Mobo & Gfx fried by faulty PSU?!

syukton

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 3, 2005
Messages
114
I bought a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad about a year ago. Just this past thursday, it went *poof* while I was out. I came home to a very quiet living room, my computer had shut down while I was gone. I tried turning it back on and while it did power up, the motherboard was giving me a POST error code about the P/S. Fine, I thought, these things happen, so I swapped in my old 535W Enermax and tried to boot, but I got a POST code about the CPU voltage. The Silencer doesn't pass muster on a power supply tester and it's making a static-y clicking sound when powered up. I think either the P/S shorted out and fried my motherboard or the motherboard shorted and fried the P/S. Unfortunately, it also seems to have taken one of my 7800 GTX cards with it :(

Have any of you ever experienced damage/failure to other hardware as a result of a power supply failure? What is my RMA course here, will the mobo/gfx card manufacturer replace stuff that fries while under warranty if it isn't that device's "fault" ? I called PC Power & Cooling and they told me about their RMA process, but they didn't know whether or not I'd have any recourse if their PS fried my other hardware. Any thoughts/ideas/insights?
 
They don't know=you can bet they'll say "Sorry, you're SOL" next time. Not many companies will, but you MIGHT get lucky w/ them (never dealt w/ PCP&C [now an OCZ division] personally. Try again, see what they say.

And yes, a bad PSU can take out video cards, motherboards, and just about any computer component if you're *really* unlucky. But less of a chance happening with multiple items, especially with what is as highly regarded as PCP&C units. Doesn't go to say it won't happen, just less likely, than with say an Allied/Deer unit or something. You just happened to have a triple whammy unfortunately :(.

There's always the RMA process for your other dead parts. That's what it's for. And make sure to go over the warranty terms on the PSU, motherboard and video card - there may be something that excludes warranty coverage if there's "physical damage" or something along those lines. Then again, if it's not visible, well it's at first glance nothing more than a "dead" part right? As long as no visible damage, and assuming you did nothing to cause it, you *should* be fine on all parts for RMA to their respective manufacturers. Note: I am NOT saying cheat the system for anyone that thinks that, I just tend to overanalyze things ;).
 
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