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General discussion

The Mystery of Power Supply Killer

Oct 12, 2004 8:27AM PDT

Ok it started out as a normal day of computing - filesharing, watching movies, listening to music, and then when I played Age of Myth, poof the comuter turned off. And it did not turn back on. No lights, no fan, no sign of any jolt of energy anywhere.

So after a long time of denial, I noticed my 650w "extremo power" dual fan power supply had the smell of IHOP on a busy day. I wondered why after day after day of constant use of downloading videos, burning DVD's, gaming, audio engineering, college papers, web design, etc etc, why burn out now? I couldnt figure out the answer.

So I put in a regular 420w power supply and my computer worked again. I played around with it, to see if anything weird happened. I uninstalled the virus scanner, installed another one, websurfed here and there, and then I played Age of Myth and after about half an hour of play, my computer shut down again! But this time it was different, even though it did not turn back on, there was a light still on. So I unplugged it for about two minutes.

When I plugged it back in, I was able to turn my computer back on. Really confused as to what the hell could behind this altered dimension of wacky hardware I chose to run my antivirus program which at that point I thought maybe there is some kind of state of the art virus that is burning my power supplies. After about half an hour to 40 minutes of virus scanning my comuter made this "poof" sound and my computer has not been able to turn back on since.

I already lost a 650w dual fan psu and a 420w psu because of this mystery. I have a 550w psu left but I dont want to install it until I know what is causing this havoc. I do have 250w to test any ideas.

I have a relatively high performance system. XP,2 IEDE HDD's (with fans), 2 SATA HDD's (with fans), 1 21in and 1 17in monitor, 1gb pc 3200 memory, G-Force 5600 256mb video card, Delta 66 audio card with the Omni Studio external interface, a DVDburner, a DVD/CDR combo, a front panel digital display, side and roof led fans, and a led fan in the back and also two game pads, Pocket PC, and a digital camera all connected to USB ports. This was all working just fine, for close to half a year already.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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Re: The Mystery of Power Supply Killer
Oct 12, 2004 8:43AM PDT

You no thought have a "primary problem" causing the secondary problem of the p/s unit to "poof" as you say. Six months is a long time but enough to push whatever to the wear&tear limit. You got all those goodies attached, but do you really need them *ALL* at any given time, I thought it. You should only use what you really need and then add-on. The problem remains what caused your p/s unit(s) to fail. I believe you crossed the line, start reducing attached items. All this in cause to re-use the system with less devices. Otherwise, something has already blown but not 100% failure, taking down any new p/w down with it. Remove the system case cover and observe, maybe a some fan has failed, IN OTHER WORDS DON"T TAKE ANYTHIN GOR GRANTED, check it. You maybe better served, going to a simple as possible system, remove anything for now, but the FD, 1 CD, ! HD, video, and basic kybd. etc. then try it. Run it like that for days and see what happens, then add-on until it "poofs" again, hopefully the last device is either the last straw for p/s or a broken deviice. When it comes to p/w units, quality counts, so just because a unit is rated 650W, doesn't mean its the best. Thes p/s degrade and thier rating only is good for a short sustained time, NOT for prolonged usage, thus if you push it, they will fail or degrade until they fail. go figure...Then there's the outside world, line surges, etc. maybe recent power glitches, it happens. Got a power surge protector or basic UPS?

good luck -----Willy Happy

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Partial answer to the light that stayed on
Oct 12, 2004 8:47AM PDT

and why it came back on after unplugging it. ATX power supplies provide a 5 volt logic power to the mobo at ALL times that the PS is plugged into the AC Power Line. That is how Wake on lan and other wake up programs can work and why the power switch is only a momentary contact switch that simply starts a logic circuit to turn on the power supply rails [voltage outputs]. In that one case your turn on logic got confused. When you unplugged the supply you removed the 5 volt logic power and after the capacitors discharged your logic circuits got reset and worked properly to turn the system on.

Now, a little time to think about causes. Two immediate ideas; excessively high AC Line voltage or possibly worse, excessively LOW line voltage. With low voltage the PS switches stay on longer to pump enough joules [provide current for a longer time each switching cycle] into the output circuits [regulators] resulting in more heat in the switching devices.

More thoughts later if they hit me. LOL

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Along Wiily's lines. You have so much in there
Oct 12, 2004 8:53AM PDT

and so many cables that the interior airflow may not be letting the PS to get enough cooling air. Can also happen with too many fans if they are all working in the same direction. You need some push and some pull. LOL

If you have an intake fan drawing air ffrom the front panel its intake is at floor level through the space between the front panel and front of the case and gets completely clogged with dust easily.

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I see that you also posted in the Computer Help forum.
Oct 12, 2004 8:57AM PDT

I hope you check both and advise people trying to help in both what is going in in every place that you posted.

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The Mystery of Power Supply Killer SOLVED...
Oct 12, 2004 9:14AM PDT

At least it was at our office. We had 3 machines that began to eat power supplies. I added 100 Watts to the unit each time it blew out. It ate a 350, then 450 then a 550 Watt PSU. Then 2 other machines began eating supplies.

The mystery was solved when one machine kept working, but smoke was coming out.

Here's the article that descibes what we found -> http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html

Armed with this newfound information we went to the other power supply eating machines and found a total of 4 board with bulging and leaking capacitors. Not only were the machines less than stable, the machines were also great heating units.

Hope this helps.

Bob

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Great input. The bad caps could easily
Oct 12, 2004 9:41AM PDT

increase the AC componet on the load current and do the same to the caps in the power supply.

Looks like the likely cause.