Put my mind to rest, is it the psu?

Soldato
Joined
7 Aug 2004
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11,260
Just built a phenom x6 (4ghz o/c) 16gb ddr3,, crosshair iv 890 and 2x5770s and 6 hard drives, pci sound card, 6 case fans running off the main board. Worked fine for 5-6 days, running on a corsair 550watt, then iv been out the house for 5 days (shut pc down), came home today.....turned on, nothing, looked in case no lights on main board nothing, totally like is no power, so obviously abit worried that my expensive main board died, but shorted the psu 24pinn power cable with only a 4 pin fan attached, nothing, dead, shorted an old 200watt with 4 pin fan attached using same power cable from same wall plug and sure enough it started spinning....... So I'm fairly sure the psu is dead right?

But what caused this? What are the chances it took my pc components with it?
 
I think the chances of the other parts being dead are slim at best, we all know Corsair make good PSU's, so it would have shut down safely and protected your bits.
 
Just built a phenom x6 (4ghz o/c) 16gb ddr3,, crosshair iv 890 and 2x5770s and 6 hard drives, pci sound card, 6 case fans running off the main board. Worked fine for 5-6 days, running on a corsair 550watt, then iv been out the house for 5 days (shut pc down), came home today.....turned on, nothing, looked in case no lights on main board nothing, totally like is no power, so obviously abit worried that my expensive main board died, but shorted the psu 24pinn power cable with only a 4 pin fan attached, nothing, dead, shorted an old 200watt with 4 pin fan attached using same power cable from same wall plug and sure enough it started spinning....... So I'm fairly sure the psu is dead right?

But what caused this? What are the chances it took my pc components with it?

Yep sounds like you're right. You should be able to get the PSU replaced on warranty if it is under 3 years old though :).
 
5770s are 100w cards so there should be plenty of juice left for everything else. Hard drives only use about 7-10 watts and fans typically 2-3 watts. Not sure about a Phenom x6 though, maybe 125w.

Sounds like to PSU went pffffffft. If it can't even power up a single fan then there's not much you can do. Get it sent back.
 
5770s are 100w cards so there should be plenty of juice left for everything else. Hard drives only use about 7-10 watts and fans typically 2-3 watts. Not sure about a Phenom x6 though, maybe 125w.

Sounds like to PSU went pffffffft. If it can't even power up a single fan then there's not much you can do. Get it sent back.

Yeh thats what I thought, I worked it out to at most 480watts of use, so a 550 should be ok, nothing I can do until my new PSU turns up on monday, ill just have to hope and pray that the rest of my system is ok :(
 
Along a marginally different line...

Yesterday something in the house tripped the RCD - Garage, Kitchen, Lounge and Upstairs all went off). My PC was on at the time (new PSU Corsair AX1200W).

When we reset the RCDs, my PC wouldn't power on - I took the plug out the back twice, attempted the PSU On/Off switch, then eventually, probably 5-10mins after the power outage, the PC would power on.

Is this a safety measure or did my PC trip the RCD?!

(We believe it may have been caused by a dodgy extension cable in the garage which was 18yrs old, but i'm paranoid of my PC being the issue!).
 
Sounds like the PSU and my guess is that your overclocked Phenom wasn't helping. Any quad or more core CPU when overclocked needs additional current on the +12V rail. As you increase Vcore and frequency power usage doesn't go up linearly but exponentially, just as heat.

These days it makes perfect sense to go buy at least a 700W PSU, one that complies with ATX 2.2 standards or newer.
 
Yeah, I knew I was on the edge, but I just assumed it was internet hearsay and scaremongering about the power needs, it being a quality PSU I assumed it would be ok until I got my new one (I had planned to get the new one, in fact id arranged its purchase before trying to power on the pc again) so its quite the coincidence that one is on its way anyway!

Ill get the PSU RMA'd anyways if I can, not sure if its still in warranty however.
 
As per email to Martin:

Its all running ok and no problems, but no matter what I do it now wont overclock past 3.14ghz or it simply doesnt save the overclock settings ? :S, its the exact same settings from when I had the 550watt but now it just wont overclock or if I set it to the normal 4ghz setting it takes 2x longer to post but then only boots at 3.14ghz

It loads a 233mhz FSB and autos all the volts :(

Any ideas of this strange behavior ?

Now using Thermaltake 1200watt
 
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