WTF

[zparker]

Get this one....

I am in houston, texas and there is a strong line of storms fixing to be here in several hours. The power was flashing on and off about an hour ago, no storm!? I was on the pc listed in my signature. The power came back on, and the computer has died. It is on a surge protector (panamax) which is a good brand (IMO). I tried unplugging it for 10 minutes incase it has a surge protection built in to it(the power supply that is) and nothing. I am so freakin pissed. All i wanted to do was play some counterstrike source before i went to bed. Now i have to take this damn ps back to circuit city and bitch. Hopefully the ps didnt somehow blow my mb or anything else because i am leaving the country next week for 6moths to 2 years to go to Dubai. I am so FKIN PISSED......................


anyone else have a wierd Power suppily failure like this with no lighting?

[camaroguy1998]

Its fairly easy to figure out if its the PSU or not!
Either use a paper clip or a piece of wire and unplug the main ATX plug from the mobo and then jumper the Green lead and one of the Black leads. Then turn the PSU on(if the PSU does not have and On/Off switch unplug it from the wall outlet and when its time to test plug it back in), if the PSU fan comes on then your PSU is not the problem, if it does not come on then its time for a new PSU!

Before you do this unplug the PSU from all components in the case!

I've had 2 PSU's fail over the yrs, an HP and a Thermaltake.

[Mad_Goku]

There doesn't have to be lightning to have a power surge blow your Power Supply or even fry other components.

Does your surge protector have a ground fault indicator? The good ones will. How much protection does it have? My APC has a warranty with it that is supposed to cover me if a surge blows out my components. I don't know how reliable the warranty is.

Have you tested the outlet to make sure it still works?

[zparker]

yeah the outlet works, the ground is good, the powersupply just was a peice of shiite.....Bought a Thermaltake purepower RX 600w Modular with 4 12v rails for 128bucks with tax. Installed it and wouldnt you know....it works

[Nein]

yeah the outlet works, the ground is good, the powersupply just was a peice of shiite.....Bought a Thermaltake purepower RX 600w Modular with 4 12v rails for 128bucks with tax. Installed it and wouldnt you know....it works

It didn't die because it was a POS... Follow this thread for better understanding in how to keep your brand new PSU from dying just like the last one.

[Darkstar]

Basically comes down to the same thing, POS, no name, insufficient power....
Answer is always the same, buy a good (LR recommended?) PS. Spend a little more, dont cut corners on the PS, and then no worries

OH, and i have never lived in the midwest, but i would think the majority would recommend a UPS unit to protect your investment. I did live on the east coast, but back then they had punch cards....LOL

[Tim Burton]

Be thankful your PSU didn't take your MB and CPU....

[zparker]

yeah no joke.

that link you gave below, what the hell is that site? seemed like a bunch of techie red necks...lol

It didn't die because it was a POS... Follow this thread for better understanding in how to keep your brand new PSU from dying just like the last one.

I have a http://www.panamax.com/index.html surge protector that conditions the voltage to be smooth with out spikes. I have personally seen these things after they have saved a 30k digital copier from a lightning strike. The surge protector was black but the copier was fine. This same surge protector i have now kept my old server running when the power failed for about a second and my friends computer got the bsod. He wasnt plugged into it.

[Nein]

Basically comes down to the same thing, POS, no name, insufficient power....
Answer is always the same, buy a good (LR recommended?) PS. Spend a little more, dont cut corners on the PS, and then no worries

The answers are not always the same, there're 4 other different ways than a UPS to handle the problem mentioned above and some of them required no extra spending.

The most obvious common sense old time traditional approach is that not to use your computer when there're expected power fluctuations incoming. PSUs are not made to handle power fluctuations, but When your computer is off it didn't care if there's not enough line voltage level and the surge suppressors would take care of incoming over-voltage problem.

The second common sense method is alternate backup power generators.

Another third common sense method is switching to using a laptop during incoming power fluctuations if available, laptops are not bothered by line-voltage fluctuations, they don't require a UPS because they already had in-built battery backup.

OH, and i have never lived in the midwest, but i would think the majority would recommend a UPS unit to protect your investment. I did live on the east coast, but back then they had punch cards....LOL

Ha ha... :D I'm not in the majority you mentioned, I've a bad habit of utilizing factual common sense instead of the greater majority, I protect my investment using alternate methods which none included a UPS.

[zparker]

Over and under voltage protection since 1990

1990

20-Amp direct plug-in.
Rack mount for home audio (Max 1000).
Over and under voltage protection (SmartMax)<-----since 1990..


that is the one i have. But just a Way newer version.

[Nein]

Perhaps you should get new "Over and under voltage protection" hardware to replace the current one, or you could wait for your new PSU to die the same way the last one did.

But next time the PSU may take out other hardware as well.

[Nein]

Uh... BTW zparker, do you want more specific explanation why your current hardware protection didn't work instead of the generic explanation in the link given above?