PSU sparks and PC won't power on! Help!!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Eirreann

Eirreann

Reputable
Oct 19, 2014
16
0
4,510
EDIT: Just a quick follow-up report! I picked up a new PSU and my PC is now fully functional again, as good as new! None of my other components were damaged in any way, thank goodness. Thanks again, everyone, for your help and advice!

Original Post:

Okay, so I had a scary experience last night...

I was playing some online games with a friend when suddenly all power in my room cut out. The circuit breaker for my room had tripped, apparently, so I went downstairs to reset it. When I got back to my PC and powered it on, my PSU sparked and the circuit breaker tripped again. This time I unplugged the PSU before resetting the circuit breaker, but now I am both immensely distressed and confused. My PC is plugged in to a surge protector which was not tripped, so I don't believe it was a power surge of any sort.

What should I do now? I dare not turn my PC on again, lest the PSU ruin my other hardware (if it hasn't already).... is there a way that I can test my PSU to figure out what the issue is? Or a way to diagnose my other hardware sans PSU, to make sure that it didn't get fried as well?

I've had this build for nearly 4 years, with the only significant change being the acquisition of a 980 Ti and a 256GB SDD last year.

Please help, I'm freaking out over here! D:

My Specs:

  • Intel Core i5-3570K @ 4.5GHz
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti
    16GB G.Skill Ripjaws RAM @ 1600MHz
    Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 motherboard
    OCZ ZX Series 850W PSU (80+ Gold Certified, supposedly...)
    256GB SSD & 2 TB worth of HDDs (3 total)
 
Solution
InvalidError
Well, your PSU is pretty much certainly busted. Have it replaced if it is still under warranty or get a new one.

The breaker tripping almost guarantees it was a catastrophic primary-side failure and those rarely harm other components, so the rest of your PC is likely still perfectly fine.
Sort by date Sort by votes
PSU is dead, remove it, buy a new one, and hope for the best.

Very likely it was an internal PSU failure, so nothing that your popped breaker did, in fact the PSU may have been the thing to pop the breaker when it was failing.

As for a new one, EVGA 650 G2, XFX TS 650, Seasonic S12II or S12G 620
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, your PSU is pretty much certainly busted. Have it replaced if it is still under warranty or get a new one.

The breaker tripping almost guarantees it was a catastrophic primary-side failure and those rarely harm other components, so the rest of your PC is likely still perfectly fine.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
ya , thing is was it a bad psu or something it was hooked up to shorted things out in the psu ??

as said above get another unit and fingers crossed on the rest of your system or hope it was not something in the rest of the system that caused this and pop your new psu as well ?? [I'd say unlikely but possible ]

good luck
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Your surge suppressor only protects the PSU from from an external surge. It sounds like this occurred inside the PSU and, unfortunately, the OCX unit does not have surge suppression to protect components on its output side.

You'll need a new unit so be sure to get one that protects the components inside the box (on the output of the PSU) this time. It's impossible to say whether anything else is damaged until you get a new PSU but don't be surprised. Before you fire up the new PSU you need to look at everything else to see if something else failed and caused the PSU to overload. You don't want some other failed component frying your new PSU.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
''OCZ makes lousy PSUs''

I wish I pic of mine to show after it failed like 5 popped caps in it and swollen caps [though it worked good wile it lasted ] took my board out with it as well [OCZ 750w ]

they use to be a hot item what back when and poplar ..

that and a thremaltake convinced me to look at build quality of a psu harder [you see my deal in the bottom right about the flash bang ]

 
Upvote 0 Downvote

The ATX spec requires that PSUs be able to survive just about any external fault without damage to the PSU, including shorts from any rail to ground and any rail to any other voltage rail. Of course, shorting 12V to 3.3V may still fry components faster than the PSU can shut off.

