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Was my PSU powerful enough

M

MarineCorps

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
166
My rig just turned off, went pop, and then emitted the smell of burnt rubber.

I'm concerned the PSU wasn't powerful enough for the rig.

XFX 9800GT
8GB DDR2 1066
AMD dual core X2
ASUS M3A78-EM
Seagate 500GB SATA 3.0


Powering this rig was an almost 3 year old PSU Antec 550W PSU

Was this powerful enough and is a spare 500W NXZT powerful enough?
 
Powerful enough, yes. Was it failing? Also perhaps yes. There was a design flaw with the early Antec Truepower and Truepower 2.0 PSUs which caused them to fail early under certain conditions. If you had one of those, then it's possible you ran into that problem.

As for the NZXT PSU, I wouldn't recommend it. It's most likely a generic crap PSU. My suggestion is to RMA the Antec if you're lucky enough that it's still under warranty, and if not, then purchase a new quality PSU.
 
A proper 550W unit will have no trouble powering that rig.

But as Zero correctly pointed out, those old antec's were pretty awful. I've little hope that your NZXT will do any better, perticularly without surge or brownout protection.
 
Well the really bad part is that I have no job so I would have to wait for my tax returns to come in to get a corsair. the NXZ came with a crap rig that failed in six months. So no shockers if it fails now.:( Been 3 years years with the antec. And with my luck there is no way it would be under warranty. Newegg says it's under a 5 year warranty
 
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huh. I used the 500W PSU and within 30 minutes of playing MW2 the smell came back. 10 minutes later the computer shut off and won't turn back on now. If I turn the PSU off then on again and hit the power button the CPU fan kinda moves. This isn't a great sign......
 
MarineCorps said:
huh. I used the 500W PSU and within 30 minutes of playing MW2 the smell came back. 10 minutes later the computer shut off and won't turn back on now. If I turn the PSU off then on again and hit the power button the CPU fan kinda moves. This isn't a great sign......
Click to expand...

Stop trying to turn on the system RIGHT NOW for all of the following reasons:
A) the NZXT PSU fucked your system
B) the Antec PSU fucked your system and therefore the system is now exhibiting that smell
C) Both PSUs have fucked your system
D) You have a power issue in your home and that's fucking the PSUs in your home.

But considering the low quality of both PSUs, I think it's safe to say that both PSUs have died regardeless of any power issue in the home.

Waiti until you can afford a new PSU. This PSU should be enough for that system:
$50 - Corsair 400CX 400W PSU
 
Danny Bui said:
Stop trying to turn on the system RIGHT NOW for all of the following reasons:
A) the NZXT PSU fucked your system
B) the Antec PSU fucked your system and therefore the system is now exhibiting that smell
C) Both PSUs have fucked your system
D) You have a power issue in your home and that's fucking the PSUs in your home.

But considering the low quality of both PSUs, I think it's safe to say that both PSUs have died regardeless of any power issue in the home.

Waiti until you can afford a new PSU. This PSU should be enough for that system:
$50 - Corsair 400CX 400W PSU
Click to expand...

Yeah. I stopped. Not the best of ideas. I did hook both of them up to a old crap system with just the basic connectors. Both PSUs turned on without any smell. Probaly not the PSUs. Probably the motherboard. Everything else on the surge protector is running fine. Including the modem and router.
 
An easy way to diagnose the problem:
Smell both the power supplys
Smell the motherboard

The one that smells the worst is probably the culprit.

*Disclaimer* The smell is probably toxic.
 
Damn that is a shame, those older TruePower units can be real troopers. I recall seeing a friend powering his Dual 8800GTX rig with a 550w model, pulling almost as much power from the wall in a game as I do with my quad crossfire and Antec 1000w.
 
Crispy002 said:
An easy way to diagnose the problem:
Smell both the power supplys
Smell the motherboard

The one that smells the worst is probably the culprit.

*Disclaimer* The smell is probably toxic.
Click to expand...

