PSU blew up

[foxmclou]

Hi,
I have a old motherboard but no way to test it, and me being dumb I plugged in an ancient psu from like 1999 and the newer board is a 939 socket. i had nothing plugged in the motherboard save for the psu and after I plugged it into a power strip (that had only one more plug left) and about 15 seconds after plugging in the psu it was like a box of fire crackers, no sparks just a bunch of pops and a bad smell. 15 minutes after i unplugged the unit and examined the mobo and it looked perfectly fine, no scorches no smell, nothing, so I believe there is a great chance the board still works because there was no cpu,ram or drives plugged in, the psu just blew up after plugging in and there were no leds to tell if anything was powered. I think just to test i'll get a $5 AMD Athlon 64 3200+and the planed psu (a 500w cooler master) and hope it works. Can any one say if this sounds good (the integrity of the board)? -I wrote this pretty late at night so it may be flawed.

 

[socialfox]

There may be a chance the motherboard will work but are you really going to get a Cooler Master power supply? They aren't that good I would suggest something along the lines of XFX, Seasonic, Antec, Corsair, PC power and cooling and other top tier brands. Anyways I have heard of power supplies on fire or causing smoke with the build still intact.

 

[unksol]

Low end cooler masters, especially extreme power plus units, are horrible. get a cheap abbrev on sale from newegg. Really a 939 board is not worth any time or money

 

[pjmelect]

When a power supply blows up, it can unfortunately damage the motherboard. It is normally the 5V standby supply that is responsible for the damage. In my experience of this where the motherboard has been damaged, no other parts have been affected, the CPU and memory etc should be OK. I hope that you are lucky and that your motherboard is fine.

 

[abbadon_34]

for $5 bucks? sure. anything this more goes beyond curiousity to burning money (pun intended)

 

[foxmclou]

i did not plug the 4 pin cpu power and i did not do anything to make the board start. and this is the coolermaster I would get http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-eXtreme-Supply-RS500-PCARD3-US/dp/B001G0WPLK/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top I have a new LGA1155 board but I'm on a bit of a budget so with the 939 board i would just need to spend about $300 because I got 4Gb's of RAM for free and the board and I have nothing beter to do because I'm planing a small lan party with my friends and I need something quick to build because i have to work with a crappy e-geforce fx 5500 and athlon 3300+ that ubuntu sees as 1.8Ghz. So that would not be a complete waste of money getting a athlon 64 4800+ x2 for the 939.

 

[socialfox]

Depends I still would not go for the Cooler Master power supply but if that is the best you can do with your budget then its ok (I'm still not recommending it). Here is a review done on the power supply:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-eXtreme-Power-Plus-500-W-Power-Supply-Review/728/10

 

[foxmclou]

well again, i'm on a budget so i dont know if you can give me a link to a beter one in the same price range, and dont worry, i'm getting a corsair for my LGA1155.

 

[socialfox]

Here are some alternatives, are you using any video cards?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817815022
^ Not too sure about Xigamatek, they build great computer parts but this is the first power supply I seen them build.

Post your entire build, maybe we can get you a much lower power supply in terms of wattage to save you money.

 

[foxmclou]

yes and 2 sata drives and maybe 4 ide

 

[socialfox]

Whats your CPU you will be using? Or are you using the test CPU? Also any video cards?

 

[foxmclou]

(please dont laugh at the clear graphics bottle neck when I make a new build i can re-use th e card)
CPU: AMD Athlon 4800+
GPU: Asus Nvidia GTX 550 ti 1Gb
HDD: Seagate Barracuda Green ST1000DL002 1TB 5900 RPM x2 one for now one later
RAM: 4Gb ddr

 

[socialfox]

Okay your build should use somewhere along 350 watts, considering you should have a bit of headroom you should take the 430 watt power supply. Generally I would say get a power supply around 450 watts, its good for future upgrades. In addition, if you are upgrading get a complete makeover, jump to the AM3 platform at least or make the switch to Intel LGA 1155. I included 2 hard drives, and a dvd drive which you did not mention.

 

[foxmclou]

ya i need to get a new dvd drive but i onl yhave 2 sata slots, so should i go for the corsair?

