550VX cables + Me being an idiot = Motherboard with busted caps, PSU reusable?

F

Falling Anvil

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
1,570
Hi, I'm a recent lurker turned brand new member.

So, I had recently purchased a Corsair 550VX PSU. Great unit, rave reviews and very cheap when I got it. I had a month and a half old Dell Inspiron 530 that I intended to use it on. Looking back, at the time I brought it I had debating building my own system but the a $350 dollar coupon had swayed me towards it, but that's a discussion for another day. Anyway, I had wanted to replace the OEM 305 watt PSU that had come with the system so I could have more power and more efficiency and perhaps a bit more quiet as well. I had never done upgrades of this sort(only had helped change a video card and wireless networking card) but was willing to try and had done weeks of research so I felt it was ready.

Anyway, after some 2-3 hours of struggling to fit it and it's cables into the provided MicroATX case with some bleeding thrown in (so should have gotten modular for this), I had managed to get it working. Worked great, but the giant mass of wires from some very long and thick sleeved cables in the upper front of the case disturbed me. I had wanted the vent holes in the lower frontal part of the system open for airflow, but had also wanted less clutter in front. So after a full day of operation I opened the case again and attempted to use the provided zip ties to try to corral the wires together. Unfortunately I had gotten cocky and failed to turn off and disconnect the PSU, probably my first mistake. The second mistake was the zip ties, they proved worse than useless and I had a hairy moment where I had to take out a too-tight ziptie with a boxcutter and a scissor near a middle SATA connector. Fortunately there was just a notch and no other damage it seems.

In any case, in hindsight it *seems* that my moving of the cabled mass had disconnected the 24 pin connector while I was jumbling the wires around. When I had given up and reassumed the wires in the same position as before, I found that the computer would not boot, the activity light provided with the motherboard not turning and keeping itself on. A few subsequent tries to move the connector cord (which seemed to influence whether the light and thus the mobo turned on or not) around to get the light working and boot was done until I could finally get light working. When it went back on for good and I tried to boot however I got the sound of electricity buzzing a little. I investigated after a few tries, which yielded me the loose controller. Unfortunately doing so was a bit too late for my poor motherboard and when I booted again, I got an error about the diskette drive 0(I assume the HDD) not being read, however an F1 continue yielded success so I know it wasn't just the HDD. After a few more tries I could get through to the startup screen for some reason with pretty fair regularity past the HDD error. All in all, after the error in the beginning and 3 lost megabytes of ram all seemed well.

It was only when I reexamined my motherboard did I find what I think is the culprit. Capacitators, busted ones, all over the motherboard. Not all are bulging but enough are to make me not want to turn this thing on until it gets fixed or replaced.

Now, this is the dilemma. The motherboard is probably a lost cause, I'll call tech support to see if I can get it fixed or replaced(probably won't work). What really interested me is the power supply, which worked like a champ even after the caps were busted for the short few times after I had it on, including a half hour or so stretch of web surfing to test it in the morning. If the caps on the motherboard are busted, what about the stuff on the power supply? On the other hand, it was doing what it was supposed to do, the wires and my blunder being the real culprit here. I also don't have any equipment on hand to test it out so the only way to know would be a year or two from now and whether I get all my equipment destroyed from ripple and the like or not. I know we have Corsair personnel here so they could help fill me in on this(and of course many other more knowledgable than I) so here's the question, after having read or skimmed all that song and dance, would I be able to properly reuse this PSU at a later date?

Thanks in advance for any answers, and a greetings to everyone on the [H]ardocp forums! :)
 
Falling Anvil said:
Hi, I'm a recent lurker turned brand new member.

So, I had recently purchased a Corsair 550VX PSU. Great unit, rave reviews and very cheap when I got it. I had a month and a half old Dell Inspiron 530 that I intended to use it on. Looking back, at the time I brought it I had debating building my own system but the a $350 dollar coupon had swayed me towards it, but that's a discussion for another day. Anyway, I had wanted to replace the OEM 305 watt PSU that had come with the system so I could have more power and more efficiency and perhaps a bit more quiet as well. I had never done upgrades of this sort(only had helped change a video card and wireless networking card) but was willing to try and had done weeks of research so I felt it was ready.

Anyway, after some 2-3 hours of struggling to fit it and it's cables into the provided MicroATX case with some bleeding thrown in (so should have gotten modular for this), I had managed to get it working. Worked great, but the giant mass of wires from some very long and thick sleeved cables in the upper front of the case disturbed me. I had wanted the vent holes in the lower frontal part of the system open for airflow, but had also wanted less clutter in front. So after a full day of operation I opened the case again and attempted to use the provided zip ties to try to corral the wires together. Unfortunately I had gotten cocky and failed to turn off and disconnect the PSU, probably my first mistake. The second mistake was the zip ties, they proved worse than useless and I had a hairy moment where I had to take out a too-tight ziptie with a boxcutter and a scissor near a middle SATA connector. Fortunately there was just a notch and no other damage it seems.

In any case, in hindsight it *seems* that my moving of the cabled mass had disconnected the 24 pin connector while I was jumbling the wires around. When I had given up and reassumed the wires in the same position as before, I found that the computer would not boot, the activity light provided with the motherboard not turning and keeping itself on. A few subsequent tries to move the connector cord (which seemed to influence whether the light and thus the mobo turned on or not) around to get the light working and boot was done until I could finally get light working. When it went back on for good and I tried to boot however I got the sound of electricity buzzing a little, I investigated after a few tries, which yielded me the loose controller. Unfortunately doing so was a bit too late to my poor motherboard and when I booted again, I got an error about the diskette drive 0(I assume the HDD) was not being read, however an F1 continue yielded success so I know it wasn't just the motherboard. After a few more tries I could get through to the startup screen for some reason with pretty fair regularity past the HDD error. All in all, after the error in the beginning and 3 lost megabytes of ram all seemed well.

