I must never switch my PC off.

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Barrymore

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I have never had hardware failure while my PC has been on standby mode.
Unfortunately, with power outages etc. this is not always possible.

Over the years I've had m/boards, graphic cards and hard drives fail when switching on. This surely had to be related to power surges.

I once got the Electricity Department to connect a recorder to the box on the
street pole to monitor voltage fluctuations to my home. Nothing untoward found.
Last year during load shedding my m/board packed up and as no replacement
was available, I had to buy a new PC. This time I was wise and bought an extra m/board as a spare.

21 months later a kitchen appliance cause the earth leakage to trip.
This meant I had to switch the PC on again.
It would not switch on - M/board was dead.
This happened a few weeks ago. I immediately installed the spare and in no time my PC was up and running again.

Last night I switched it off so I could clean the keyboard.
Bad move.
Switching on this morning, I could here the PC booting up
and heard the windows sound from the speakers, but black screen on the monitor.
I disconnected the graphic card and got things working with monitor connected to onboard connector. Graphic card has obviously failed.

While this trend of failures indicates that I must attempt to keep PC on
at all times, I cannot begin to understand the why?? Surely there is no voltage surge when simply switching the PC on or unplugging and replugging
it to the wall socket?? Can someone please make some sense of this??
 
Could be an issue with your Power Supply. Try a better quality one , ones with an 80Plus Certification are atleast 80% efficient, which is the lowest I'd want o go.
 
EDIT: Sorry Double Post: Dont know why, but MYBB said something like: "Error : 30 sec before next post" and then i posted, which turned out to be double. lol

Back on topic: The PSU is probably your best bet.
 
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Buy a UPS. Cheaper than having to keep replacing your motherboard.

I have one on my list of goodies for the new year, but "luckily" the only thing the power outs have taken from me is a Antec PSU. At least the PSU went instead of it passing along the surge.
 
best is to get a decent UPS, its got Auto Voltage Regulation for dips and surges, aswell, as over voltage protection. I have never lost a mother board in 20 years, thanx to my UPS. Currently I use the numeric brand, been using them for while as they seem to keep going. They also got nice software that monitors the battery so it will shutdown the PC cleanly if u not home and theres a lengthy power cut. I swear by them.

I use the little 650VA unit, its only like 480 from Vexon online. There are higher rated ones but I like having individual ones I can move around as I need to. For hi power pc's I just use 2, or one higher rated unit.

I even have a UPS on my dvd, media playrs and ext HDD. I just adapted one end of the protected power and put a multi plug on it, so u can plug 2 and 3 pin stuff into it
 
TheRift said:
Buy a UPS. Cheaper than having to keep replacing your motherboard.

I have one on my list of goodies for the new year, but "luckily" the only thing the power outs have taken from me is a Antec PSU. At least the PSU went instead of it passing along the surge.
Click to expand...

I should add UPS to my list too. Paid a heavy price this year when my PSU blew due to a surge
 
i barely turn my PC off. although lately I set it to Standby. But surges on initial power-up can break hardware.

I remember Compaq servers we had, would run for like 14+ months never getting turned off and worked fine. you power it off to do a change and when it comes back on a disk or ram goes pop :)
 
Most of the replies received seem to suggest the problems (which have existed over the years} are caused by cheap PSU's.

When buying a new PC I have traditionally stipulated the PSU wattage
I wanted. The make or "80Plus Certification" was never considered, and
I doubt the dealer is even familiar with this spec.
I have not come across a dealer where one has a variety of PSU's to choose from, just different power outputs.

I had a surge and lightning protector connected but replaced this with
the Tedelex Intellipower 2 backup power supply during the load shedding.
Unfortunately, it failed to kick in when needed. Tedelex recently exchanged it for one which I found to be stone dead so it is not connected.
In the interim, the m/board and now the graphic card has packed up.
 
OK, I have a possible cause for your problems.
It is capacitors that is drying up or failing.
My video machine loves to do that. It works fine for months and once the power is restored after a dip, trip, or failure, it is just dead:(
Motherboards and graphics cards also love to do that.
Perhaps look at better cooling in your case. Generally electronics does NOT like to be hot.
 
Barrymore said:
Most of the replies received seem to suggest the problems (which have existed over the years} are caused by cheap PSU's.

When buying a new PC I have traditionally stipulated the PSU wattage
I wanted. The make or "80Plus Certification" was never considered, and
I doubt the dealer is even familiar with this spec.
I have not come across a dealer where one has a variety of PSU's to choose from, just different power outputs.

I had a surge and lightning protector connected but replaced this with
the Tedelex Intellipower 2 backup power supply during the load shedding.
Unfortunately, it failed to kick in when needed. Tedelex recently exchanged it for one which I found to be stone dead so it is not connected.
In the interim, the m/board and now the graphic card has packed up.
Click to expand...

again, these last two posts, try a good brand of UPS, it would have save you in this case, keeping power clean is really NB for making your electronics last longer. Temperature is also a big deal, I bought a couple extra fans for all my stuff, including my modem. It cant hurt to ensure improved cooling.

Try the numeric brand of UPS's, I have really enjoyed them and they are very reliable and come with very decent monitoring and shutdown software.

Vexon online shop has them. I use the little 650VA, but this only provides about 10-15 minutes 300W power. The overvoltage and voltage regulators also work magic. For more UPS kick, you will need to pay a little more for the higher rated units, but I assure you, it will save u time and time again. I just saw Numeric has a 1000VA unit for R903. Pretty good?
 
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a UPS kicks in for a certain number of minutes. If power is only restored after
a number of hours then surely this is the time when surge damage occurs.
So how does protection from the UPS work?
Anyway, if I'm at work at the time of the power cut then it's not a case of
being around to switch the PC off and unplug until power is restored.

I don't understand how additional cooling, as suggested by Wetkit, could help
protect my hardware, as everything is cool when the PC is switched on.
Powered up and running without switching off, no problems.

I value the advise, but am highly confused.
 
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