Hello there. Today, my girlfriend’s PC PSU died. She was doing something in the kitchen, when one of the circuit breakers tripped. She tried turning it on, but the PC wouldn’t start.
I came back home and brought a PSU from an older PC we had lying around. Plugged it in and everything worked.
And I pretty much know why this happened. You see, the power supply is(was) a beQuiet SFX-L 600W Gold. It’s fitted in a Cooler Master NR200P. The air intake was from the side. This side was facing down, under our bed.
The poor bastard was choking - I just forgot about this orientation when we moved. And then it just died. There is no GPU in the system, just a 5700G and an NZXT X63 AIO.
And it still died, when idling (was only downloading something when it happened). Learn from my mistake. Let the PSU breathe. I thought it would be fine since it was gold and would just dissipate the heat through the chassis.
While I’m sure that’s not good for it, I’m not sure you can draw the conclusion that this is what killed it without actually taking it apart at the very least
$100 says that thing would last forever in a sealed box with no fan
Hmmm, so my intuition about the quality of the PSU might be right after all.
Now that I think about it, the bathroom breaker does trip quite often - especially when the ventilation fan is turned off.
And a while back, my washing machine broke - it was still under warranty, so a repair man came in and fixed it. He didn’t say what was wrong with it though.
How can I figure out if my electrical wiring is bad? I’ll open up the PSU today, and see if there is any obvious damage.
I’m obviously going to not recommend this, but if you’re going to anyways then you need to avoid accidentally discharging any caps as there are some capable of electrocuting a person. There is a safe way to discharge them if you care to look it up on youtube.
I have the same PSU for my homeserver. Form factor and fan direction is a bit wierd, but building smaller form factor cases require these kind of PSUs. So far everything runs fine (server up for most of the last 1.5 years).
Get an outlet tester (~$12), and check all your outlets for bad wiring.
If everything passes it could be time to replace some breakers.
If stuff fails the test, then you’ve found your problem.
This won’t really help solve any active problems. PSU is already dead, and the wiring of the house is more of a concern.
Also, those capacitors will KILL YOU if you make a mistake. IDK if you know what you’re doing when it comes to power equipment, but please exercise caution.
Thanks for the warning. I was just about to open it up, before I checked the forums. I didn’t know the capacitors had that much capacity. Perhaps they can be salvaged? I was planning on making a reactor at work for the synthesis of nanoparticles using the exploding wire method…
But, back on topic.
Yeah, this one worked for more than a year before it died. Today I got another one - didn’t find one of similar power in the same form factor. The system works now.
I think I’ll invest in one - can you recomend me a good brand? I know nothing about outlet testers. Preferably for the EU market (Type C?)
This was likely just a matter of electrical failure due to either bad luck,
or other issues in the computer, house electrical circuit or a spike in the net.
Overheating is not very likely to be the main cause given the systems specifications.
Unless it really is a bad quality unit.
But In many cases a psu just fails because of bad luck or age.
I still rock a Corsair 850W from 08 and it has been thoroughly punished with case temps way above what anyone would recommend and its still goin strong. Granted I have replaced the fan due to failure but if you run it fanless it fairly quickly shuts down by itself.
I would be very surpised if that load managed to create problematic temps.
I might move in the near future, so the socket tester will still be useful.
But yeah, it is unusual. I would love to open up the dead PSU, but I have no idea how to know if the capacitors in it are discharged - surely they lose charge over time? I mean, thermodynamics must apply.
