Failed PSU for Good?

Arakkan

Reputable
Jun 25, 2014
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4,640
Hello everyone. Today I have bad news. I was playing GTA V Online when suddenly my screen went black and my power/battery strip went berserk. I unpugged my computer as fast as possible. I plugged it back in and I pressed the power button. Nothing. The dreaded silence. Is my PSU dead? I have a Corsiar RM650. My rig is currently an i5-4670K and a 770 GTX factory superclocked. G87 MSI motherboard. Is my whole rig dead? Or just the PSU? I plugged the computer into the wall and nothing happened. Temperatures were in the mid 50Cs. My case is spotless and no dust is inside. I havent taken the PSU out yet. Doing that at the moment.

Thank you!
 
Unplug all the power cables accept from a case fan, get a paper clip (or something that is metal and bendy) and insert one end into the wire that's connected to the green pin and the other into one of the pins that's connected to a black wire of the 24 pin connector (makesure your psu is turned off whilst doing this obviously). If the fan works when you turn it back on your PSU is not dead.
 
I have done this before with the paper clip thing (made a car stereo into a regular stereo) and the PSU fan is supposed to turn on when the green and black are touching. This fan did not. :/
 


Replace your psu with the warranty. It likely the psu is fried. With the other hardware, you gonna need to test it with a new psu.
 


The PSU carries a five year warranty with Corsair, the manufacturer.
My RM 650 just recently passed its first year last month. I doubt its the psu but maybe a power surge or something unless you got unlucky.
 
If a power supply failure damaged any other parts, then that power supply was defective by design. That 'no damage' standard existed long before PCs existed..

However many supplies are dumped into a market of computer assemblers. These people buy on dollars and watts - two completely irrelevant numbers. Then a supply can be missing functions that avert other part damage. Perfectly legal and acceptable because only the prime contractor (a computer assembler) is responsible for meeting those industry standards. PSU manufacturers are not at fault. A computer assembler who selected that supply by ignoring specification numbers would be the reason for damage to other parts.
 

And this is why we do this stuff. We learn not from successes. We learn from mistakes.

Among the many urban myths that can be averted are damage created by a PSU. You have no reason to believe your rig is junk. Most all failures are only one failed part.

Learn how to identify a defective part (or good subsystem) using a meter, some requested instructions, and a reply to those resulting numbers. Best solution is to identify a defect long before even disconnecting one wire.


 
WeLl the PSU on this thing is fried, so that is a damaged component. I trasted it with fan and everything. Glad to hear my rig is probably ok though, but you can see how a PSU could damage a computer can't you? Too much power going to one component could be a bad thing.
 
The reasons why a PSU cannot damage other parts is even defined by requirements in the ATX standard.

BTW, most failures are due to manufacturing defects. For example, we all learned about counterfeit electrolytic capacitors that failed years later in all types of electronics. Another example of a manufacturing defect. Too much power is only one a much less common reason for failure. Most likely, only one part inside that PSU failed.