2 blown PSU in 2 months

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knoximator

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Apr 8, 2008
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i have a simulation pc i work on in the lab at my university.
two months ago, my lab partner told me that he heard a loud bang, blue flash, and then the pc just shut off.
next day a bought a new PSU (regular antec, nothing special 650W).
been working great till today, when again, the same symptoms happened, this time, i was around to witness it.

blowing 2 psu in the span of 2 months is highly irregular, so i'm looking for the culprit.
i haven't seen any damage to the motherboard, and i'm not using any demanding hardware.

i'm not sure if it's the outlet, since it has another pc and two screens drawing power from the same one, and neither have been damaged.


any suggestions?
 
Use one of those little outlet testers that verifies that it is wired properly.

If something is shorting out in the system itself, any power supply worth it's money should have a good anti short circuit.

You could get power coming through the ground. Not really any way to protect against that.

You could also just have really really dirty power coming from the wall. Maybe the Antec is not able to handle really dirty power continuously or maybe you are having a lot of power fluctuations and the power supply is not able to handle it.
 
If it's a work PC a good UPS may be a good start in diagnosing the issue. Even my gaming PC uses one. :)
 
Aside from a bad outlet, could also be a bad power cord.

I've encountered a power cord going bad, was buzzing in the monitor socket. When I removed it, one of the metal pins was starting to get blackened.
 
Like to put my computers on a good UPS either way but I would test that outlet and cable for sure.
 
If it was a bright flash, then it was probably the MOV going. They're usually close to the exhaust grill and when they go up, they go bright. I'm going to have to agree with the posts above. It sounds like dirty power. Make sure you get an UPS with AVR.
 
What's the AC line voltage, both no-load and full load (get a Kill-A-Watt, and run a hair dryer on max from it)? Because high or low line voltage can cause failure when the PSU has automatic power factor correction. An UPS that isn't the true sinewave type can cause APFC failure, something about the peak voltage going too high and the big APFC capacitor(s) not being rated for enough voltage.
 
Unfortunately, a Kill-A-Watt doesn't have a fast enough sample rate to provide adequate +/- for voltage. But the reasoning behind the problem is sound. It sounds like dirty power.
 
When my friend was having this happen he finally found a single drop of water from his loop that was on his video card. Once he fixed the leak he stopped blowing PSUs.
 
Justintoxicated said:
When my friend was having this happen he finally found a single drop of water from his loop that was on his video card. Once he fixed the leak he stopped blowing PSUs.
Click to expand...
Do you mean the drip and splash shields weren't installed properly to divert water away from electrical components? Of course there was a drip shield -- it's only common sense, like never using water cooling where the power supply mounted at the bottom of the case.
 
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