PSU failing?

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  1. Posts : 5,833
    Dual boot Windows 10 FCU Pro x 64 & current Insider 10 Pro
       #1

    PSU failing?


    Hi all.

    Within the past few days my Acer here has been faltering. First it started with my monitor. While rebooting it posts, the BIOS screen appears then the monitor shuts off. It boots up fully, but I needed to turn the monitor off and back on. With each added day I need to turn it off and back on more and more. I'm up to 15 to 20 times before it stays on. It starts out dim then gets brighter with each time. It flickers a little too before remaining on.

    I thought ok, the monitor or graphics chip is going out, for after all it is 8 years old. But then today I goes to try and make a bootable ISO thumb drive with Rufus to load 10 with and that failed with a warning that the formatting process failed. Fat32 is the default for the drive and Rufus is performing NTFS. I thinks ok, I bought the wrong kind of thumb drive?

    I scrapped that and went to my optical drive to burn to a DVD. That returns an error code 0xc0aa0301, of which is a faulty hardware problem.

    So I started thinking that what are the odds of all this going wrong all at once? PSU comes to mind. Am I thinking right? If so, can it be tested with a volt meter? I would think it puts out different voltage for different peripherals?

    Edit:

    The optical drive reads and plays music & video media and reads files on all ready formatted/made DVDs, but it just blinks when I put a blank DVD in. Strange.
    Last edited by Tony K; 02 Oct 2014 at 18:57.
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  2. Posts : 2,799
    Linux Mint 20.1 Win10Prox64
       #2
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 5,833
    Dual boot Windows 10 FCU Pro x 64 & current Insider 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #3

    topgundcp said:
    Thanks for that. :)

    Do you think I'm thinking right that it's the PSU?
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  4. Posts : 28,672
    Mint 21.3
       #4

    HippsieGypsie said:
    Thanks for that. :)

    Do you think I'm thinking right that it's the PSU?
    I will concure that the PSU has a high chance of being bad.
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  5. Posts : 470
    Windows 10 Pro For Workstations
       #5

    Hi Tony. As an Electronics engineer I can say without doubt the PSU is failing. Most likely this will be a relatively low power output device such as 300 W.Hopefully it is a normal ATX type as you can replace it yourself easily. All the symptoms, trying to burn DVD, formating USB etc will cause this. Eventually it won't boot and could crash and cause damage. Replace ASAP.
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  6. Posts : 17,136
    macOS Big Sur
       #6

    Did the PSU come with the PC?

    If so, I really wouldn't be surprised if the PSU is going bad, Acer doesn't really have a great reputation.
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  7. Posts : 5,833
    Dual boot Windows 10 FCU Pro x 64 & current Insider 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Thanks, guys. :)

    This Acer has been a good machine. Never any problems with it. A PSU isn't that expensive.

    Yes, it's a standard 250 watt PSU. Have been thinking about upgrading and installing a video card for more dedicated memory and to multi monitor. Wanting to get a touch screen. One of the reasons why I bought this Acer at the time was that it is expandable. And luckily 8.x ran great on it. From what I've read, 10 will also.

    Therefore, I will probably get a higher watt PSU to do so, yes? I'll have to research these peripherals to see how big. Any suggestions are welcome.
    Last edited by Tony K; 02 Oct 2014 at 20:24.
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  8. Posts : 17,136
    macOS Big Sur
       #8

    HippsieGypsie said:
    Thanks, guys. :)

    This Acer has been a good machine. Never any problems with it. A PSU isn't that expensive.

    Yes, it's a standard 250 watt PSU. Have been thinking about upgrading and installing a video card for more dedicated memory and to multi monitor. Wanting to get a touch screen. One of the reasons why I bought this Acer at the time was that it is expandable. And luckily 8.x ran great on it. From what I've read, 10 will also.

    Therefore, I will probably get a higher watt PSU to do so, yes? I'll have to research these peripherals to see how big. Any suggestions are welcome.
    From what I've heard, some are good and some are bad. Guess you got a good one!

    Just to point you in the right direction, think Corsair or Seasonic. :)
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  9. Posts : 5,833
    Dual boot Windows 10 FCU Pro x 64 & current Insider 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Thanks, Chuck. Yes, like anything else sometimes we get a lemon.

    I'll be researching and start another thread as to what I'm doing to make sure I get it right.

    I'll mark this solved. I guess I'll have to postpone 10 for awhile to stay off this machine.
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  10. Posts : 19,516
    W11+W11 Developer Insider + Linux
       #10

    If I got right manual: Acer Aspire T690 Service Manual (Page 65 of 82) PSU is of normal standard ATX type and could be switched without trouble. As you are contemplating of upgrading video card, may I suggest you decide which one it's going to be first before PSU. There's wide range of GPUs out there with many different power requirements ranging from GPUs that do not need extra power connectors ( for PCIex up to 75W) to ones that need a LOT of power to run. Judging by the rest of system there's no need for anything powerful. AMD R7 250 ( AMD Radeon ) would be maximum economical to get. it does ot require extra power from PSU either. If you are not doing to complicated 3D stuff or playing "power" of the GPU is not that important, most of GPUs, even best and most expensive ones run 2d at same speed of 300 - 400 MHz and only memory speed (DDR3 or DDR5 ) on them can make a difference. Newest ones with DirectX 12 support, Dx 12 support would be preferable.
    Last edited by CountMike; 03 Oct 2014 at 06:55.
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