Power supply goes pop

K

kelrizzo

n00b
Joined
Sep 30, 2007
Messages
6
Ok well that constitutes a bad night.

Using a Gigabyte K8NS motherboard with a Athlon 2400+ being run by an Antec 450 Watt Power supply. Everything is plugged into a Belkin battery backup/suppressor.

I come home from work one day and nothing is running. Odd, battery back up is running, monitor is running, everything plugged in correctly, no odd smells in the air. Hitting the power button on the case though brings no reaction from the power supply whatsoever.

Ok, no worries, bad power supply. Buy a new Thermal Take 600W, slap it in. Well it turns on momentarily and turns off.

Ok, I've seen this before, I can handle it. Test my memory sticks one by one, unplug non-essentials, make sure all essential items are firmly plugged in, make sure my CPU is firmly seated, no dust on back of motherboad to short out against the case. Looks ok... contact!!

Big bang from the power supply, a whiff of ozone, and it's dead.

The good thing is I didn't throw anything, the bad thing is, I'm clueless. I'm assuming the power supply did what it was supposed to do in order to protect my computer.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

btw, both the 24 pin, and the 2x2 were plugged in

Some new info after interviewing the wife and kid. Last it worked, we were ripping a DVD through which the computer was intermitently getting sluggish. That could be due to the CPU usage of ripping a DVD, but I don't think it's ever been sluggish before when doing that.

Apparently though, the same thing happened to my original Antec power supply though while I was at work, it blew it's top.

I'm wonderin if this could be a problem with the video card which has it's own power connection.
 
Heh, what PSU was the replacement 600W? Also, what are your system specs? Which Belkin model is that UPS/Surge?

I'm guessing thats an older Antec 450W, who's quality isn't that great. Many of them failed prematurely.
 
The new PSU was the Thermaltake 600W
The UPS was a F6C500- UNV
The video card a GEFORCE 7800 GS OC
WD800 SATA Hard Drive
Thermaltake VA8000BWS with case fans and a big Zalman fan for CPU cooling

The old PSU was an Antec SP 450


I don't think it's soley the PSU, both of them popped.

I can find no visible damage to the board, CPU, video card. I'm going on the premise that there is a damaged component based on the fact that the PSU would power up for a few moments, case lights and fans come on, then it would shut down without even going so far as the POST test. At times the PSU would shut itself down then immediately try to come back up, only to shut itself down again.

I suppose it is possible I've had two bum PSU's in a row, but I'm not banking on that.
 
Yah, I read from the first post it was a thermaltake... i was wondering if it was the purepower or the toughpower, lol. The purepower is of lesser quality than the toughpower.

I'm thinkin its your UPS... how old is it? Have you tried it without the UPS and a good PSU?

Try it with just the essentials plugged in, to get it to POST. Don't attach any drives, soundcards, modems, etc.
 
ahhh apologies...

Purepower 2.0

Is the difference between the PSU's significant enough that it would be better to get a lesser wattage (450) toughpower then another of the higher wattage (600) purepower?

The Purepower was bought last night after the Antec went pop.
 
RMA the Antec, return the Thermaltake. Non-Toughpower Tt's have been known to have overstated their abilities on the labels. Though, even if it was a rebadged 500W, it should have powered your system. I'm not sure of your particular model, however, but I'd research the PSU more before buying it. I'd ony use a non-Toughpower Tt if the system was low end. If you can, stick to Antec Earthwatts or True Power Trio PSUs if buying from the store. I'm not sure what other brands are widley carried. Ultra PSUs are ok, not the greatest, but still ok. If they have any Seasonic or Silverstones, those are top notch. Where will you be buying your next one from? lol.

How old is your UPS? How old is your house/apt/complex/cardboardbox/mansion/etc (particularly, how old is the wiring)?
 
I think what I'll do is run off the battery back up for the remaining tests.

There should be no problems in this house as far as wiring, I live on a military installation, but you never know. Also my monitor was plugged into the same UPS/surge protector that the power supply was plugged into and had no problems. However that being said, I'll get a buddy with a multimeter to check it out.

UPS is going on 2 or 3 years old though, something for consideration.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top