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Dropped my PSU = Oops?

D

Dillusion

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
Messages
5,465
Yesterday I was working on my rig on my desk and i dropped the psu about 3 feet, i tried to catch it but i forgot my right hand was broken and it didnt grip it. Yesterday I was having problems with my new rig. It wont cold boot, and it will randomely not boot from a BIOS save or a shutdown. Today I woke up and it wouldnt boot unless i unhooked the 24pin+4pin ATX from the mobo for 15 seconds, then i replug and it works fine.

Is it the PSU? Time for RMA? :(

Specs:
Pentium D 805 @ 3.6
ABIT LG-81 945G
XFi
7800GTX
2x1GB DDR2-800
Raptor
 
seems very odd that a fall would kill a PSU, in fact i would say its very unlikely...

what PSU is it?
 
RMA a PSU that you dropped? Very classy.

Time for you to go buy a new PSU most likely, the inertia transfered from the heatsinks bolted to the power MOSFETs to the MOSFETs most likely tweaked something or cracked the PCB.
 
PSU is an enermax liberty 400w.

Dropping a PSU is a perfectly fine RMA reason. Thats not voiding the warranty in any way, this isnt the VC forum.

I just installed BF2 and tried to play. Its REALLY choppy. I tried reinstalling my VC drivers with 84.21 and 91.25, i also reinstalled bf2 and its still choppy. RTHDRIBL runs fine and CS1.6 is slightly choppy. Could this be related?
 
It's not a pefectly reasonable reason to RMA. That would fall under operator caused damaged clauses or something... You wouldn't try to RMA a CPU that you fried because you tried to de-lid it would you?

[edit] With 4300+ posts, one would think you'd know better.
And just to drive the point home...
Enemax warranty terms
WHAT IS NOT COVERED
1. Any product on which the serial number has been defaced modified or removed.

2. Damage, deterioration or malfunction resulting from, but not limited to:
a. Repair or attempted repair by someone other than Enermax certified technician.
b. Accident (such as dropping or spilled liquids), misuse, abuse, neglect, fire, water, lighting or other
acts of nature, unauthorized product modification, or usage not in accordance with the Enermax
product instructions.

3. Use of parts and components not supplied by Enermax.

4. Normal wear

5. Shipping and handling charges.

6. Enermax Power Supply purchase before the inception of this warranty program which is December 1, 2003. All Enermax power supply purchase before December 1, 2003 will receive a one (1) year warranty with otherwise the same terms and
conditions.
Click to expand...

Maybe you should pass some of that pot my way, it'd give you a chance to think before you post :D
 
I dont like to think ;)

Ok, so I wont RMA the PSU assholes :D Now we still need to find out if thats the culprit. Right now my BF2 is ru nning VERY choppy. Not in the main menu, only in-level. Ive reinstalled the game 3 times and used both 84 and 91 series forceware, both give same choppyness. Ive tried playing w/ no sound card aswell and uninstalling my XFi beta drivers and still no go.

Could the PSU drop cause my 7800GTX to act weird in 3d mode? RTHDRIBL runs fine...
 
do you have another PSU to test with? aside from that, did all this start after you dropped it?

tried setting everything to stock?
 
lithium726 said:
do you have another PSU to test with? aside from that, did all this start after you dropped it?

tried setting everything to stock?
Click to expand...

Yes ive tried the CPU at stock, ive tired with no XFi, ive tried one ram stick, ive tried everything I know. This started when I dropped it- yes, but that was also while I was swapping mobos. So this mobo is new to the setup, and came in at the same time. I did not test the psu on the old mobo before using it on this one.

I have a shitty Ultra 500w (old model with no windows, chrome housing) and I dont know if i even wanna trust it, its 20-pin and doesnt even have pci-e connectors for my GTX.
 
You only need to "trust" it long enough to hook it up, plug it in and see if your problems go away. It's very doubtful that it will cause your PC to go up in flames, and if you want to see if it's the PSU or the mobo causing problems, this would be the best way.
 
