PSU Dead?? RMA Time? - Help!

[Suprnova04]

I just bought this exact PSU. When i plug it in with nothing attached to it nothing happens. No fan, no lights.

I assume this means it is DOA, but this is truly my first build.. so i wanted to check with ya'll to see if I'm doing something stupid.

Thanks!!

 

[JTY]

ATX power supplies must have the "power good" signal sent to them via their 20 or 24 pin connector. If that isn't done, they'll just sit there doing nothing.

 

[Ice Czar]

as mentioned it needs a load on it for the Power Good Signal to generally be sent
in addition the Power On Signal is sent via the mobo

attach an optical drive and say a fan for good measure so it has a load
then with a paperclip short the green wire to any of the black wires in the 24 pin power connector and it will fire up

the later is for the POW_ON
the former allows the PWR_OK to be sent


Green is the POW_ON
Blacks are Grounds \ COM (Common)

the actual voltage through the paperclip is less than a 9V battery all of 5V
its the +5 Volt StandBy (+5VSB) at 1A, I doubt youd even feel it unless your soaking wet and gounded

might want to review this as well
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=761614

 

[Suprnova04]

Thank you both for the information

attach an optical drive and say a fan for good measure so it has a load
then with a paperclip short the green wire to any of the black wires in the 24 pin power connector and it will fire up.

By this do you mean connect the two through the paper clip, like have the paper clip running from the green to a black?

 

[mohammedtaha]

Thank you both for the information



By this do you mean connect the two through the paper clip, like have the paper clip running from the green to a black?

exactly.

I never succeed using paper clips, so I use a wire that has been stripped at both ends and just connect them together. Easy and will definitely work. Left overs from cutting wires shorter.

You might wanna check the idle/load voltages after connecting everything to make sure your PSU is good though. Using a multimeter, set it at 20V setting and connect the red probe to the 5V on the molex and the black probe to the ground. IDLE should be as close as possible to 5V. Record it and then Load your PC with Prime95 blend setting and rthdribl. Record the voltage. Do the same thing again to measure the 12V under IDLE/LOAD. 3.3V is kinda tricky and not that easy to do, but if you know how to do it, you can check it too. Record them and check if the specs are within 5% tolerence for 12V, 5V and 3.3V. If not, I would RMA it. Some say that 10% is enough. Not me.

 

[Suprnova04]

sweet. thanks for the tips

My girlfriends dad is an electrician\engineer... i'm sure he's got a multimeter and he'll probably help me with that stuff.

thanks again everyone

 

[Ice Czar]

Thank you both for the information



By this do you mean connect the two through the paper clip, like have the paper clip running from the green to a black?

err... to be perfectly clear here
just attach the 4 pin molex connector to the optical drive
and either a 3 pin or 4 pin to the fan

then simply short the 24 pin mobo connector from, GRN > BLK to start it up

& a cut and paste w\ the acceptable range of values for each of the main rails
(Orange = +3.3V, Red = +5V, Yellow = +12V)


cut and paste

closer to the reference value is better than either higher or lower
stuff also doesnt tend to get fried from lower values as much as higher values
anything higher than the 5% range is called an overshoot and that fries most stuff
anything lower is called an undershoot and that makes things unstable


for reference Basic Spec compliance of 5% is
+12V....11.4V to 12.6V
+5V......4.75V to 5.25V
+3.3V...3.135V to 3.465V
but its also a dynamic range
the supply converts power from AC to DC as the load changes from the components
well it also has to keep the reference voltages within the range above while it doing that
so measuring at one point is like watching a single frame in a movie
so logging the voltage is a good idea

that said your BIOS and software is lying to you
what you dont know is by what amount
for that youd need to measure it with a multimeter
cheap ones can be had for $20 or $30 though their accuracy isnt all that much better than the BIOS
they scale up to hundreds of dollars and increasing accuracy

ideally you calibrate your software to a hard measurement (like at idle)
then log till your confident that your within spec at all times

a high reference voltage at idle means that while the supply might be regulating the load within its own parameter,
under some circumstances it could be letting overshoots through
now there are advantages to having a higher reference value if your overclocking
but only if your not allowing overshoots
thats one of the reasons overclockers like supplies with tighter than spec load regulation
so instead of a supply with a range of 5% regulation it has 3% or 1%
and can thus have a higher reference value without letting through overshoots

most components can deal with higher than 5% values and are commonly tested to survive split second 10% values, but these wear on the components

since IC Chips (integrated circuits) vary from pristine to just barely passing the functional test, that means a little "wear" (electromigration) could cause immediate failure or not be noticable degredation for years

more to the point though, the odds are greatly increased for some failure somewhere by the sheer number of IC chips throughout the computer as a whole.
some are behind buffers like the CPU and RAM which have the voltage modified by the motherboards voltage regulation modual, while other lack any buffer at all, like the drives

its best to test them under a real load
a rail that doesnt have a load on ut will likely be fairly off
which is why you can ignore the negative rails as they arent typically employed anymore
(unless your running some antique cards)

 

[Suprnova04]

thank you very much Ice Czar.

Very informative stuff *print*