- Sep 17, 2014
- 33
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- 4,530
I had to change a light switch on the same circuit that my PC shares. I forgot to power down my PC before switching off the breaker for the circuit. The PC is set to remain off in the event of a power failure.
Anyhow, I open the breaker, change the light switch, and switch the breaker back to closed. There was a short in my wiring which caused the breaker to trip. PC stayed off.
I repaired the short, powered the circuit normally, the lights work etc. Only then do I power my PC back up. When I do, the video card fans go full blast, and then the PC restarts.
Every other time I've had a power outage, this is the behavior. After which everything restarts normally. This time though, Everything restarts normally, but with no video. Trace the fault to my video card (Nvidea GTX 970). The rest of the system works fine after I remove the card and switch to cpu-based graphics.
The PSU was off, the PC never tried to power up during my maintenance. After I traced the issue to the card, I tested both power leads with a multimeter. Both are rock solid at 12 volts. I couldn't test under load, though. The PC has worked normally since.
Question:
Is it even possible for a surge to make it through an off power supply, and only blow my video card, but leave the rest of the system untouched, including the psu?
Or, is it just a coincidence, my card was ready to go anyway, and this is just the time it went??
Anyhow, I open the breaker, change the light switch, and switch the breaker back to closed. There was a short in my wiring which caused the breaker to trip. PC stayed off.
I repaired the short, powered the circuit normally, the lights work etc. Only then do I power my PC back up. When I do, the video card fans go full blast, and then the PC restarts.
Every other time I've had a power outage, this is the behavior. After which everything restarts normally. This time though, Everything restarts normally, but with no video. Trace the fault to my video card (Nvidea GTX 970). The rest of the system works fine after I remove the card and switch to cpu-based graphics.
The PSU was off, the PC never tried to power up during my maintenance. After I traced the issue to the card, I tested both power leads with a multimeter. Both are rock solid at 12 volts. I couldn't test under load, though. The PC has worked normally since.
Question:
Is it even possible for a surge to make it through an off power supply, and only blow my video card, but leave the rest of the system untouched, including the psu?
Or, is it just a coincidence, my card was ready to go anyway, and this is just the time it went??
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