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Resolved Question

Is my PSU the problem?

Feb 11, 2016 3:55PM PST

Greetings all,

The other day I came in from shoveling snow to a strong stench of burning plastic. I found out it was my computer in the bedroom. Long story short the smell seems to be the PSU. The PC still boots and it plays games for about 20 minutes before shutting down / crashing. It won't turn on until I wait or in unplug and plug it back in. The temps on all hardware are low 50 on gpu while gaming and everything else in the 20s.

PSU antec HCG 900w
Ram Corsiar Vengense ddr3 8gb
Gpu R9 290x 8gb DD
3 sata hard drives (not ssd sshd)
Corsiar H100i cooling
Cup AMD 6350 6 core

I've got a replacement psu comming already for free. Just wanting to see if any other hardware could be damaged?

Discussion is locked

GPUabuse has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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Remember ... temps.
Feb 11, 2016 4:32PM PST

Are not measured on every component. As a test, remove cover, point fan at the open PC and see if it takes longer.

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I inderstand
Feb 12, 2016 1:07PM PST

No matter what I do it crashes around the same point. Also dose it for video rendering. But not streaming. Keep in mind my PSU stunk bad

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You may be stuck with replacing suspect parts.
Feb 12, 2016 2:08PM PST

Right or wrong, that's how techs figure out what the bad parts are.

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Yeah
Feb 12, 2016 4:11PM PST

Wasn't sure if anyone had similar issues. I'm hoping no other hardware is damaged I've already got a replacement PSU on the way

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Sadly yes.
Feb 13, 2016 6:24AM PST

Sometimes I get a PC that won't tell me which part it is. For that I remember some advice I got years ago.

"Replace the cheapest part first."

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Does anyone
Feb 13, 2016 11:31AM PST

Anyone know how to tell if it's my psu? I'm thinking it is the only damaged part due to smell and activity.. As mentioned my temps seem fine from what I see on my drives, gpu, cpu and ram. No idea how to test a PSU that still works - just crashes during high work loads

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Well yes. But the test setup is costly.
Feb 13, 2016 11:45AM PST

At the office we use a load system then look at each rail with a 4,000$ oscilloscope. We can justify that because we do a lot of design work but in the field and garage your cheap test is a new PSU.

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Awesome
Feb 13, 2016 9:06PM PST

that's would be cool! Makes me wonder if they have something to test all hardware at once. We are able to spend 4K but if it only tests PSUs we probably don't NEED it Wink

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Alright
Feb 17, 2016 3:42PM PST

So my computer crashed again with the old power supply and now it boots slow and stays loading on the desktop. I installed the new psu and it still is long boot times and no luck with desktop loading

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Have you tried a new HDD?
Feb 17, 2016 4:29PM PST

Just last month another Seagate did that.

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Your right..ish
Feb 18, 2016 6:10AM PST

Was indeed the seagate. The frequent crashing caused corrupt files - nothing a restore couldn't fix moral of the story of your psu breaks don't continue to use it for a week.

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Sometimes you lose more than one part.
Feb 18, 2016 7:03AM PST

Gotta jet. BBL