Question Specific PSU problem - Help wanted for a newbie

Oct 8, 2019
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Bit of a long story attached to this one so bear with me - My dad built this PC around 5 years ago. He finished it shortly before he passed away. I remember him telling me he that he had fitted a faulty PSU initially and had replaced it with a new one, but after that all had seemed well.

Anyway, I hadn't used the machine much after he died. When I went to turn it on after a long period of inactivity it kept hanging at the boot loader. I changed the cmos, backed it up and then wiped the drives and started again with a fresh windows 10 installation. I was satisfied it had been the cmos battery that had caused the problem and was happily running the pc until this afternoon.

I turned it off and it restarted. I turned it off again thinking it was just a weird Windows 10 quirk and then it got caught in an off/on off/on boot loop. It didn't get as far as the bios so I couldn't do anything. After a few cycles of this everything went totally dead. no lights on the motherboard and no activity from the psu. I switched power cables and tried different power outlets. It's dead, no life whatsoever. I haven't performed the paper clip test on the psu because I'm a bit wary of that.

So I assume the PSU is toast, but as I remember this happening before is there a chance this is the wrong PSU for the motherboard? I don't want to reorder the same PSU because I'm seriously worried the same thing will happen again. Is it possible that the build of this PC is fundamentally off causing it to keep breaking these PSUs?

The PSU is a Corsair TX650M
Graphics card is a G Force GTX 760
And I feel stupid saying this, but I can't work out what the motherboard is. It's a Gigabyte but I was starring at it for ages and couldn't find a model number anywhere. Sorry for being a total newb but as I didn't build the system and have little PC repairing experience, this is fairly new to me.

Thanks for any help you can give. Here are some pictures:


View: https://imgur.com/a/5NMj6xa
 
Oct 8, 2019
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the PSU is a good model and will work with the motherboard. the motherboard model numbers is printed under the PCIe slot. you would need to remove the GPU to see it or you can download and run CPUz it will poll the BIOS and reveal the motherboard model for you.
https://cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
PSU's do not last forever, even ones with long warranties are prone to failure.
Thanks for replying. So, it’s just a simple case of a failed PSU? Is there any danger of it under powering or overpowering the system wearing its lifespan out quicker or does it just not work like that? I will look through some of dad’s notebooks as I know he would have written down the full pc spec somewhere including the motherboard model number. I can’t run CPUz as the machine is completely dead.
 
Oct 8, 2019
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more than likely a bad psu. capacitors are chemical in nature and chemicals age when used or not.
another PSU will be the true test. plug it in and you should know in under a minute.

I wonder if I should go for a PSU with a higher wattage? I’m just reluctant to spend too much on one as I’m worried the problem could be the motherboard? The one strange thing the board did was never register the usbs or monitor outputs directly onto the back of it. I had to use the front usbs and the monitor output on the graphics card. But other than that strange error the motherboard worked fine and if it wasn’t the psu then I’d get lights on the motherboard and error codes not a completely dead machine?
 
Oct 8, 2019
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I wonder if I should go for a PSU with a higher wattage? I’m just reluctant to spend too much on one as I’m worried the problem could be the motherboard? The one strange thing the board did was never register the usbs or monitor outputs directly onto the back of it. I had to use the front usbs and the monitor output on the graphics card. But other than that strange error the motherboard worked fine and if it wasn’t the psu then I’d get lights on the motherboard and error codes not a completely dead machine?
in order asked
you could. if 650 was working why change it. the draw has not increased so more power would not be needed.
without reliable power no way to know.
right leds but no power indicates the PSU.
The thing that makes me feel like a should get a higher watt PSU is that I remember my dad telling me it had failed before. I remember him telling me he’d had what he’d described as a faulty PSU but looking back I wonder whether the 650 was too weak in the first place? I think a PC getting through two PSUs in 5 years is certainly unlikely but I haven’t had any experience with custom builds! I’m going to try and find my motherboard model number and see what PSUs are compatible. I practiced taking the PSU in and out last night to see if I thought I’d be able to fit another one!

There are no lights at all on the motherboard. It all acts completely dead.
 

R_1

Expert
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650W is enough power to run a 9900k and a 2080 GPU, both are at the top of the performance heap and both can run with a quality 650W unit.

what are all the specs? CPU, GPU, drives or anything else that draws power.
example a 9900k is a 95 W CPU the 2080 is a 225W card. together they will consume 315W and that is only when they are running at full throttle which leaves 335W for the rest of the system, and brother the motherboard is not gonna need more than 100W including the drives.
household wiring, power surges, brownouts and other electrical issues can shorten the life of a PSU.
wattage is just how much power the unit can provide if needed and most system will rarely need more than 450W.
 
