Power at boot up.

Hi all. Having a small problem and would be very grateful of a little help or advice.

My system:
Gigabyte H55M UD2H
i5 550 cpu
16gb Corsair 1333mhz ram (4 x 4gb)
nVidia gti 550 gpu
550w generic psu
1tb WD HDD
500gb WD HDD
Windows 7 Ultimate x64


When I press the power button my machine starts to boot normally, it will go for around 30 seconds or so then power down without reaching the post screen. It will then go into a cycle where it will continue this pattern indefinately. I will hold the power button in as it powers up to switch it off to get it out of the cycle, give it a minute then try and power it up again. Completely random as to whether it repeats as before or actually boots up. I've also noticed when it's failing to boot it's a little noisier than when boot is successful. Sometime it will freeze on the post screen then go back into the reboot cycle. It can take anywhere from 2-3 to a dozen attempts to get it to boot.

 

Welcome to Major Geeks.

Although there could be several possible issues, the fact you're using a "generic 550 watt power supply" sticks out. It's very possible it's not putting out enough power for both the gpu and board combined.

From EVGA's details page on the GTX 550:

Requirements:

Minimum of a 400 Watt power supply.

(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amps.)

It's unlikely your generic PSU meets this last criteria of a single rail generating 24 Amps. Although the generic PSU may have worked for a while, it's likely no longer putting out enough juice to support the system.

While it's not a guarantee it will fix the problem, I would look at upgrading to a quality name brand PSU that exceeds the 24 Amp minimum requirement. Here's the one I use in my home system:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

It puts out 53 +12v Amps. Maybe a bit of overkill; however you've got plenty of expansion room if you ever upgrade.

Hope this helps.