HP Vectra VL800- Amber, blinking power light.

[Cwgunder]

I'm farily sure that this is a heat problem, but it could also be a compatibilty problem w/ the video card. I haven't been able to find much information on the internet, and I'm not familiar with the error codes on these computers. I was hoping someone out there might be more familiar with some of the older HP Vectra series computers. All I'm really looking for is someone who can tell me, with at least some level of certainty, what this blinking light is supposed to represent on these Vectras. HP's site has no information anymore either.

I have a Vectra VL800, Intel 850 Chipset, P4 2.0, 1GB 800MHz RDRAM, with the Nvidia 6200 (AGP), 500w PSU.

Everything but two ATA-100 IDE HDDs and 1 IDE CD R/W has been removed from the system as part of the troubleshooting preocess.

The power light will be blinking amber and eventually the PC will just restart. No warning. It only happens while playing graphic intensive games. I've been through all up the driver updates, including chipset and video. Also, I've done the BIOS updates, reloaded the operating system, droped the card properties to minimum, even rolled back the video driver.

Now, I have the PC up with the case off the side and a box fan directly blowing on both the GPU and CPU and testing to see if I can recreate that problem with the system significanty cooler.

If anyone has any troubleshooting advice, it would be appreciated, though all I'm really looking for is someone who can tell me, with at least some level of certainty, what this blinking light is supposed to represent on these Vectras.

Thanks

Chris

 

[kestrel1]

It could be the PSU is getting overheated. Check that it is not too clogged up with dust. It may also be a failing PSU.

 

[Cwgunder]

Good advice. That's what I thought when I first started trouble shooting. Thought it might either be that or the power supply wasn't powerful enough for the new video card. I used to have a 250watt PSU and a bunch of extra crap installed, but have since installed a bran new 500watt PSU and removed just about everything.

I do have some fairly good news though...

The PC hasn't bounced since I've been putting that box fan next to it, and that light isn't blinking as much, so I'm going to assume it is infact a heat problem. I've already cleaned the heatsink and fan and made sure I put thermal greese on the heatsink, but I'll just have to look into purchasing some more internal fans.

Thanks for your help.

Hope this helps

Good Luck!

Chris

 

[kestrel1]

Certainly sounds like heat problem then. Maybe a case fan at the front & one at the back will help. Is the heatsink & fan on the CPU upto the job? Make sure that the fan is working correctly.

 

[Cwgunder]

yeah, it seems to be working. I'm not sure if I should look into buying a new heatsink fan or not, but I've seen some directional fans that can be installed in an expanstion slot. What do you think? With the way my board is layed out, I could actually point one at the CPU and one at the video card and that should solve it.

Hope this helps

Good Luck!

Chris

 

[kestrel1]

That may well help, it is certainly worth trying. Have you overclocked anything in the system? I could just be that the heatsink & fan aren't upto the job of cooling CPU correctly.