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New Rig: Powered Down, Power Supply HOT?!

G

gamesgeek

n00b
Joined
Mar 26, 2005
Messages
17
Hello folk,

I recently built a new rig via Newegg.com. Last night, during a standard gaming session ala World of Warcraft, my PC unexpectedly powered down. No blue screen, no crashes -- just as if I had yanked the plug.

So I reach around the back of the box to toggle the power, and find the exhaust grill of the power supply unsually hot to the touch. The plug itself is also hot and the prongs are too hot to keep my finger on for more than a moment.

The PSU is a Tagan E-Power 450W, which I was advised here was a really reliable unit. I have a GeForce 6800 GT 256MB PCI-E card and since the problem seems isolated to high performance gaming situations, I'm guessing the problem has something to do with the power this beast draws.

But, this PSU should be sufficient, no? Even if it's not, should the result really be a fire hazard?

What else could possibly cause this temperature spike (and eventual shutdown)?
 
No help here? Has anyone experienced a similar problem? :confused:

Would this extra heat be caused if my PSU was insufficient to power the video card under stress conditions?

Could it be due to poor wiring/lack of juice coming from the source? My building is pretty old and I would not be surprised to find the power is quirky, but would this result in overheating and shutdown as described?

Someone must have some input.
 
Where do you have this thing plugged in? Is it plugged in with a bunch of otherstuff? It sounds like it's drawing way too much power, from how you described the plug itself got hot.
 
The PC side of the plug was hot, not the wall. The prongs on the back of the box itself would have burned me given a few more degrees. The exhaust grill on the PSU was also uncomfortably hot.

It's plugged in to a standard surge protector. Nothing fancy. Shares this strip with my speakers, monitor, printer and occasionally my cell phone charger.

A short inside the PSU? Any way to confirm this diagnoses, or should I just replace it and hope for the best?
 
When it is on, make sure the Fan(s) in the PSU are running. It could be that the fan(s) dont work and it overheated.
 
I'd stick with Antec, Fortron, or Enermax. In addition, I think that PSU is probably too weak. You should have at least a 500W. What do the rails look like on that thing?
 
Does it work fine unless you're gaming? Have you tried powering it back up? If you haven't I'd be a bit wary of doing so. It's possible something cooked and bad things could happen if it's powered up again. Do you have an old system around that'll take your PSU? That'd be the best way to test it. If you do want to test it in your rig strip the system all the way down. I forget what happens if you try to fire up a machine w/o ram or CPU (might be a bad idea... could end up w/ an overvolt), but you can certainly pull everything but the ram, CPU, and mobo. You'll get a beep code for no video of course, but the fans should still spin up.

Most likely it's one of three things- a bad PSU fan, some other bad part in the PSU, or a case cooling problem.

How's your airflow? If the ambient temps in your case get too high it could cause the PSU to overheat and shut down. Or perhaps your system is shutting itself down to avoid damage to the CPU... I really don't know much about that though. Being one of those duallie nuts, I don't do much OCing & don't know much about thermal protection setups.
 
If you have to ask, then trying another PSU is probably the only option for you.
Click to expand...

Because a solution can't be described to me? Obviously if I didn't "have to ask" I wouldn't be here posting on a discussion forum you arrogant wad. :rolleyes: Some of us use it as a source of new information not just a place to compare wang sizes and brag about benchmark scores.


Anyway, back to the problem:

Yes, the problem is isolated to gaming. I'm on the rig right now and it runs smooth and clean if I'm not pounding away in WoW or Half Life 2, so I'm guessing, as I said, it has something to do with the extra juice required by the video card. The temperature right now is normal, the grill and plug are just above room temperature.

Cooling is fine, there's a 120MM intake on the front, a 120MM exhaust in back, an 80MM intake on the side, and the PSU fan is running as expected.

There's no other unusual behavior associated, no slow downs, no strange crashes, etc. so I'm guessing it's not affecting anything except the PSU itself, though I guess I could be wrong here I'm assuming I would see more serious problems in day-to-day use if there was some kind of internal damage.


Is there a simple way I can "stress test" my PSU without endangering the rest of the hardware?

What other information might I provide that could shed some additional light on the problem? I'll jot down the BIOS numbers when I finish this single table tournament on Ultimatebet. :D
 
gamesgeek said:
Is there a simple way I can "stress test" my PSU without endangering the rest of the hardware?
Click to expand...
The only thing I can think of is getting a PSU Stress Tester. But I think they are like 30$. Let me check
 
dandragonrage said:
No.
Click to expand...

I was being optimistic, ok?

Having a 450W is perfectly fine, as long as it's a good quality PSU. I know watts are not the entire factor.
 
Seeing as your cooling sounds ok, it sounds like it's the PSU. You really shouldn't be nearly burning yourself on a PSU.
I looked up the PSU on newegg and based on the usual pic of the PSU label it looks like it's got a fan speed setting. Have you tried turning it all the way up?
 
Guys: Is AC anything like DC when it comes to needing a good ground?

My experience when it came to car audio was that we'd run a larger gage and/or shorter wire for grounds than we did for hot. Otherwise, the amps would overheat.

Could it be that a lack of Earth ground is causing the same thing? Or does alternating current not require this since the ground isn't part of the cicuit?
 
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