In other words: a short from anywhere to anywhere else should not be able to fry a fully ATX 2.xx-compliant PSU. I have accidentally tested many of my no-name PSUs for that and have yet to kill any of them this way. I cannot say the same about the projects they were powering at the time though, but that's my fault for shorting the supply in the first place.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
as long at that part aint goofed as well or lied to about that in the unit to start with as for as you know that psu had no inline protection

''Unfortunately this is something that applies to all ZX series models so they are unprotected against dangerous spikes coming from the power grid. We really can't understand how in the world a manufacturer chooses to sacrifice such a cheap but crucial component in a high-end PSU series''

OCZ ZX Series 850 W has two ferrite coils, two X capacitors, and two Y capacitors more than the minimum required, it doesn’t come with an MOV, component in charge of removing spikes coming from the power grid. This is certainly a flaw on a high-end product.
Read more at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/ocz-zx-series-850-w-power-supply-review/3/#al8rl7835xyAoITQ.99

so now what else was sacrificed and a flaw ???
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


What are "caps" in this context, if I may ask? As far as I can tell, looking at all of my components nothing looks different or damaged. As far as I can tell, the PSU is the only thing that did anything last night, that being brief sparking before powering down, and a slight smell of burned something-or-other. I am hoping that nothing was damaged... took it to Geek Squad, but I was given misinformation over the phone as they would have to charge me $100 to take a look at it. -_-
Guess I'll just RMA this PSU, and hope that when I get the replacement, nothing else was taken with the last one. 🙁 I'm way too short on cash for PC hardware right now: in between jobs and houses, this happened at literally the worst possible time. D:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Caps - Capacitors.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I bought it in May of 2012, so in the ballpark of 2011 may be accurate. I'm still (hypothetically) within the 5 year warranty, so I'm looking into that. I tried to snap some pictures for you of the caps, it does appear that some sort of cream coloured paste-y stuff is secreting from them:

On3LCB0.jpg


rN7RCuU.jpg
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
well contact OCZ and do what you can with them if theres a chance
don't open the psu case until you know they are not going to work it out with you opening it could void any warrantee claim

I first now see if OCZ will give satisfaction

''cream coloured paste-y stuff is secreting from them:

that a rubbery putty that use like in the coils to help stop/prevent things like coil whine like as a insulator as seen in pic 1 [normal]

hard to see/ tell from your pic's anyway with out the cover off unobstructed views
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Submitted an RMA request just now, so keeping my fingers crossed that my warranty is still good! In the meantime I'm trying to find another hardware store/repair shop to diagnose my other hardware. Luckily all of the expensive stuff (mainly the video card) is still within warranty, so if that got fried, I can *hopefully* look into getting it replaced.

Any other suggestions insofar as next course of action from anyone?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

I would not consider the omission of an MOV that much of a flaw since the input rectifiers, input filter capacitors, input filter choke(s), wiring from the PSU to the breaker panel and everything else plugged in along the way also acts as somewhat of a surge suppressor. If the PSU was truly subjected to a surge large enough to blow up input components, I would expect other equipment with weaker input components to get damaged as well. If you look at premium surge suppressors like SurgeX and ZeroSurge's, they are basically an input rectifier bridge and input filter cap to shunt surge current with a large choke in front to limit that surge current to a few hundred amps.

I have only seen two PSUs fail in a spectacular fashion and both times, the PCBs showed signs of components overheating in the MOSFET gate drive circuit. In one case, the drain pin went up in smoke and in the other, the FET's packaging blew apart, leaving only the TO220's metal tab on the heatsink.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

There aren't too many options...
- buy a new decent quality PSU while you wait for your RMA (having a known-good spare rarely hurts)
- go have your components tested (I would not bother with that, I have a few spare PSUs up to 350W and none of my PCs need more than 200W)
- wait
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Thanks for the recommendations! Do you have any specific PSUs that you could recommend? Keeping in mind that I'm on a really tight budget right now. I think that my computer would need at least 600W, maybe more. 😛
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

If you scrap your overclock until your RMA comes back, a high quality 500W PSU like the 520W Seasonic S12-II should be sufficient and can be found for $50-60. Not the newest nor most efficient design but still one of the best quality-per-buck money can buy.

You could say that the S12-II is the 212+/EVO of PSUs.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I'll look into that, thanks! 😀
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
OCZ has been Firepower for a couple of years , since the bankruptcy. Firepower took over their PSU business.
http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/firepower-acquires-power-supply-unit-business-of-ocz-technology/

"Earlier this year 2014 Toshiba Corp. acquired SSD-related assets of OCZ Technology Group. With the sale of effectively all OCZ’s assets, the legendary company ceases to exist."
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom