6 Power Supplies in 2 years

Odin

Odin

Odin

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Joined
2 Aug 2006
Posts
313
Hi all been a while since ive posted here.

Basically as the forum post says ive had 6 power supplies die on me in the past two years. This is becoming extremely annoying as I dont exactly buy cheap power supplies. Im talking about enermax galaxies and ocz powerstreams all over 700w. Ive had my plugs checked and im running a decent belkin 6 way surge protector but this never seems to help at all and I am constantly barraged with power supply failures or problems.

Could anyone have any idea what exactly could be causing these problems as I have no idea considering ive checked the plug on my wall and have a surge protector running.

Yesterday morning I noticed that there was a slight burning smell inside the tower which I could not figure out what from. All temperatures were ok and cables were fine. In the evening the pc was automatically restarting periodically without warning when put under a slight bit of strain. Now all of a sudden it seems to be running perfectly fine. Im totally confused atm :(

Im running on : -

Intel Core Duo E6600 LGA775 Conroe 2.40Ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 HZ PC2-6400C4 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit
Was previously on Enermax Infiniti 720W EIN720AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
Now temporarily running on Atrix 500w Psu (which is also now giving problems)
Lian-Li PC V1100 PLUS Silver Aluminium Midi-Tower
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI
3x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer
 
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you're just unlucky probably.

corsair 620 would probably be enough power....try it next lol

EDIT: have you been using the same cable/plug point everytime?
 
i have used a few there were a couple of times were the cables themselves died with the power supplies :confused:
 
i do know that the part of my house which im in is defo pretty old but even then I did have the plugs in my room checked out. Even then it was just the plugs
 
Odin said:
i have used a few there were a couple of times were the cables themselves died with the power supplies :confused:
Click to expand...

How do mean 'died' - were they burnt through or were they subsequently tested and found to be suspect.

That apart, if you’ve used the same surge protector with all the PSU’s that have failed I’d be inclined to change it.

It’s either not working properly or more likely is not relevant to the problem.

Either way it would be one common factor you could easily eliminate.
 
ive used 3 surge protectors. ive had between power supplies blowing up (yes blowing up :P ) to computers being powered down and never powering up to random crashes with power completely being lost. The problem I have being from gibraltar is that its quite expensive to have the power supplies sent back each time followed by the long wait for it to return
 
I'd think about a U.P.S. if I were you. That will protect your PSU from any gremlins in your mains supply. At the rate the PSUs are failing it may even save you money in the long run. A surge protector may guard against "spikes" but genuine surges & brownouts are more damaging.
 
thanks for the advice is there any way i can test the electrical circuits in the old part of my house which is where my pc is running atm ?
 
I am not sure what the cost is but we have mains monitors for troubleshooting "weird" problems on site. It just plugs into the mains supply to be tested & left for a day or so, it records & prints out instances of mains fluctuation. You can do the usual measuring Live to Neutral Live to Earth (previous 2 should be within 5V) & Neutral to Earth (less than 5V) if you feel competent but that is more of a safety thing than a quality measure.
 
hmmm could be woth investig in a ups like someone sais. they clean up your electric treat making itne for ya pc :) i use one all time since my arear gets lots of mini power cuts
 
Might not be a power problem. If you have a surge suppressor on and your still getting problems it could be a humidity problem. You say your house is quite old, well is the humidity in the air 'damp' or 'dry'. Hard to measure buy you can generally tell if you have condensation on your windows in the morning and if you do get moisture build up in the r4oom then this will effect the life span of your components.
 
humidity in gibraltar is normally pretty high but would it warrant so many power supply problems in such a short time ?
 
Unless your windows are running with water & steam is coming out of the PSU exhaust I wouldn't think humidity would be a problem. Try taking off a side cover after the PC has been off for a long period & look for any condensation, it is possible if you get extremes of ambient temperature & it has been humid. After a few minutes the PSU would have dried itself out from the warmth & the airflow, or exploded. Once it has been running for a few minutes humidity is not going to be a factor.
 
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