Re: Computer unstable - power issues, or USB problems?

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"DPolwarth" <DPolwarth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:E39802C8-AA43-4D94-AA23-78A212E2B0CA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello,

My computer has become unstable. I recently installed a USB PCI hub card
which seemed to have triggered the instability, but the computer is
unstable
even without the card plugged in. I had not noticed stability issues
until
now. The nature of the problem is that the computer resets itself at
random
and reboots without any kind of error message. One moment its working,
the
next I get a black screen and its back to booting through the BIOS.
Occasionally it hangs too, though this is far less frequent.

The times when the computer is most likely to reset itself (though not
exclusively) is when I plug something into the PCI USB card I have just
installed. At first I thought the card was the problem, but the computer
has
also crashed with this card removed as well, which suggests the card
cannot
be purely to blame.

I also seem to be having issues with my inbuilt USB hub (round the back of
the computer). While it works for most devices, I have a Pinnacle DVC90
analogue to digital converter that I use to transfer VHS recordings to DVD
disks. When this is plugged in to a USB port I get massive frame drops.
On
the USB PCI card I get no frame drops, but the computer is almost
guaranteed
to reset itself before the recording is completed. The computer even
resets
itself with this DVC90 plugged in but not recording.

My best guess is that this is a power supply issue. The DVC90 card draws
its power from the USB hub, and if it is taking a great deal of power it
might explain the computer resets. I have a Tagan 480W power supply which
is
an excellent device, but the power drawn by my machine is a great deal. I
have three hard drives, three RAM cards, two DVD/CD drives, a powered
graphics card, a sound card and a TV tuner card. Could it be that the
insertion of a PCI USB hub is just sending the whole thing over the edge?

If it is a power supply issue, how can I test for this? I have tried
unplugging the CDs and the TV tuner, and there is an improvement in the
length of time the machine will run for without crashing, but it will
still
crash. Could it be the power supply is not adequate? How can I find out?

If it is not the power supply, what could it be? The motherboard? It
seems
to affect the whole system, as I have been unable to trace it to a single
device causing the problem. Could it be a problem with the USB slots on
the
motherboard?

I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium board with an Athlon64 dual core processor.
I have 2 gigs RAM, running windows XP.

I would really, really appreciate any help you can give,

Daniel


.

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