What mobo did you have and what did you put in? It could just be that Windows doesn't like the new mobo. I saw this (sort of) when I swapped an MSI K8N Diamond in place of an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe. Both had the same chipset but the MSI refused to boot into Windows at all. I had to do a full reinstall to make it work.

I did cheat since it was a client's PC I did the install into a new directory (Windows001) on the existing partition so I could salvage his data and it worked fine. After editing the boot info to remove the old Win boot info you'd never know that it had the old Windows directory on the drive.
 
Old mobo was P5LD2-VM 945G and new one is Abit LG-81 945G. I reinstalled windows twice already. Doing it for a third time after this post. I just installed CS Sourse and its choppy as hell, maybe 10fps max.

Im not sure what causes my cold boot issue from this morning and the not booting up, but i think the gaming problem is from the beta creative xfi driver.

We'll see soon...
 
Dillusion said:
I have a shitty Ultra 500w (old model with no windows, chrome housing) and I dont know if i even wanna trust it, its 20-pin and doesnt even have pci-e connectors for my GTX.
Click to expand...
The lack of all 24 pins isn't that bad, and I'd trust almost any undropped PSU over even the best dropped one.

The first Delta PSU I received had been dropped, and the transformer, which is normally the heaviest component on the circuit board, had developed a broken solder joint for one of its leads. In a really bad drop the circuit baord itself can crack.
 
Dillusion said:
I have a shitty Ultra 500w (old model with no windows, chrome housing) and I dont know if i even wanna trust it, its 20-pin and doesnt even have pci-e connectors for my GTX.
Click to expand...

Actually, if it's an old Ultra 500W it's probably just a relabeled WIN-500PS. Probably just as capable as your Enermax Liberty 400W and certainly more "trustworthy" than any dropped PSU.
 
Scotty_SFF said:
how about 'accidently' make the PSU stop working then RMA it :p
Click to expand...

How about not. Violating RMA procedures in order ot replace hardware you were responsible for damaging is dishonest and costs all of us.

In addition calling members names because you are attempting to violate company RMA policies is not acceptable.
 
Takin to me Spec?

Ok, i woke up this morning with an idea. While i was fumbling around in my case with this broken hand, i remember accidentally 'hitting' (READ: tapping) the cap all the way on the right of the 7800GTX's PCB. I heard a small crack but didnt think anything of it. I think I might have hit one of the solder joints on this SMIC cap and cracked it.

Doesnt this sound more like the root of my problems? I had a bad cold boot issue again this morning, when i hit the power pins the 7800GTX fan keps revving loudly like when it does for 3 secodns at bootup but wouldnt stop.

Right now im using the onboard GMA950 with no problems.
 
Might be. If you're having no issues when not using that GTX, then you might have found your issue.


And, RMA's only cover manufacturing damage and defects.
 
Yeah, breaking the cap loose could well be the problem. Look at the card closely and see if it is a "cold" solder joint, if so that's a MFG defect and can be rma'd over, if on the other hand you caused the cap to separate then it's user misuse although you can likely get a cap of the same rating and fix it yourself if you're handy with a soldering iron. Let's just hope that if it is a case of misuse and you do replace the cap that there's no lasting damage to the card.

BTW, you can tell a "cold" joint by looking at the solder, there will be none on the lead that pulled loose and a clean separation where it pulled loose from the board. Applying a little pressure on a cap should not cause it to pull loose but applying repeated or excessive pressure can cause the cap to physically break.
 
I got your email BTW, thanks for the response :)

Unfortunately this is one of those IC's that doesnt go through the whole PCB.
 
Still, look at it and see if it was a cold joint. Can you get a pic of it with decent macro?
 
If the PSU or graphics card is no more than 90 days old, it's possible that the credit card used for the purchase may provide coverage for any damage.
 
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