Power Supply - How could it be the problem?

JSumrall

Limp Gawd
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Jan 19, 2011
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I have an interesting conundrum I hope someone here can help with involving an Corsair HX1000w power supply I picked up back in 2008. This power supply has been awesome and has been part of at least 4 computer builds that I remember, if not 5. I last used it in a build back in 2012 and it has been part of that machine for the past 7 years.

Recently, after a system reboot, the machine would power on, but not POST. I went through and eliminated everything save the processor and mainboard as the problem. I even connected the HX1000w to my main machine and everything booted fine, which I thought eliminated the power supply as the problem. I read the msi x79a-gd45 8d has a problem that sometimes causes this issue and I thought I'd found my problem.

I decided to just call it quits on the GD45, and pulled out a computer from 2007 to act as my second machine. I moved the Corsair HX1000w power supply from the GD45 to this ASUS P5N-E 2007 and it wouldn't boot either. It will power on but not post. I put the old power supply back in the P5N-E and it booted fine.

How could this be a problem with the power supply?

Any suggestions?
 
Capacitors have lost their ability to charge enough and could be preventing ripple suppression and/or no longer supply enough power.
Either replace the caps or replace the PSU.
 
Capacitors have lost their ability to charge enough and could be preventing ripple suppression and/or no longer supply enough power.
Either replace the caps or replace the PSU.

Would that capacitor problem be measurable with a meter?
 
Last edited:
Would that capacitor problem be measurable with a meter?
The capacity issue can be verified by watching how much voltage drops on +12V when its heavily loaded.
If it drops significantly when there is only a light load it is for sure not happy.
 
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Well, it isn't the power supply. I moved the 11 year old Corsair to my main machine and it is working great. I honestly have no idea why it didn't work for the other two machines. :(
 
Your main machine can be more tolerant of ripple than your older machines.
 
Well, it isn't the power supply. I moved the 11 year old Corsair to my main machine and it is working great. I honestly have no idea why it didn't work for the other two machines. :(

This is not an indicator that the power supply is perfectly healthy. I've seen this problem on aged PSU's and I ended up having to toss them. I had a ten year old ThermalTake Toughpower 1200 watt unit that I used in my main rig for years and then another five years or more on my test bench. I used it with 30+ motherboards and all was well until the day it wasn't. It worked with a couple boards after that, but not all of them. I started having other issues after that. Issues like the system being fine until I put it under stress. Then the PSU would shut off. If your PSU is that old, write it off and replace it.
 
I moved the power supply from my main machine to the 2007 P5N-E SLI machine and it had similar problems with getting it to run. I'm guessing at this point the power supplies are not the problem. Thanks for your input.
 
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