Question Could a (potential) power surge have fried my PSU AND monitor?

[nickyb11]

Hello,

I have somewhat of a complex situation here.

First, here are my PC specs.
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi II
GPU: AMD Radeon 6700XT
CPU: AMD Ryzen - (I forget the exact numbers on this one, sorry!)
PSU: Seasonic S12II-520 Bronze (connected to surge protector that I've been using for years)
Monitor: ASUS TUF Gaming VG27VQMY (connected to PC via HDMI port)

I came home to find that my rabbit had gotten into my office and chewed a bit on my PSU cable. It didn't look like he hit metal, but he did get to the inner white plastic part from the outer black covering.
I attempted to turn my PC on, but the monitor wouldn't recognize any input. When I looked down at my motherboard, a bright white light was shining on the "VGA" section of the motherboard. When I looked it up, it seems to mean that the motherboard isn't detecting the graphics card. I tried some fixes online, including reseating the GPU and putting it in a different slot. I even took out my current GPU and replaced it with an old one and attempted to boot with the same issue. I concluded this had to be a PSU issue, and am currently assuming that it can't get enough power to the GPU for it to be recognized. The fans still turn when the computer boots, but there is no input detected on my monitor.

My only theory here is that my rabbit had somehow caused a power surge by chewing on the cable and fried my PSU. I'm not sure how likely this would be, as my computer was off when the rabbit chewed it, and it's plugged into a surge protector.

Here's a bonus issue if anyone's willing to address it as well, but it might be better to put it in the "monitor" forum. My monitor is completely not recognizing input anymore since this incident. I switched between 3 HDMI ports and tested it on 3 separate laptops and it will not recognize any signal. It will still turn on and navigate through the menu, but no input. When this issue happened, it was plugged into a different outlet, so I doubt it was affected by any potential surge, unless the surges jumped from the PSU to the GPU to the HDMI to the monitor and fried the inputs. I had just gotten this monitor a few weeks ago to replace my other one, which ironically had this same issue after 6 years of use.

I'm a tad frustrated at the situation - if anyone could shed some light on it, that would be much appreciated!

 

[dingo07]

Is the bunny still alive?

 

[Misgar]

he did get to the inner white plastic part from the outer black covering

If you're in the USA, White insulation implies Neutral, whereas black insulation is Line/Live and Green or Green/Yellow is Earth.

Where I live, Neutral is earthed at the substation, so it's rare to see anything more than a few Volts on Neutral, whereas Line/Live here is 240V AC 50Hz. If you're US based, Line will probably be 120V 60Hz.

If Bunny chewed through to the Neutral, there might not be enough Volts to cause any serious damage to the equipment or the animal. If Bunny had chewed into the Line input, I'd expect a very sad outcome.

I've had similar damage to lighting circuits up in the loft when squirrels got into the roof. Blackened scorch marks on the twin and earth cable highlighted where arcing had occured and blown the fuse.

Have you replaced the chewed-on mains cable/cord/lead with a new one without bite marks? Your monitor and PC both appear to be powering on, but it's not safe to use a damaged cable.

Until you find another working monitor, it's difficult to go any further. It might be your ATX PSU, or it could be a GPU or mobo problem.

I concluded this had to be a PSU issue, and am currently assuming that it can't get enough power to the GPU for it to be recognized

I suggest buying a cheap ATX PSU tester. They don't give a complete view of the power supply's health, but at least you'll see if the PCIe 12V feed to the GPU is present (use PCI-e 6-Pin input on tester).
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-External-Hard-Drive/dp/B07VS8QCXC