Can a motherboard cause PSUs to keep failing?

rudeboymcc · 21 Mar 2009 at 09:55

Hi. I've got an ancient abit motherboard with an athlon 1.8ghz cpu.

I first had an Akasa Paxpower PSU, but then after 2 years this PSU failed. So i put one from an Antec case in (Antec True Power). And now a year on this has failed as well.

The computer is on 24/7 but nothing strenuous is done on it. It has an inno3D graphhisc card which needs a molex connector and only has one sata hard disk.

Is there a chance that the motherboard or graphics card is causing the PSU's to fail? or is it just coincidence?

smogsy · 21 Mar 2009 at 09:58

its more likely that your cheap psu are just cheap...

Antec one should have been ok but PSU's you get with cases are Waste of cash...

rudeboymcc · 21 Mar 2009 at 10:00

It says on it Antec True power though? surely that means something - i thought that was a really good one thats why i;m surprised it broke.

rudeboymcc · 21 Mar 2009 at 10:01

forgot to mention that it's the Antec one that came with teh case, the Akase I paid extra for :-(

(for it "quietness" apparently).

JTrickle · 21 Mar 2009 at 10:19

Yes is the answer to your thread's question... however with a 2 year gap between it happening, you would have to go for coincidence on it happening. You got a surge protector?

dirtybeatfreak · 21 Mar 2009 at 11:23

more than likey a co-incidence mate, if its the motherboard that has borked both of your psu's it could be that you have faulty vregs or capacitators.

Kennysevenfold · 21 Mar 2009 at 11:26

rudeboymcc said:
the Akase I paid extra for (for it "quietness" apparently).

yeah you certainly did pay extra for the quietness, its dead

EsaT · 21 Mar 2009 at 11:51

rudeboymcc said:
It says on it Antec True power though? surely that means something - i thought that was a really good one thats why i;m surprised it broke.

If it's non-Trio TruePower CWT designed it to fail by using Fuhjyyu time bomb capacitors.

Just open those PSUs and look for bulged capacitors or capacitors with any suspicious colouring around then in PCB.

rudeboymcc · 21 Mar 2009 at 15:56

no surge protector unfortunately - maybe i should invest in one.

is it just a capacitor that's likely to have blown? I re-tested the akasa one today by shorting the ON to grnd and it started smoking. but the other one doesn't do anything.

EsaT · 21 Mar 2009 at 17:02

Well, now you have your own smoke machine... Just wouldn't trust Akasa even in that job.
That's something else than capacitor in there.

But if that Antec is one of tyhose older CWT made TruePowers then it's good probability that it's capacitor failure. (might have also damaged something else in PSU)

rudeboymcc · 21 Mar 2009 at 17:45

EsaT said:
If it's non-Trio TruePower CWT designed it to fail by using Fuhjyyu time bomb capacitors.

Just open those PSUs and look for bulged capacitors or capacitors with any suspicious colouring around then in PCB.

Think this is the problem. Opened it up jsut now and one of the Fuhjyyu capacitors is leaking and there's loads of brown stuff around them.

I take it these are just standard capacitors os i can just replace them with the ones from the smoking power supply? nothing aorund them seems damaged so may as well try.

khrall · 21 Mar 2009 at 19:16

rudeboymcc said:
I take it these are just standard capacitors os i can just replace them with the ones from the smoking power supply? nothing aorund them seems damaged so may as well try.

For the love of god or any other deity, don't try replacing the caps! Questioning replacing the caps suggests it would be dangerous with your knowledge of electronics knowledge.

It's not personal, just plain safety!

Addicted · 21 Mar 2009 at 19:35

yea, just buy a good PSU and you dont have to worry for a good few years, it is indeed very risky replacing components out of a psu, especially if they've leaked and probably shorted it anyway!

EsaT · 21 Mar 2009 at 20:06

Caps should replaced with new high quality caps instead of other questionable quality possibly half baked to dead caps.
Capacitance and voltage rating should be always at least same to original and otherwise features should match.

But that PSU is such old low efficiency design that I don't see any sense to bother.