:D Yeah. The PSUs don't smell. The computer does.:( Seemed to be coming from the CPU area but the smell was so faint that I couldn't tell for sure.
 
i chose that one because I have had flawless boards from gigabyte and that you have 8 gigs of ram which I assumed was 2 x 4 gig kits = 4 sticks. If you have 2 x 4 gig = 2 sticks then you can get away with less.
 
Turns out it was neither my MB nor PSU. it was my video card. I was setting up and old rig and I powered it up for a test and it worked so I put my video card in there and boom. It wouldn't turn on at all same as my current rig. I used the onboard video and powered it up and it booted up to windows. I would never have suspected my video card. Well theres another RMA I have to cancel today
 
MarineCorps said:
Turns out it was neither my MB nor PSU. it was my video card. I was setting up and old rig and I powered it up for a test and it worked so I put my video card in there and boom. It wouldn't turn on at all same as my current rig. I used the onboard video and powered it up and it booted up to windows. I would never have suspected my video card. Well there's another RMA I have to cancel today
Click to expand...
That's weird. I've never heard of the video card crippling a system so that it wouldn't turn on, unless of course the PSU wasn't powerful enough, but that PSU you have should be.
 
Aaron11 said:
That's weird. I've never heard of the video card crippling a system so that it wouldn't turn on, unless of course the PSU wasn't powerful enough, but that PSU you have should be.
Click to expand...

Which is why I never even considered it.:confused: But I did a quick basic power on test with my old rig. Powered on fine. Insert video card. No power to system. Remove video card. Power to system. :confused: XFX is apparently willing to replace it. Weirdest thing ever.
 
Aaron11 said:
That's weird. I've never heard of the video card crippling a system so that it wouldn't turn on, unless of course the PSU wasn't powerful enough, but that PSU you have should be.
Click to expand...
The motherboard requires a working video card to POST, so if the card is completely dead, the machine will not boot.
 
MarineCorps said:
No. I turned the PSU on and off. But the system never turned on.
Click to expand...
It turned on momentarily according to what you said here:
MarineCorps said:
If I turn the PSU off then on again and hit the power button the CPU fan kinda moves. This isn't a great sign......
Click to expand...

Sounds like either the BIOS killed the bootup process as soon as it figured out there wasn't a functioning video card installed, or the card failed in such a way that it created some kind of short which tripped either the motherboard's or the PSU's protection circuitry.
 
Zero82z said:
It turned on momentarily according to what you said here:
Click to expand...

by kinda moved I meant the blades moved less then half an inch then stopped.:eek:

Sounds like either the BIOS killed the bootup process as soon as it figured out there wasn't a functioning video card installed, or the card failed in such a way that it created some kind of short which tripped either the motherboard's or the PSU's protection circuitry.
Click to expand...
I wish there had been some way to tell me the problem if it's the former.:confused: Theres always morse code I guess. If it's the latter it must have been some serious short to do that.:(
 
so the next question's are A) does xfx require registration and B) did you register it?
 
hossdaddy said:
so the next question's are A) does xfx require registration and B) did you register it?
Click to expand...


A. Yes. In order to recive any level of support you need to.

B. Thankfully yes. I recall doing it some time ago just cause.:cool:

Can barely play HOI3 with the onboard graphic.
 
cool, i guess the only down side is that you will probably get a 9800gt back from the rma. Not that is really a downside.
 
hossdaddy said:
cool, i guess the only down side is that you will probably get a 9800gt back from the rma. Not that is really a downside.
Click to expand...

:D I've been thinking the exact same thing. Heres hoping though!


If I had a job I would toss the broken one in the trash and have an excuse to say upgrade time.:D
 
MarineCorps said:
:D I've been thinking the exact same thing. Heres hoping though!


If I had a job I would toss the broken one in the trash and have an excuse to say upgrade time.:D
Click to expand...

are you crazy? Run the rma and sell the replacement. New 9800gt's are around $99-120 so you could get close to that, but you would need to add about $100 of your own cash to get anything that would be considered an upgrade. As long as your not trying to run tough games on a 24" @ 1920 or higher with maxed aa&af you are fine.
 
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