Yet another opus 150w problem.... (this one's brand new)

**iamConceyted** · 03-23-2005, 03:30 PM

so about 3 weeks ago I assembled my carputer and put it into my 350z. everything went well, but very randomly the computer would freeze on boot and the motherboard would beep a single beep. The only way I could get it to power down was by pulling the power out of the opus etc, thats all that would work. Well I didnt care much, just pulled the power and reset it whenever it would occur, which was not very often.

Then this last weekend i decide i wanted to paint my case. I took the car computer out of my car and disassembled everything and painted the case black. reassembled it all and plugged it back into my car. As i go to power it up it does the freeze and mobo beep so i turn off the car pull the plug and try to reset it. I start the car again and it boots up and errors again, as soon as it hits the windows xp boot screen.

I start getting frustrated but decide to calm down and try to fix it.
I tried:
-rewiring the remote wire in with the power from the battery and using the power switch of the computer, didnt work
-rewiring the ground directly to the ground of the battery, didnt work
-rewiring a new power wire directly to the battery again (jsut in case it was interfering somewhere in my car), didnt work
-unplugging all peripherals INCLUDING monitor and keyboard, didnt work
-and finally i tried booting into safe mode, IT WORKED?!!

okay so it boots into safe mode, what the hell sense does that make? I ran an extension cord outside to my car and plugged in a normal 150watt psu and powered up the cpu like normal and it worked flawlessly. the opus jsut doesnt want to cooperate. I have opened up the opus to make sure the pieces arent touching metal. I have rewired every single component to my computer. I narrowed it down to the opus, period. There is something going on that messes with the opus on boot of windows xp. Sometimes it will even power itself down for me, but very seldom.

What the hell could it be, this is so frustrating and I am jsut so aggravated. PLEASE HELP!!!

ps: when it freezes up this is the kind of screen i get, much like a very staticy boot screen but in a frozen state :-( HELP!!!

**meddler** · 03-23-2005, 05:25 PM

I had a similar problem to you where the system would reboot for no apparent reason and sometimes would hang at the windows boot screen. It would then go into and endless loop or reboots. I didn't investigate too far before I pulled the pc back out of the car.
The things I would look at is are you overloading the different voltage rails. What m/b and processor are you using? Are you running your screen off the opus? What else are you running of the psu? I think that my problem was related to my alternator playing up and dropping the supply voltage below the low voltage shutdown point.
If you do find a solution, please post it. I would like to know what the problem is.

**iamConceyted** · 03-23-2005, 05:29 PM

I am running a 1.2 ghz athlon and the mobo is an ASRock K7S41GX I am running a 7" xenarc touchscreen off the opus as well, but this is not the cause nor is overloading since i have even tried with EVERYTHING unplugged except the motherboard and harddrive, i still hear the beep during the boot sequence so i know that it freezes.

Thanks for your inquiry. Hopefully we can find a fix for this. Help us out guys!

**Curly_cat** · 03-23-2005, 05:34 PM

Have you tried contacting OPUS tech support?

**iamConceyted** · 03-23-2005, 07:26 PM

not yet, I will probaby go ahead and do that sometime in the next week when i get the time. :-/ so frustrating

**iamConceyted** · 03-24-2005, 06:25 PM

Contacted opus tech support today. Was on the phone over 2 hours (phone bill might be high this month ;-) ) and we went through everything possible. Nothing worked, so I went out and got a volt meter. 12V and 3.3V seemed to perform fine, the 5V however seems to fluctuate to 4ish volts at the time of freeze so they arent sure what to make of it. He suggested I try a few more things and if not then send it back, so thats what im going to do.
For the time being I am going to put together a seconary power setup for the ZPc. A power inverter and a normal computer power supply will power my pc for the time being. Time to research and buy a decent power inverter.

**meddler** · 03-25-2005, 12:22 AM

let us konw what happens. i may have to send mine back as well.

**Jeff48** · 03-25-2005, 04:41 PM

the system would reboot for no apparent reason and sometimes would hang at the windows boot screen. It would then go into and endless loop or reboots"

Sounds digustingly familiar. I have a OPUS 90 powering my VIA MB. The OPUS is in the case with the MB, but there is plenty of breathing room in there. Nothing else is on the circuit. Of course the Xenarc is connected through the USB as is a GPS mouse and Zippy keyboard. I have a hard wired toggle switch between the battery and the PS What I have found is that when I disconnect the computer from the battery and let it sit for a while I can restart without problem and it runs fine for a while. I have noticed however that after a long run and a complete shutdown she goes into this behavior. Any chance of a thermal protection issue?

**Coeus** · 05-04-2005, 03:20 PM

so, i am having the exact same issue. When powered off the opus, my computer freezes at the windows screen (right before it auto logs on). the screen looks very simliar to that posted above, all scrambled like. I have switched out the opus for a standard PSU (same wattage) and it works fine, actually I am posting from my carpc.

So, it sounds like an opus problem. How far away should the ground be? I extended the power/ground/acc wires, so should the be the same gauge or is a little smaller ok?

Any help would be great.

Thanks