Hit the switch...POP...no lights!

P

Psience

n00b
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Oct 6, 2006
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Ok, so I was moving my PC to another room the other day and when I go to turn it on, the breaker in the room pops leaving me in darkness.

I have narrowed the problem down to my Enermax Liberty 500. I think that I somehow damaged the unit when I was moving it. I suspect that the damage happened when I was moving my desk and the power cord was getting jammed further into the unit by the table leg. The unit shows no damage. I believe the short may be caused by some internal components touching each other in which case I could bend them back to get the PSU working again.

Now, I'm looking for opinions - is this fixable?
 
i'd be weary of tinkering inside your PSU. u could zap yourself touching the wrong thing. if you open that thing up, how will you know what component is causing the problem?

do u have another PSU or a friend who can lend you one to try out?

your PSU might very well be dead now. i'd just get a new one.
 
I suspect this room has a GFCI outlet. ;-) Enermax PSU's are notorious for this. Move the unit back to the other room and see if it fires right up.
 
jonnyGURU said:
I suspect this room has a GFCI outlet. ;-) Enermax PSU's are notorious for this. Move the unit back to the other room and see if it fires right up.
Click to expand...

I agree that you need to check the PC in the room that it used to work in. Is there a possibility that the room has too much crap plugged in + your PC is taking it over its limits? Or the outlet you're pluggin into could be wired incorectly.
 
It's alive! I got the unit to fire up and spin a fan (I jumped it). And yes, jonnyGURU, the 2 rooms I tried the unit in have siemens AFCI 15A breakers. When I went back to the original room, the unit seems to be working perfectly.

I don't think its caused by overloading the circuit - the room where its working also has a 15A breaker.

Any suggestions on how to address this? I think its pretty [H]ard if I have to go swapping out breaker switches to get my PC working.
 
It's not an overload. It's just the way GFCI outlets react to Enermax's APFC circuitry.
 
FWIW, I've seen these problems with some Etasis models too - the Silverstone ST56ZF in particular has been known for this.
 
So the problem is caused by a design flaw? Should I be taking this up with Enermax's warranty dept?
 
No. Because if they replace it, the replacement will do the same thing! :D
 
If someone would put the psu behind a UPS with line filtering do you think it would help?
 
Not sure. I've had success using the PSU on a UPS, but Enermax warns against using one for the same reason you're tripping outlets now.
 
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