Two PSUs, both popped and are now dead.

[the1stlieutenant]

Recently, while playing video games on my 8-month old PC, my PSU suddenly shutdown my PC, shortly afterwards creating a loud pop with a volley of sparks out the back end of my PSU. I could smell something was burnt and immediately unplugged my PC. I opened up the side panel to check what was creating the burnt smell and narrowed it down to the PSU (It just spat sparks, so who would've guessed?) After a bit of searching a number of posts on this forum, as well as a few other forums the issue appeared to have been the PSU simply bit the dust, which I found odd considering it was working fine up until that point and it is less than a year old.

Fast forward a few days, I got a new PSU, I decided to not try and get the same PSU through the warranty considering I thought it may have destroyed my PC and no longer trusted it. I plugged in the new PSU and tried turning on my PC. Everything worked fine, nothing was broken, and I was happy. Later that day, I got home from work and decided to play some games before bed, about 30 minutes into my session the same thing happens; PC shuts off, 5 seconds pass with a pop and more sparks. Now I have two dead PSUs and no idea what the issue is.

What I have tried:
I have tried the paperclip test on both PSUs, both gave off loud popping noises with sparks for a second or two before stopping completely, additionally the newer one tripped the breaker.
I have sniffed around the inside of my PC to try and find any burns on my motherboard or any other component, but to no avail.
I have checked for any capacitors possibly being blown on my motherboard and have found nothing.

What I haven't tried:
I haven't tested each individual part inside a known working PC as I don't want the possibility of damaging my family's PCs
I stupidly didn't try using a different outlet and/or different surge protector (I've been using the same outlet + surge protector for 5 years)
I have yet to check the voltage on the outlet as I don't have the tool(s) on hand.
Other things not mentioned here(?)

My specs are:
MOBO: ROG StriX Z270E Gaming
CPU: Intel Core i5-7600k Kaby Lake Quad-Core
GPU: EVGA GTX 1070 FTW 8GB VRAM
RAM: 2x CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 8GB
PSUs: Old: CORSAIR CX750M Bronze Modular New: EVGA 750 GQ Gold Semi modular

Any help at all on this is very much appreciate, thank you!

 

[connerweatherly17]

The Cx series arent good PSU's, It might be because your trying to use low end PSU's on a high end system, Try getting something like an EVGA SuperNOAVA 750 G2, it will be fully modular which means you can plug in only the cords you need

 

[gasaraki]

I don't know what could be the issue but may I suggest a UPS? Something like this:
https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/ups/cp1350pfclcd/

You can get those on sale occasionally. No matter the brand, make sure it has AVR.

The UPS will make sure you are getting clean power to your computer and tell you if you have some building/wiring fault. Two PSUs dying so soon one after another and dying in the same way smells fishy to me.

Get the UPS before you plug another PSU in to that wall plug.

 

[smorizio]

rma your video card. your card may have a bad vrm on it under the heat sink you cant see and it failing under load and shorting out your rig. if you look online it a known failure of that brand of video card do to them not cooling there vrm on the card right.

 

[ko888]

A loud pop would usually indicate a failure of a component on the high voltage (i.e. AC input) side of the PSU. A short-circuit on the DC output side should trigger the PSU's short-circuit protection circuit.

 

[the1stlieutenant]

The Cx series arent good PSU's, It might be because your trying to use low end PSU's on a high end system, Try getting something like an EVGA SuperNOAVA 750 G2, it will be fully modular which means you can plug in only the cords you need

Yeah, I know the CX series aren't that great, but I was anxious to use my new pc. Although I thought the EVGA GQ series was good enough for my build. In any case, if the two answers below don't yield any results I'll try getting the PSU you mentioned

I don't know what could be the issue but may I suggest a UPS? Something like this:
https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/ups/cp1350pfclcd/

You can get those on sale occasionally. No matter the brand, make sure it has AVR.

The UPS will make sure you are getting clean power to your computer and tell you if you have some building/wiring fault. Two PSUs dying so soon one after another and dying in the same way smells fishy to me.

Get the UPS before you plug another PSU in to that wall plug.

Okay, I'll try picking one up soon. I figured as well that the issue could possibly be the outlet and/or surge protector. In hindsight it was probably pretty dumb of me to plug my PSU back into the same place without thinking.

rma your video card. your card may have a bad vrm on it under the heat sink you cant see and it failing under load and shorting out your rig. if you look online it a known failure of that brand of video card do to them not cooling there vrm on the card right.

I'm currently trying to RMA the PSU. If I am able to, then I plan to try using my PC in 1 hour intervals, each hour connecting another part of my build with my GPU being last. If the GPU ends up being the source then I'll definitely be RMA'ing it.