Can a PSU be bad and still provid power?

O

Ogre67

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 9, 2002
Messages
457
Well my PSU died (or at least I think it did) but this got my curious.... Plugging in the PSU to the mobo lights up the LED but wont turn on the comp. Tripping the PSU on will start its internal fan and other fans that I have hooked up to it. Just got me thinking if the PSU was really bad.
 
Yes
As PSU's age / wear, their max power reduces.
The harder / hotter hey are pushed, the quicker they deteriorate.
As they wear faster when pushed hard, they are constantly being pushed even harder and wearing faster and faster towards the end of their life.
This point in their life can be dangerous for your PC as some expire with a bang.

I've seen many many systems that have PSUs aged beyond usefulness prematurely, including my own.

My old 420W Enermax can now only supply around 120W on 12V and cant even run games on an unclocked single core A64 PC .
Instead of binning it, I've kept it for spare parts.
 
Nenu hit the bullseye dead on.

Power supplies, just like human beings, start to lose their capabilities as they age, and the more they've been abused, the shorter their lifespans will be.

Back in 2001, I bought a Skyhawk aluminum case that came with a 400 watt power supply, that was able to power up all of my computer needs for about 3 solid years. It even worked well in my Athlon XP system, that was running a GeForce4 Ti4400 video card, along with 1 GB of memory.

Power along all of the rails was steady, stable, and within acceptable specs.

Then one day, I noticed, the system wouldn't boot up, unless I started up the system, recycled the on / off switch on the power supply, and then rebooted, at which point, it would boot normally. This lasted for a month or so, until it simply wouldn't boot up anymore.

So, I bought a new Antec 3700 series case, that had its own 350 watt Antec Smartpower power supply, and installed the parts from the old system to the new, and everything worked just fine.

Just for shits and giggles, I put the old power supply into an old Pentium 90 MHz system, and powered things up. It actually did manage to boot the system normally, but voltages along the 3,3 volt rail were measured at 2.60 volts (multimeter measurement). I decided not to take any more chances, and dumped the power supply entirely, after giving it a very brief memorial service for its 3 years of good work.
 
A PSU is like a dog. If you buy the right breed, it is faithful and will last you quite some time. However, if you skimp and get a lesser-breed, it will not be up to your demands and will die prematurely.
 
Yup! I had a Antec 350 Smartpower for only 2 weeks. The PC ran fine for 2 weeks on this PS. But, later on, nothing was being displayed on the monitor as I turn on the PC. The PC showed power on the fans, LEDs etc. I swapped video cards and still nothing was displayed. I put it another PS and sure enough the PC works with both video cards I used.

Ths PS can contribute to alot of funky situations on the PC. Most of us will not realize this as we assume its not the PS since there is power running.
 
Yes they can; I’ve seen a lot of em’ over the years that audibly and visually ran fine, but client’s PC kept doing weird shit such as spontaneous reboots or blue screens of death for no apparent reason, completely randomly.

Remember to bring the old PSU to a local recycle center instead of just “throwing it away” (there is no ‘away’…)

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com


.
 
samNOISE said:
Yes they can; I’ve seen a lot of em’ over the years that audibly and visually ran fine, but client’s PC kept doing weird shit such as spontaneous reboots or blue screens of death for no apparent reason, completely randomly.

Remember to bring the old PSU to a local recycle center instead of just “throwing it away” (there is no ‘away’…)

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com


.
Click to expand...

good job andrew
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top