Battlefield Modding Tutorials BFMODS

lol well the story here is that a combination of a bad mobo and a bad PSU caused my primary drive to constantly power cycle.

After about 20 minutes or so the drive would work fine so the data wasn't lost.

It all started when my step dad started flipping the circuit braker to my room (don't ask, he was just being an a**hole). It caused my first PSU (which was a mATX model) to refuse to turn on. I had to unplug it from the mobo and use a paper clip and wire to force it to turn on for a few seconds. I then would plug it back in and it would work again untill it somehow got unplugged while still on. It would then just refuse to turn on again. So I had to replace it with a new PSU (a ATX 500watt model) and it started to act wierd after about 2 months of use. It would not turn off completely (some of the internal fans would still spin) and would make a slight buzzing noise. (I had to use the power switch on the back to turn it off all the way).

After this affair the motherboard just didn't act the same any more. There was a longer pause after the POST screen prior to boot up and the rear USB ports stopped working later on. The computer would freeze if something more power hungry then a keyboard was plugged in and also resulted in the front power LED dimming by as much as 50% when ANYTHING was plugged into a rear USB port. This was bad as it is. So after the harddrive started to act up I replaced the harddrive and the motherboard. However the PSU is even more of a brat with the new mobo then the old one. It wouldn't turn on unless I flipped the switch after a failed power on attempt and then tried it again and it would turn on.

So now I got a new 300watt PSU from ebay (of all places) and it works 100% normally now. This PSU unlike all the others I had feels of solid construction and even the little jacks are solidly built. (I spent roughly $20 on it and the shipping was free) So as it is the only remaining issue is that my video card heatsink fan is making more noise then it used to. But aside from that my new motherboard (which now can support 2GB more then my old one and has only one but a faster PCI-E 16x slot), 500GB hardrive, and PSU all behave 100% good now!

So as it stands I have the following specs:

Motherboard: Intel 915PGNL with 3 PCI, 3 PCIe-1x slots, and one PCIe-16x slot.
CPU: 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 (Prescott core) that supports HT (800mhz FSB)
Sound: Integrated into motherboard, behaves better then last audio chipset)
Total Hard-drive space: 1 500GB + a 300GB drive for a total of 800GB. (both are SATA and Seagate Barracuda brands)
RAM: Samsung 1GB Low-Density DDR1 (PC-3200 at 400MHZ)
Video Card: Nvidia 8400GS (MSI branded)
Monitor: 17inch Sony brand. It's a 2004 model but has 3 inputs (each with a seperate audio input) and a headphone jack so it runs great despite the age and that I got it off eBay.

Also when I plugged in the malfunctioning harddrive into the new mobo so I could clone it onto the new one, it didn't misbehave at all. It didn't power cycle and worked just as it had before the problems started.

So it may still be good after all and perhaps the old motherboard's SATA interface was at fault. So I'm keeping it in my dresser as a backup in case anything happens to my new drive.

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I have cameras in your head!

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just some days ago i tried running two computers from one psu, actually worked fine

was kinda a bet and i was sure it should work

Where did you get all the extra connections for the motherboard connector? Or did you just split one into two.

I didn't think there were enough 12v rails for that.

i took a connector from a old psu and soldered them together, just parallel coupled all wires, except the one thats start/stop the psu

this computers is some old ones so they dont take much current, the AMD one i have experimented with to get it take as low current as possible, im down at about 40W on that one. the idea is to have it on 24/7 with ventrilo, router-program and such, i´m looking in to use a flash card or usb stick instead of a regular hd, there is working stuff for this in the linux world so its not hard to fix.

the intel one takes a bit more, around 80-90W and theres no easy way to "turn it down" unfortunately.

its fun to fiddle around with some older hardware and test stuff out, i once succeded in soldering in some extra ram slots on a motherboard, on many hardware things you can see there is unsoldered slots or so. depending on model, you can often upgrade a cheaper model to its big brother with a little poking around and flashing firmware

As long as the combo don't exceed the maximum current that the PSU is rated for, you could wire up all the mobos you want to that sucker! The voltages don't change when the current is spit among the multiple mobos as long as you don't exceed the wattage of the PSU. (or more precisely not to exceed the wattage of each 12v and 5v rail respectively)

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I have cameras in your head!