Question Okay to test an RTX 3070 Ti with a 550w PSU ?

Saugetsu

Honorable
Nov 15, 2016
45
0
10,540
Hello! So, I had a power surge and it basically made my PSU "explode" while I was using it (pop sound and then smoke coming out of it), Im worried about the GPU (EVGA ULTRA FTW3 3070TI), I want to see if I was lucky and only the PSU blow or if the GPU is also dead.
I have an old Corsair CX550, can I use it to test the GPU? Or should I send it to someone to test it properly? Should I have some other precaution?
What are the chances that the GPU isn't dead? The PSU which exploded is a Corsair CX750F

Full spec:
i3 8100
MSI Z370 APRO
16GB RAM DDR4 Kingston Fury
EVGA FTW3 ULTRA RTX 3070TI
 
Last edited:
Hello! So, I had a power surge and it basically made my PSU "explode" while I was using it (pop sound and then smoke coming out of it), Im worried about the GPU (EVGA ULTRA FTW3 3070TI), I want to see if I was lucky and the PSU just blow itself or if the GPU is also dead.
I have an old Corsair CX550, can I use it to test the GPU? Or should I send it to someone to test it properly? Should I have some other precaution?
What are the chances that the GPU isn't dead? The PSU which exploded is a Corsair CX750F

Full spec:
i3 8100
MSI Z370 APRO
16GB RAM DDR4 Kingston Fury
EVGA FTW3 ULTRA RTX 3070TI
either it'll blow, or it'll just force shut down. i had a VS450 psu (yes the orange label one) and i did test cards that have loads more than 100w, it just lose power, forcing the pc to shutdown itself. If your intention is just testing it instead of daily drive it, should be okay but keep a note to yourself that the psu should be obselete, would be pointless unless you have a better PSU or even a brand new good one, to know if the card is actually having faulty or not. so yeah, even if you test it with a janky psu of the past, and it do something, you wont know for a certain knowledge if its actually the psu or the gpu, even if you do use an i3 8100.
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
You can 'test' for functionality on any psu, gpus do not require much wattage at all, just to see if it works. The Only time a gpu gets power hungry is when pushed with the use of 3d apps, like games or gpu stress tests.

But just boot - plain windows is no worries. It's just more work than is generally warranted to fully unplug and unwire the entire pc, swap out the psu, rewire, test, unplug and rewire again with the new psu in a couple of days.
 
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DSzymborski

Curmudgeon Pursuivant
Moderator
I wouldn't have any problems testing here just to make sure it works. You're not going to put any kind of a real load on it and while it's a budget 550W PSU, it's an actual 550W PSU, not some garbagey Thermaltake SMART-type PSU.

Now that you're buying a new PSU, I would, however, be a bit more ambitous than a CX when using a 3070 Ti. It's a good budget PSU, but you don't have a budget GPU.
 
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