PSU repair with new capacitor

[Peter40a]

Hi guys,

i was overloading pretty standart 350W PSU with 2 HDDs, mobo, socket 462(Athlon XP), and sapphire radeon hd 3650 for one year and the PSU is death now. My question is, can i damage RAMs with my crappy PSU this way?

Another question is, when i kill the psu this way, do you think that capacitor's are death or some tranzistors? If the new capacitors would fix it, i would use the PSU for some DIY projects, but if there was some bigger problem, i would stopped with the repair.

Thanks, if anyone gives some advice.

 

[t53186]

Hi guys,

i was overloading pretty standart 350W PSU with 2 HDDs, mobo, socket 462(Athlon XP), and sapphire radeon hd 3650 for one year and the PSU is death now. My question is, can i damage RAMs with my crappy PSU this way?

Another question is, when i kill the psu this way, do you think that capacitor's are death or some tranzistors? If the new capacitors would fix it, i would use the PSU for some DIY projects, but if there was some bigger problem, i would stopped with the repair.

Thanks, if anyone gives some advice.

It is always possible to cause system damage when a power supply fails due to overloading, even if it's not catastrophic damage, like obvious failed components. It can also degrade the life of components, or cause them to become intermittent, especially memory.

If the power supply is failed consider it trash, the same problems that could occur to your system components will definately be apparent in the failed power supply.

But feel free to tinker with it, if only for the experience of pulling it apart.

 

[Peter40a]

Thanks for your answer. I will try some game testing, if the system will be stable. But to thist time, it was not good. I think some RAMs are corrupted, i'm testing them. And even the CPU is somehow unstable. When I'm in bios on low FSB frequency(100 MHz), everything is fine. But when the FSB is 166MHz as it should be, some applications are not working properly. CPU-Z will somehow freez the whole PC it the section, when it is loading information about the CPU.

Maybe even this new (old 400W) PSU is not good enough. BIOS is showing CPU voltage arroud 1,73V, and there should be 1,65V. And the other voltages are all little bit bigger.

I don't know, I will test it, and sell it or dump it (all parts).

 

[DSzymborski]

It's useful for tinkering to learn about the parts of a power supply, nothing more. It should never be used in a PC, whether yours or somebody else's, again.

 

[boosted1g]

As stated, the PSU should never be put back into a PC (at least one that you don't want to damage).

Typically opening up a power supply is unadvised. Even with the power removed the PSU still holds onto voltage and it is very easy to still get electrocuted.

 

[Peter40a]

So guys, I want to inform you about the progress with this PSU. It is just becouse I'm curious, not because of lack of respect to your comments

I discover, that when I plug it to the other motherboard, that has not so high level power consuption (it has integrated GPU) and only with one module of ram, I can get to the BIOS (I get the firts booting beep with no problems).

I want to try to change the big caps with new ones and to measure the old ones. And even compare the measuremens of the hardware monitoring from BIOS.

My question is: Has anyone from you guys already tried this? If so, do you have some experiences that you want to share?

Thanks for comments.