Possible PSU failure?

[Shrinjay]

Hello all,

Just now, while I was playing a very non intensive game, my computer shut down out of nowhere. Now as I try to power it up it seems to be completely dead. I'm assuming it's a PSU failure as the psu is pretty hot, and the light on it turns off whenever I try to power off. This is my second power supply and it's pretty low power so I wouldn't be surprised if it is, it seems I really messed up when calculating the load wattage. However I'm not quite sure, so I just wanted to ask a couple questions. I'll also let the computer sit overnight and try again tomorrow, computers do funny stuff like fix themselves sometimes so.

1. Does this sound like a power supply failure? I'll put my hardware info down below.

2. If it is, is there a chance my hard drive is damaged? I recently bought a new desktop online and was hoping I could just plug an old drive in and transfer my info that way.

3. Is the PSU totally unusable now or is it possible I can move it to another computer and use it, only for a week or so?

My hardware:

Core i3 550
AMD Radeon HD6670
5GB DDR3 RAM
1x WLAN card
2x 1TB SATA HDD
250W (I thought it was 300W, turns out I'm wrong)

 

[Kashimi]

It does sound like it's your PSU. Anytime there is a power drop or surge there is a chance for permanent damage, so it would be hard to tell but most likely you should be ok. If the PSU is dead, it's dead. Putting it in another computer isn't going to help anything, just risk ruining that PC.

My advice is get a decent 400W PSU that's been well reviewed. If you have a budget in mind, I can give you a recommendation.

 

[Shrinjay]

It does sound like it's your PSU. Anytime there is a power drop or surge there is a chance for permanent damage, so it would be hard to tell but most likely you should be ok. If the PSU is dead, it's dead. Putting it in another computer isn't going to help anything, just risk ruining that PC.

My advice is get a decent 400W PSU that's been well reviewed. If you have a budget in mind, I can give you a recommendation.

Righttt that's not the most comforting news. No point getting a new PSU since I have a new computer in order that gets here next week (talk about timing lmao) so I need to figure out how to verify the hard drives work and such. I also doubt I have a spare power supply lying around as the one that was in the computer was a spare already. Anyways, I'm kind of screwed. Thanks for the help though, always appreciate this community.

 

[Shrinjay]

Oh, quick follow up, there's no burning smell or such coming from any components. I read this would be the case if the hard drive or something else failed. Is there a chance I've been spared and the HDD is still fine if there's no smell?

 

[DSzymborski]

Oh, quick follow up, there's no burning smell or such coming from any components. I read this would be the case if the hard drive or something else failed. Is there a chance I've been spared and the HDD is still fine if there's no smell?

There's absolutely no way to know without testing the hard drive on another PC. If you don't have the option to do that, all you can do is wait until you have your new PC and worrying is just a waste of your time. You hard drive is either fine or it is not, and there's nothing you can do to affect which category it's in.

Given the symptoms until and unless you have a firm reason to believe the problem was something else, I would never turn on this power supply again.

And no, while a burning smell is very bad, the lack of a burning smell is not a meaningful positive sign.

 

[smorizio]

sounds like the fan died on your power supply and it shut down for heat. if it had pop a cap and then shut off it could have spiked back into the pc.

 

[gaborbarla]

Yes you can just plug the old hard drive into the new PC and transfer the files that way. Most likely it has not been broken. Just make sure your boot drive is still the original drive the new PC comes with (in the BIOS as you boot).

As for the old PC, most probably only the PSU is faulty and you can repair by buying a new PSU or sell the parts. You can also test it later with the new PC's PSU if you were inclined to do that. These are just ideas, but the hard drive transfer is your best option I think.