Oct 8, 2019
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650W is enough power to run a 9900k and a 2080 GPU, both are at the top of the performance heap and both can run with a quality 650W unit.

what are all the specs? CPU, GPU, drives or anything else that draws power.
example a 9900k is a 95 W CPU the 2080 is a 225W card. together they will consume 315W and that is only when they are running at full throttle which leaves 335W for the rest of the system, and brother the motherboard is not gonna need more than 100W including the drives.
household wiring, power surges, brownouts and other electrical issues can shorten the life of a PSU.
wattage is just how much power the unit can provide if needed and most system will rarely need more than 450W.

Right, I've gathered together the full specs (hopefully). Here they are:

Intel Core i7 4770K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.50GHz, 8MB,
Haswell, 84W, Intel Graphics, BX80646I74770K, 4th Generation Intel Core, Turbo bo

SanDisk SDSSDX-480G-G25 Extreme 480GB SATA 6GB/s 7200rpm 2.5 Inch
Internal SSD

Seagate ST31000524AS 3.5 inch 1TB Hard Drive (Serial-ATA, 6Gb/s, 32Mb,
7200RPM)

Corsair CML16GX3M2A1600C10 Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3
1600 Mhz CL10 XMP Performance Desktop Memory Kit Black

EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 Superclocked ACX 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card

Blu Ray Drive - LG BH16NS40.AUAR10B 16x SATA Internal BDRW Retail Kit

Case - Corsair Carbide 500R microATX Midi PC Tower Black

PSU - Corsair CP-9020002-UK Enthusiast Series TX650M 650 Watt Power Supply

Motherboard - Gigabyte Ultra Durable GA-Z87X-UD5H
 
Oct 8, 2019
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GPU 170W
CPU 84W
I stand by my earlier remark. 450W would do the job, 650W is more than
GPU 170W
CPU 84W
I stand by my earlier remark. 450W would do the job, 650W is more than enough.

Ok great that saves me money! Would you be able to point me in the direction of the best PSU to order for the motherboard and case? I don’t know if they’re all standard? Thanks.

also that error I had with the back usbs never working, why was that happening? It was an error I was going to try and fix before the whole system went down. I’m sure the problem is the PSU as there’s no activity with it at all whereas if the motherboard was dead I’d hear the power supply fan and then see some error codes on the motherboard?
 

R_1

Expert
Ambassador
the corsair TX is a standard ATX PSU.
there are standard ATX units and smaller standard Small Form Factor PSU and non-standard proprietary units.
my budget choices are the seasonic S12II if you can find them - not the S12III they are junk IMHO
the corsair CX-series with the grey label, the green labeled units are trash by comparison IMHO.

mid range (speaking on price)
corsair TX series
seasonic Focus plus
 
Oct 8, 2019
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Just a thought but could it have been wired up wrong in the first place or is that impossible? I’ve taken a pic of all the connections to make sure I get it back together alright.
the corsair TX is a standard ATX PSU.
there are standard ATX units and smaller standard Small Form Factor PSU and non-standard proprietary units.
my budget choices are the seasonic S12II if you can find them - not the S12III they are junk IMHO
the corsair CX-series with the grey label, the green labeled units are trash by comparison IMHO.

mid range (speaking on price)
corsair TX series
seasonic Focus plus

Thanks, I reckon I’ll stick to what I know and get the Corsair TX as I’m guessing it will have all the same connections. Is it possible that the psu was hooked up wrong in the first place? Or is it something that’s either working or it isn’t?
 
Oct 8, 2019
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Okay thanks! I’ll just measure it up to see if it fits in my case and then order it! Fingers crossed I can fit it okay!

Okay so I got the new power supply and fitted it but now the PC powers on for a split second and then fails, then tries again, and then fails until I cut the power. A red light comes on on the motherboard (I don’t believe that’s an error it always had a red light. No beeps. And all the fans come on! I’m despairing of this PC! Any help would be a life saver!
 
Oct 8, 2019
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Okay so I got the new power supply and fitted it but now the PC powers on for a split second and then fails, then tries again, and then fails until I cut the power. A red light comes on on the motherboard (I don’t believe that’s an error it always had a red light. No beeps. And all the fans come on! I’m despairing of this PC! Any help would be a life saver!

update to say that I’ve watched the motherboard carefully when I attempt a boot. It has an orange led under a Power button that comes on then red flashes up on the number display. I don’t think it’s an error code though it’s almost like it’s about to boot or display something on that number display and then the power cuts. Have double checked all connections and am using all the new cables that came with the new power supply.