power supply

[Mr10]

My computer been having problem ever since i've put in a new video card. It's been rebooting itself one in a while for no reason. I was thinking it could have been a vius or my motherboard was coming to a end. This moring i've try powering on my computer and it was dead. So now i know its the power supplythats been causing all this problem. Anyways how do i change it out? Can i go buy one and swap it out? Is there a certain one i would need to buy so it would fit?

Sorry i'm very new to this stuff. :-)

Thanks
Will

[gabemg]

What kind of computer do you have? Normally power supplies are swapable depending on the chassis or mobo. IF you have a Dell or another brand-name computer, you may need to get a specific power supply.

[OldFatGuy]

What kind of video card? Is it an ATI? Does your motherboard have a non-Intel chipset? This is a known issue with AGP drivers getting stuck in an infinite loop.

*EDIT*
So, I read up on it a little more and it's not limited to ATI video cards or any particular chipset. Here's some more info.

Device driver stuck in infinite loop (http://www.viaarena.com/Default.aspx?PageID=5&ArticleID=9)

[gabemg]

If you have a newer Dell, the back of the machine should have four small LEDs that are either green or yellow/amber. They will show boot and post errors based on the colors each LED is showing. They are normally good troublshooting starting points.

[Hillbilly]

Another thing you can try if you think the pwr supplt is toast, take it out of the pc and bring the pwr supply in to a shop to be tested. If it winds up being a gonner, you got it right in front of you to cross reference for a new one.