It was only when I reexamined my motherboard did I find what I think is the culprit. Capacitators, busted ones, all over the motherboard. Not all are bulging but enough to make me not want to turn this thing on until it gets fixed or replaced.

Now, this is the dilemma. The motherboard is probably a lost cause, I'll call tech support to see if I can get it fixed or replaced(probably won't work). What really interested me is the power supply, which worked like a champ even after the caps were busted for the short few times after I had it on, including a half hour or so stretch of web surfing to test it in the morning. If the caps on the motherboard are busted, what about the stuff on the power supply? On the other hand, it was doing what it was supposed to do, the wires and my blunder being the real culprit here. I also don't have any equipment on hand to test it out so the only way to know would be a year or two from now and whether I get all my equipment destroyed from ripple and the like or not. I know we have Corsair personnel here so they could help fill me in on this(and of course many other more knowledgable than I) so here's the question, after having read or skimmed all that song and dance, would I be able to properly reuse this PSU at a later date?

Thanks in advance for any answers, and a greetings to everyone on the [H]ardocp forums! :)
Click to expand...

As far as I can see, you did not do anything to the PSU that would void the warranty, and we'll gladly replace it under RMA for you if you want.

As for the motherboard, to be quite honest it was tough for me to follow your story. What do you think killed the capacitors?
 
Sorry, I only proofread this thing after I posted it, and made a lot of edits.

I suspect that the connector being loose and me pressing on the power button repeatedly broke the caps. Everything else past the ram seems operational. The ram itself, like I said before, is missing 3 megabytes but is otherwise working (It was right under all the wires).
 
Loose motherboard connector should not have damaged any caps but I can see how spinning up the HD with constantly intermittent power would not be good (head crash).

I really doubt you damaged the power supply. It is over voltage and over current protected. The HD might be ok with a low level factory format (see the mauf web site for a utility to do that when you get back up and running).


Very odd, unless the caps were going already which seems unlikey in a Dell that is not all that old. Dell stopped using non-standard power supply wiring some time ago but I wonder ????????
 
I don't know, now that I think about it, they might not be. I'm not brave enough to take out the motherboard to see, and from my perspective looking into the case I can't truely tell if they're bulging. What do I do know is that there seems to be grooves on top that I don't THINK(emphasize on think) were there before. I've always thought the grooves signalled failed capaictators, but a wiki search on this topic makes me think they are actually capacitator vents and everything is alright except for the hard drive.

Again, I'm no expert on this. I've only seen pictures of this phenomenon in action and read up on it. It could really be that I'm misdiagnosing this.

I'll see if I can take a picture for everyone to take a look at later. I'm actually starting to doubt that the caps really are blown.
 
Well for what it's worth, here are some photos I've taken, thumbnailed for the sake of everyone's connections :) :















Sorry for the extreme glare, it wasn't my camera and I couldn't turn off the damn flash :p . Turning down the brightness only could do so much.

There are multiple shots of the southbridge area because that provided me with the best place for everyone to see the state of the caps, but I tried to take shots of all the caps on the motherboard. As you can see, some shots ended up being more successful than others ;) .

Also to clarify, it says "Diskette drive 0 seek failure" when I boot it up, though I suspect that that is again, a topic for another day.
 
The caps that i'm able to see don't look bad..we have Dell PCs exclusively where I work, and i have the always-enjoyable task of repairing them, and i couldn't tell you how many of the SFF machines come back with totally blown caps, with electrolyte all over them. If I was in your shoes, I'd take everything out of the case and test it on a wooden table, or cardboard box. The Diskette Drive 0 seek failure is your floppy drive. You may well have a bad motherboard, but there's a lot of other variables in a cramped case like that. Have you tried reinstalling the original supply?

Also, I just read your previous post..grooves on the top of the caps are normal, most capacitors have them. Bad ones will typically be visibly bulging or leaking a brownish electrolyte.

EDIT:
For reference, here are some good caps on my A8V

 
Yeah, I tried my best with those pics.

The problem with the Diskette Drive 0 error is that I don't actually have a floppy drive and it didn't read one before. Ever since this thing happened it's been reading that I have one for some reason. As for the original power supply thing, I suppose I should probably try it, though it is a pain in the butt to switch out PSUs in this thing.

Maybe I need another trip to the setup screen, hmmm...
 
Aye load factory defaults, not sure how to do that on a dell, check your manual for a cmos reset jumper/procedure, make sure there is no floppy listed in the bios and if there is an entry for "onboard floppy controller" etc. disable it.

I think you are fine, just several small setup issues driving you crazy. It happens.
 
If you disable the floppy in the BIOS you should be ok. Depending how long you had it unplugged when you swapped power supplies, it could have reset the CMOS, which would jive with it looking for a floppy drive.
 
Ok, I did it! :D

Went to the setup screen and did "load defaults", then restarted and found that it didn't work. However like xlt said I went to CMOS settings and found that it was indeed looking for a floppy on the A: drive. Turned that off and everything seems to be working fine at startup. To be honest I probably should have been hinted that it was a CMOS problem by the computer giving me a date in December 2006 when I managed to get back to the startup screen. Oh well, at least it's fixed now, and I could watch out for that the next time something like this happens.

The 2046 mb ram thing has me a bit leery but overall, there doesn't seem to be an impact so far. TBH the exact count of how much ram I had was never something I did much so it may have been like that all along.

As for the PSU, it seems to be working well. From what Bill said there shouldn't be anything wrong with the 550VX so I don't see an RMA being necessary. Thanks for the offer and prompt response though Redbeard, and thanks to everyone who helped me through this! :)
 
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