n, that has been working excellent with the stock 300w PSU. However, I'm going to upgrade from my current 8600GT to a 8800GT, and I fear my 300w PSU won't have enough juice.

So I've bought a 430w PSU that many has had their 8800GT powered with. No the new 430w PSU is not dead, it powers everything up when I boot up my system.

However, after the blue HP pavilion screen, instead of the usual Windows loading bar screen, a black screen with the following message appears: "Boot disk failure. Insert system disk and press ENTER."

So I figured it must be my cables not being plugged in all the way. I replugged the only four things that needed to be plugged, the 4-pin peripheral power connector to my hard drive, a 5-pin S-ATA connector to my hard drive, the 24-pin main connector*** to my mobo, and the 4-pin +12V power connector to my mobo. Still, that message showed up.

Then I thought it must be that my disk boot really failed. So I took off my 430w PSU and put back my old stock 300w PSU, plugged everything back in, and booted it up. Well what do you know? Everything ran fine again.

So here's what I eliminated as the problems:
-PSU NOT DEAD. I repeat, PSU NOT DEAD.
-Everything plugged in correctly.
-Boot disk is fine and intact. If only with the stock PSU.

And yes, both my CD / DVD drives are empty.

***There WAS however, one suspicious inconsistency. My mobo has a 24-pin slot, HOWEVER, my stock PSU has only 23-pins, with an empty pin in the middle of the 24 slots. The 430w PSU has all 24-pins filled. What is the meaning of this? Is this the cause of disk-boot failure?

Tumbleweed36

One thing that I have to say that you won't like, but must say it anyway anyway so you are aware. I doubt if a 430 watt power supply is strong enough to pull an 8800gt for very long and a 550 watt range for that card with 26 amps on the +12 rail is needed.

I am not saying that your power supply is the issue here or that it won't power it on, just that I want you to know that a 430 won't handle the 8800gt for a very long period of time until you have difficulties.

The issue you have immediately IMHO, is that I suspect that your boot drive is not listed first in the Boot Priority area of the bios and that may have accidently changed in the process of changing the power supply. Some have an option to set which drive to boot from and I suspect yours is not set correctly.

kaitanuva

Don't worry about the capability of my PSU. Countless reviews on it have confirmed long term functioning on video cards up to the 8800GTS.

About the BIOS stuff-can you tell me how to set the correct drive(s) to boot from for my new PSU? Because I don't have this problem on the old PSU?

Tumbleweed36

I missed something here and just realized it after re-reading what you said about refurbished.

Many of the older HP computers have proprietary (specific only to that brand) power supplies and won't work with some non-proprietary power supplies.

I must do some looking to see if this model might be one that is proprietary and therefore the power supply you selected might not fit this rig.

What I was originally thinking was that when you made the change, somehow the hard disk priority (which drive the computer sees when it wants to boot from a drive) might have gotten corrupted in the process of changing the power supply. However, since it works with the old power supply, then that zaps that theory.

Another thought is that I need to say that many times I have purchased new power supplies (mainly Antec) that came DOA or they would not work and this is also a possiblity.

Can you try that new power supply on another computer and see if it works in another computer?

Will try to get back on later with more information about your HP rig, after I do some looking, and hopefully you will in the meantime get a chance to try that new power supply in another rig to make sure it is working.

kaitanuva

Thank you, this by far one of the most helpful posts I have gotten out of the other sites I've posted my problem on.


In case you were wondering, I have encountered zero problems with this refurbished PC. It's like brand new. I wouldn't exactly call it outdated either.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883107506

^^The exact product I bought. Look down the reviews, and you will see mine. (the poster Mark, hi, ) See the date? Almost a year ago, I wouldn't call that old, would you? (Oh btw, the crashing error mentioned in my review was fixed quite a while ago)

I thought I had eliminated the theory of my new PSU being DOA? Everything powers up fine with it, its just that black screen with the error message.

Kind of vague though on the "would not work" possibility though.

Yeah that's what stumps me. Why the disk boot error with the new PSU and not the old PSU? The BIOS settings seem untouched..


Yes I think I will. I will report ASAP the results of my findings. Thanks in advance.

speedster123

i am pretty sure the antec 550 fits in that box.

dai

pcie = a min out put of available 26amps on the 12v line

kaitanuva

"I'm going to upgrade from a 8600gt from a 8800gt."

The 8800gt is yet to be bought. The 8600gt works perfectly with my stock PSU. Therefore, the video cards out of question.

wrench97

Any way you look at it the psu is either incompatible with your pc or defective and you need a different power supply.