PSU blown out and replaced, now PC doesn't power on.
6 replies, posted
Whilst playing TF2 the computer turned itself off without warning (not in a particularly stressful moment) and I heard a bang accompanied by a spark, I saw blue light coming from the back of the PC. The fuse for the room was flipped. A smell of burnt plastic filled the room, I inspected the capacitors and none seem to have exploded, the smell came from the PSU so I replaced it (it was 585W which I suspect may have been underpowered).
The new one is a [URL="http://www.ebuyer.com/433503-tesla-750w-psu-tesla-750w"]Tesla[/URL] 750W power supply. The previous power supply filled all eight pins of the auxiliary power socket for fan and CPU with two four pin plugs, this one has one four pin plug but the mobo manual says you can use just one (it supplies 12V either way).
I checked all the connections and plugged it in but nothing happened, no LEDs went on and pressing the power button didn't do anything. After a few attempts for some reason an LED turned on (can't remember where) and I can't remember if fans started spinning or not, but something sparked before the PC booted with a slight smell of burnt plastic which went away quickly.
Looking at the circuit boards none seem physically damaged and don't have anything obvious that could cause shorts.
Now nothing at all happens when I press the power button on the PC, I took the CMOS battery and put it back it, which made no difference and I double checked the connections to the front of the case. When I plug the mains cable into the PC I can hear the electrical 'crackling' sound so the fuse of that cable must be fine.
It's also worth noting that the PC has previously spontaneously switched off when playing TF2 without any error message, the GFX card and CPU temperatures didn't seem out of the ordinary.
This would only happen during TF2 after a certain amount of play, generally over an hour. It would not do it for Dota 2, Far Cry 3 or LoL and other games, many more demanding than TF2.
When booting the PC it would load once, blue screen and restart, after this process it would function completely normally. Reinstalling Windows 7 would make the problem go for a while but it would always come back and get worse over time (more reboots before it would function normally), so I reinstalled and disabled windows updates. I could never figure out the cause, tried reinstalling various drivers, but since it would only happen when booting into Windows and the PC worked perfectly when booting into Linux I assumed that it was not a hardware issue but something going on in Windows.
I don't have spare parts to switch out nor a spare PC to test components.
Computer Specs:
Mobo: Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI
CPU: Intel i7
Graphics card: Radeon HD 5770
RAM: 6GB Corsair DDR3
Drives are generic, just a DVD-RW, 1TB HDD and a memory card reader.
I'd appreciate any advice at all you guys may have, have done some googling but didn't find much.
Your power supply might have caused a voltage spike when it died which could have fried your motherboard and other components.
Also, the smell of burnt plastic usually comes from fried semiconductors.
I'd try removing everything in your computer except your cpu and try to turn it on and see if it beeps at you.
I dont know that brand. Is that a Tesla from Fractal Design?
If so its ok. if not you probably bought another crappy PSU that is gonna blow up.
What happend to your PC is signature for crappy PSU's. They usually dont deliver the advertised power, and the power that they deliver is dirty (ripple) causing your parts to degrade.
If they blow up they take parts with them.
Return it if its not a fractal design and you cannot find an in depth revieuw like this one about it:
[url]http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Fractal-Design-Tesla-R2-650-W-Power-Supply-Review/1711/1[/url]
A 750W PSU for $46?
So you replaced an IED with another IED.
Return it and get a real PSU (Thermaltake, Antec, Silver Stone, Cooler Master, Corsair, Seasonic.)
And if you aren't getting anything when attempting to power the system on, the IED probably took out the motherboard. And by 585W, I hope you don't mean it was an HEC Compucase because those are about the worst you can get besides Logisys.
Thanks for your feedback,
So I've replaced the PSU with a corsair TX750 and when I power on the mains the motherboard LED flashes blue, I guess it's +5V standby LED though I don't know if it is for sure nor if it's meant to flash.
But when I press the power button nothing happens and when I short the PWR-SW pins on the motherboard nothing happens.
Does this mean the motherboard has been fried as well and I need to replace it?
[QUOTE=chumchum;42291675]Thanks for you feedback,
So I've replaced the PSU with a corsair TX750 and when I power on the mains the motherboard LED flashes blue, I guess it's +5V standby LED though I don't know if it is for sure nor if it's meant to flash.
But when I press the power button nothing happens and when I short the PWR-SW pins on the motherboard nothing happens.
Does this mean the motherboard has been fried as well and I need to replace it?[/QUOTE]
If you are absolutely sure the PSU is working and everything is properly connected.. Yes, your Mobo is broken.
And that is very common happening with cheap PSU's. If they break, they take the rest of your PC along with it. Anything connected to it could be fried. This means your optical drives, hard disks, GFX card, Mobo, and along with your mobo even your CPU and RAM.
Okay, well I guess it's time to just change all the parts from the mobo up until I end up with a working PC, thanks for your help.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.