What failed in PSU after turning it off by a switch?

J

janmurawski

New Member
Hi.
PSU: XFX Core Edition 650w 80+ Bronze
I quickly switched off my PSU after there was a fire in my computer.
The PSU switches on for a second and switches off straight after.
Tested the PSU with a paperclip and the same problem occurs (therefore other components are ok)

What could fail in the PSU?
Thanks
John
 
Most likely just component failure inside the psu. How long as it been running your system?
 
I have this PSU for just over 2 years (failure occurred just 2 weeks after the warranty period passed), however it has been kept in the box until around the start of this November - this is the time where I've put together some old parts: e6600, gtx295, 2gb ddr2 and few other things so I could play some older games on decent settings. And I know that this is where I failed, because the gtx295 requires 680w power supply and on top of that I overclocked the CPU and the GPU, but I was unaware of that when I was building and overclocking the PC - I was just happy that I have received a gtx295 for free.

I'm not entirely sure but I think that the GPU must have caught the fire. The reason for that is when I cleaned the whole GPU and replaced the thermal compound on the processors I was working next to some transparent glue. I dropped one of the PCB's of the GPU on it (well, I thought that it didn't even touch the glue) and this is what must have caught the fire. And also I was configuring the fan speed and I set the max speed to around 40%. The reason why I left it at that point was that 'The Run' after 2h of gaming wouldn't push the card further than 85C but I believe that 'Sniper Elite V2' is more of a GPU intensive game rather than CPU and it probably pushed the temperature of the card even further (past experience with 2600k and 6870 which I completely dismissed during the fan speed adjustments).
However these are just assumptions and I'm trying to describe the situation as accurately as possible.

@Stranglehold
I am just assuming that the rest of the components are ok. I was just trying to say that there is definitely a problem with the PSU not even considering failures within any other components.

By the way, if I am unable to fix the PSU, there is a side question I would like to ask - will a used Aerocool Imperator 750w be fine with this system (and overclocking and possibly CPU upgrade to some LGA775 quad)? Since I am a bit short on budget I don't have many possibilities to go with any other new 'high end' PSU's. But you can guess that from my 'extreme gaming rig' and from the attempt to fix a $100 PSU :)

Thanks
 
You can't really fix a PSU, especially if its not working like you said.

Are there any scorch mark on any of the components?

Because obviously the GPU won't work if it caught fire.

That PSU is kinda cheapy, a corsair CX750 is fairly cheap.
 
A little sad update to the story (not related to the issue)

I checked everything in the computer and everything was fine besides the GPU and of course the PSU.

So I bought the 750w Imperator that I told you earlier on about. I plugged it in to the computer and it wouldn't start. So I thought that the motherboard was fried (which now I think actually wasn't) and I went to centrecom and spent my last $230 on motherboard, CPU and ram (since last setup was LGA775 and DDR2 - I needed everything 1150 and DDR3). With a smile on my face I plugged everything in and again nothing works!
When I unplugged my SSD the computer would actually boot up and I could run BIOS, however when the SSD was plugged to the computer - it wouldn't boot up. I thought that it must be a problem with the SSD so I brought another HDD and the same thing occurred. So I thought it must be a problem with the cables then, so I changed the cables and guess what happened - my SSD fried! So I plugged the SSD to another PC to check it and it was actually fried. And I tried to plug everything again without an SSD and somehow my motherboard fried as well.

Ill just sent back this Imperator because the damages that it made are equal to a new Silverstone PSU 1050w Silver certified (and maybe even more, if it also fried the old motherboard).

"hahaha" :(
 
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