Old PSU emits magic smoke....

[dis]

Just finished building a new workstation rig.
Plug it in, motherboard powers fine. Hit the on switch... *boom/flash*

The only old component was a EVGA p2 1200 that's been sat idle for the last 4 years, figured no point in buying a new PSU as 1200 leaves lot of headroom.
Now i'm thinking old PSUs are not to be trusted...

Anyone else had issues upcycling older PSUs?

Status of the motherboard, chip etc to be determined....

 

[hornetstinger]

nah I'd say problem is you didn't use it for years and that damaged to capacitors. Typically they don't take well of deep discharge and being unused for prolonged periods.

 

[Grimley]

There's a good chance those parts have survived. That EVGA was a good PSU and its protection circuity will have done its job when it expired.

 

[dis]

Yep, looks like the parts are all ok. New PSU + rebuild, just got into BIOS. Might fail on proper workloads but i suspect not.
Lucky, and i wouldn't like to try the same with a no-brand PSU

Typically they don't take well of deep discharge and being unused for prolonged periods.

It makes sense, i just hadn't considered it. I assume you'd need to run it for a while first (which i did, it was on nearly constantly for 3 years first).
Lesson learned!

 

[Jupiter]

I think you'll be fine. As Grimley said, these (good) units have excellent circuits that prevent other components being wiped out

 

[LuckyBenski]

nah I'd say problem is you didn't use it for years and that damaged to capacitors. Typically they don't take well of deep discharge and being unused for prolonged periods.

Capacitors don't experience deep discharge, they're charged or they're not.

Old caps should be reformed by slowly bringing the voltage up, but that usually only applies to decades old ones.

Still the most likely thing that failed, though it could have been any component really if unplugged for years.

 

[EsaT]

Plug it in, motherboard powers fine. Hit the on switch... *boom/flash*

That sounds (pun intended) like mains/high voltage side issue.
Big primary capacitor(s) could certainly make a sound when bursting.
And especially high voltage power semiconductors "opening up" would give both sharp sound and visual effects.
Latter would be more fitting to description.

So where's the autopsy?

Here's insides of living specimen:

EVGA SuperNOVA P2 1200 W Review

Another member joined EVGA’s SuperNOVA family. The new P2-1200 with a capacity of 1200 W and Platinum efficiency promises up to 94% efficiency with 220 V input and features a fully modular design with Japanese capacitors to ensure it is incredibly reliable and stable.

www.techpowerup.com

Capacitors don't experience deep discharge, they're charged or they're not.

And without external voltage input all capacitors discharge automatically by themselves because of leakage current...
Which is even the highest in electrolytic capacitors.
And for big primary's capacitor(s) there's also "bleeder" resistor to make sure high voltage charge is discharged in reasonable time.

 

[adidan]

Just finished building a new workstation rig.
Plug it in, motherboard powers fine. Hit the on switch... *boom/flash*

The only old component was a EVGA p2 1200 that's been sat idle for the last 4 years, figured no point in buying a new PSU as 1200 leaves lot of headroom.
Now i'm thinking old PSUs are not to be trusted...

Anyone else had issues upcycling older PSUs?

Status of the motherboard, chip etc to be determined....

Probably be fine.

I've had two PSUs go over the years, the last one a Be Quiet DPP that I think had hit ten years - can't remember the one before.

Both times they did their job and were the soldier that threw themselves on the grenade to save the squad.

EVGA are a solid make so, yeah, I think you'd be unlucky to lose anything else.