 

[socialfox]

Yes the Corsair is a good power supply. Realistically, there are many power supplies that would work and the Corsair is only ONE of them.

 

[foxmclou]

i'll try and see if i can order the test parts soon.

 

[socialfox]

If you need any other help and don't want to wait for a thread feel free to send a PM and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Good Luck,

Socialfox

 

[foxmclou]

thanks

 

[foxmclou]

quick question, would the corsair work good with this case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119199 it has 2 fans and i dont know how they plug in (molex i suppose) but the psu only has 3 molex and i might in the future add 4 250 gb ide's

 

[socialfox]

Yes it would work with that case and the fans will either have a 3pin/4pin connector which your motherboard should have or just come with a molex connector. There is also the 3 pin to molex adapter most case fans come with. Either way I think this is a much better case for the same price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233&Tpk=haf%20912

Much more spacious and less than your case. I prefer bottom mount power supplies rather than top mount, too much wires crunched up near the CPU if there is no cable management.

 

[foxmclou]

ya i seen that case but I don't know, I like the one i picked out because of the nvidia theme seeing how this is my first ground up nvidia build and the nvidia case is lighter because I would like some portability and I think it looks smaller but that doesn't realy matter to my mini atx board that still has 24 pin. So I think I'll be fine.

 

[socialfox]

Like I said it will be compatible so have fun with the Nvidia case. I was just recommending another case that was pretty good.

Anyways glad I was able to help you out, drop a PM if you need anything else.

- Socialfox

 

[toyftw]

well again, i'm on a budget so i dont know if you can give me a link to a beter one in the same price range, and dont worry, i'm getting a corsair for my LGA1155.

Hi - Take Socialfox's word on Coolermaster - plz stay away from any CM PSU's except silent pro series.

Here's what he's talking about:

MODEL WATTS PROBLEMS AND ISSUES REVIEWS
Elite Power 350 Lousy efficiency. Does not have two +12volt rails as advertised. No Over Current Protection as advertised. No Over Power Protection as advertised. Hardware Secrets
Elite Power 400 Poor efficiency. Noise and ripple levels very high. Hardware Secrets
Elite Power 460 Not 460 watt as advertised. Identical to Elite Power 400 watt model. No over current protection as advertised. Hardware Secrets
Extreme 2 475 Not 475 watt as advertised. Voltages drop below minimum allowed. Ripple and noise increase above minimum allowed. Hardware Secrets
eXtreme Power Plus 400 Very Poor efficiency. Ripple and Noise above maximum allowed. Hardware Secrets
eXtreme Power Plus 460 Not a 460 watt power supply as advertised. Hardware Secrets
eXtreme Power Plus 500 Very Poor efficiency. Ripple and Noise above maximum allowed. Hardware Secrets
eXtreme Power Plus 550 Burned during load tests. Not 550 watt as advertised. Could only deliver 500 watts. Very Poor efficiency. Hardware Secrets
eXtreme Power Plus 600 Burned during load tests. Not 600 watt as advertised. Could only deliver 450 watts. Voltages regulation out of spec. Very Poor efficiency. Hardware Secrets
GX-650 650 Failed efficiency rating. Failed load testing. Medicore voltage regulation. Poor DC output quality on 3.3V rails. Outdated design. Hard OCP
GX-750 750 Cannot handle heat at 750 watts. Ripple issues on the 3.3V rail. Noise level on +3.3V and +5VSB above maximum allowed. Questionable capacitor quality. Poor Voltage Regulation. Efficiency lower than advertised. jonnyGURU, Hardware Secrets, Hardware Heaven

Tom

 

[socialfox]

^ wow 😱
That sums up all the most recent flaws with cooler master power supplies. Well done toyftw 😉

 

[foxmclou]

hey, I ordered the 430w psu and the test cpu, suppose I wanted to updated to a new mother board (AM3/+) would that psu have enough power to run a gaming CPU (4 cores) I don't need a crazy 8-core, but some thing to run at medium to high and that would go well with an asus gtx 550 ti. when i ran some wattage calculators a few of them said I would have about 23w left so I don't know if thats bad or not. I don't realy know how power works with a CPU and I was looking at a quad-core Athlon that I believe to be running at 3.0GHz for like $90 or so on newegg (I'd prefer not to buy a new psu).