FRAGaLOT
July 5th, 2008, 06:35 AM
After using Ubuntu 8.02 (64bit) on my Athlon 64 x2 4800+ all day, I wanted to head to bed, so I shut it down, but something went wrong. I saw my PC POST again and freeze. I thought maybe I clicked on restart button, not the shutdown button. But it froze on the BIOS splash screen, and then I could smell burnt electronics coming from my PC! OH NO!!!!!!
After verifying that the smell was coming from the power supply, I swapped it out for another one I had in a different computer I wasn't using. It worked fine, but when I went to shut it down, it DID NOT power off my system completely. All fans were still spinning, the on board lights were flickering (AN8 Ultra has a lot of red LEDs all over it) and my speakers were making clicking noises. Something isn't right, and something in Ubuntu isn't properly shutting down my PC.
In all my years building, troubleshooting, and using PCs (even before BTX systems came around) I've never seen an OS have a problem turning off a computer, let alone FRY a power supply. Yes I'm rather ticked off that something so HYPED as linux/ubuntu is so wonderful that it would destroy hardware. I would have though windows would be the first to that.:lolflag:
Anyhow this is my rig, maybe someone knows if Ubuntu just doesn't like my hardware configuration:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (slightly OCed to 2.5ghz)
Abit AN8 Ultra
GeForce 6800 GS w/ 256m
WD 400gb SATA HDD
2GB RAM
Standard DVD burner drive
Onboard sound
I also have an APC UPS power backup that does a really good job at cleaning my crappy power from PG&E that likes to drop voltages every now and then (especially now in the hot summer weather when we need to run the air conditioner). So I know my power is decent with the UPS in use.
The PSU I originally had that burned out was a RAIDMAX model RD-350W. The PSU I have in this PC now is an Antec SL300S (300w model) which still has problems shutting down, but at least it's not smoking up.
Another thing I should point out that I've only had Ubuntu installed for about 3-4 days now. The day this happened (July 4th) there were some automatic updates to Ubuntu that were downloaded and installed, but I have no clue if this was the cause of my PSU problems, since there were dozens of them. However the day before these updates were installed I wasn't having these problems. But I do believe that Ubuntu is to blame for my blown PSU.
This is also the first time I used the 64bit version of ubuntu, but I'm finding it to be as slow (maybe slower) than the 32bit version I had been running on an Athlon XP 3000+ rig (that's the PC I've been running the 32bit Ubuntu on).. and if it's blowing up PSUs like this I REALLY don't think I'll be using this much longer.
__FRAGaLOT
BTW, I'll remove the overclocking back to stock speeds, and see if that is related. But I highly doubt it.. never had problems with windows XP for the years I had it like this... but it would be unwise not to rule this out.
After verifying that the smell was coming from the power supply, I swapped it out for another one I had in a different computer I wasn't using. It worked fine, but when I went to shut it down, it DID NOT power off my system completely. All fans were still spinning, the on board lights were flickering (AN8 Ultra has a lot of red LEDs all over it) and my speakers were making clicking noises. Something isn't right, and something in Ubuntu isn't properly shutting down my PC.
In all my years building, troubleshooting, and using PCs (even before BTX systems came around) I've never seen an OS have a problem turning off a computer, let alone FRY a power supply. Yes I'm rather ticked off that something so HYPED as linux/ubuntu is so wonderful that it would destroy hardware. I would have though windows would be the first to that.:lolflag:
Anyhow this is my rig, maybe someone knows if Ubuntu just doesn't like my hardware configuration:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (slightly OCed to 2.5ghz)
Abit AN8 Ultra
GeForce 6800 GS w/ 256m
WD 400gb SATA HDD
2GB RAM
Standard DVD burner drive
Onboard sound
I also have an APC UPS power backup that does a really good job at cleaning my crappy power from PG&E that likes to drop voltages every now and then (especially now in the hot summer weather when we need to run the air conditioner). So I know my power is decent with the UPS in use.
The PSU I originally had that burned out was a RAIDMAX model RD-350W. The PSU I have in this PC now is an Antec SL300S (300w model) which still has problems shutting down, but at least it's not smoking up.
Another thing I should point out that I've only had Ubuntu installed for about 3-4 days now. The day this happened (July 4th) there were some automatic updates to Ubuntu that were downloaded and installed, but I have no clue if this was the cause of my PSU problems, since there were dozens of them. However the day before these updates were installed I wasn't having these problems. But I do believe that Ubuntu is to blame for my blown PSU.
This is also the first time I used the 64bit version of ubuntu, but I'm finding it to be as slow (maybe slower) than the 32bit version I had been running on an Athlon XP 3000+ rig (that's the PC I've been running the 32bit Ubuntu on).. and if it's blowing up PSUs like this I REALLY don't think I'll be using this much longer.
__FRAGaLOT
BTW, I'll remove the overclocking back to stock speeds, and see if that is related. But I highly doubt it.. never had problems with windows XP for the years I had it like this... but it would be unwise not to rule this out.