[SOLVED] What did my psu kill?

Oct 18, 2020
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I just got an NZXT e850 today and got it installed. On first boot, I heard a pop, smelled magic smoke, and I quickly ripped the plug before anything hapoened. I was leaning right over my case and couldn't tell where it came from, but after that there was no response. I decided to try powering again and went to look for the source.

At first my lights would light up for a brief second and then turn off, now there's absolutely nothing. I swapped back to my old psu, and there's still no power. None at all. I've swapped the main cables and tried to get to to just post, but it won't. It acts like there's no power cable hooked up at all, and I've swapped outlets. The entire build except for the cpu and gpu have been replaced in the past week and it was working fine until this...

MSI Z390 MPG Carbon
i5-9600k
NZXT e850
Corsair vengeance 2666mhz
 
Solution
I swapped to my old psu and only used the cpu and mobo cables matching with that psu just at a grasp for a pulse. There's nothing, no lights, fans, etc. I didn't bother with pci, molex, or sata, that's what I meant by "main cables". The only sign of life in the entire unit is I hear a relay inside the old psu clicking when I hit the power button, which was normal for it on boot. It just doesn't go beyond that.

You didn't actually answer the question, which is an important one. When you installed your new PSU, did you also use the cables the came with the new PSU rather than your old ones?

If you did, then it's likely that one or some of your components are now dead. As Boju notes, modular power cables are not...

boju

Titan
Ambassador
'Swapped the main cables', did you reuse old cables with the Nzxt or did you replace them with the cables, ATX 24pin, CPU, Sata & Pcie, that the new psu came with? Modular cables aren't reusable across brands and sometimes models from the same brand. Although plug looks and fits the same, the pinout arrangements aren't unified and positive/negative pins can and often aren't in the same spots.
 
Oct 18, 2020
3
0
10
'Swapped the main cables', did you reuse old cables with the Nzxt or did you replace them with the cables, ATX 24pin, CPU, Sata & Pcie, that the new psu came with? Modular cables aren't reusable across brands and sometimes models from the same brand. Although plug looks and fits the same, the pinout arrangements aren't unified and positive/negative pins can and often aren't in the same spots.
I swapped to my old psu and only used the cpu and mobo cables matching with that psu just at a grasp for a pulse. There's nothing, no lights, fans, etc. I didn't bother with pci, molex, or sata, that's what I meant by "main cables". The only sign of life in the entire unit is I hear a relay inside the old psu clicking when I hit the power button, which was normal for it on boot. It just doesn't go beyond that.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
I swapped to my old psu and only used the cpu and mobo cables matching with that psu just at a grasp for a pulse. There's nothing, no lights, fans, etc. I didn't bother with pci, molex, or sata, that's what I meant by "main cables". The only sign of life in the entire unit is I hear a relay inside the old psu clicking when I hit the power button, which was normal for it on boot. It just doesn't go beyond that.

You didn't actually answer the question, which is an important one. When you installed your new PSU, did you also use the cables the came with the new PSU rather than your old ones?

If you did, then it's likely that one or some of your components are now dead. As Boju notes, modular power cables are not universal. They're only guaranteed to be the same on the end that connects to the component itself; there's no standard for the pinouts on the side of the power supply.

If you used the old cables, there's a high probability you killed the motherboard and CPU and possibly killed more.
 
Solution
Oct 18, 2020
3
0
10
You didn't actually answer the question, which is an important one. When you installed your new PSU, did you also use the cables the came with the new PSU rather than your old ones?

If you did, then it's likely that one or some of your components are now dead. As Boju notes, modular power cables are not universal. They're only guaranteed to be the same on the end that connects to the component itself; there's no standard for the pinouts on the side of the power supply.

If you used the old cables, there's a high probability you killed the motherboard and CPU and possibly killed more.
The initial pop, yes all cables were matching with the new psu, then I swapped the two cables when testing the second psu, and now I found a cheap semi modular where the cpu and mobo cables are hard attached to the psu (it was a friend's old one he said he said was just working). Now I smell smoke around the cpu region just from having it plugged in as well as still nothing when I try to power it.

I'm done messing with it before it gets any worse. Motherboard and cpu are most definitely dead. The cables that come with the nzxt psu are super cheap feeling so I'm leaning I got a faulty cable and it arced. The pop was pretty loud, and it was working just fine until that. I'll set up another test bench rig to assess the damage using my old parts while I get this thing pieced back together. Gives me a reason to unnecessary update my cpu. 👍