PSU keeps blowing up

M

marcuspayne

Member
Hi, I bought a PC from PC Specialist in April this year, it lasted about a month then one morning when I turned it on there was a loud pop from somewhere inside the PC and the power circuit for the living room tripped, the PC was completely dead after this. I RMA’d it back to PCS and it was returned about 2 weeks later with a new PSU. This time it worked for about a week before the exact same thing happened. I have now RMA’d it again and it’s now back at the depot, but I’m just wondering if anyone has an explanation as to why this could be happening.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
marcuspayne said:
Hi, I bought a PC from PC Specialist in April this year, it lasted about a month then one morning when I turned it on there was a loud pop from somewhere inside the PC and the power circuit for the living room tripped, the PC was completely dead after this. I RMA’d it back to PCS and it was returned about 2 weeks later with a new PSU. This time it worked for about a week before the exact same thing happened. I have now RMA’d it again and it’s now back at the depot, but I’m just wondering if anyone has an explanation as to why this could be happening.
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What are your full specs?
 
M

marcuspayne

Member
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Eight Core CPU (3.9GHz-4.5GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
MotherboardASUS® ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6Gb/s) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 SUPER - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive1TB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 1800MB/sR | 1800MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY DriveNOT REQUIRED
Power SupplyCORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor CoolingSTANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
There’s nothing wrong with the spec, looks solid and there’s headroom on the PSU. It’s possible the power source is throwing spikes.

This is why it’s always suggested to have PC equipment running off a surge protector, I’d strongly suggest buying one.
 
M

marcuspayne

Member
Hi, The extension the PC is plugged into has Surge protection, Also my old PC was plugged into the exact same socket for years with zero issues (and is plugged into it right now) and no other electrical devices in my house have had any issues.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
marcuspayne said:
Hi, The extension the PC is plugged into has Surge protection, Also my old PC was plugged into the exact same socket for years with zero issues (and is plugged into it right now) and no other electrical devices in my house have had any issues.
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And the surge didn’t trip?
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Surge protector should have tripped when the PSU went.

If your PSU went, your circuit breaker went and the surge protector didn't.......... that suggests a very clear issue.
 
M

marcuspayne

Member
The surge protection didn’t trip, as I’ve said my old PC is plugged into it now and has been for over 2 years with no issues and no other devices have ever had issues.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
marcuspayne said:
2, the PC and LG home theater surround sound.
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There’s something up with that surge protector, it should have tripped.
have you stressed to PCS that this is the second PSU to blow? It’s possible there’s a short somewhere that’s causing a surge. But I would strongly recommend replacing that surge protector.
 
M

marcuspayne

Member
Thank You for your advice I'll try buying a new surge protector but I really don't think this is the issue as no other devices in the house have ever had any problems then all over a sudden the same PC suffers twice in the same month. Yes, when I RMA'd it for the second time I did stress to PCS that this was the 2nd time the same thing had happened. hopefully 3rd time lucky. Could it possibly be a bad batch of PSUs? I'm sure PCS will just buy them in bulk.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
marcuspayne said:
Could it possibly be a bad batch of PSUs?
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I would have thought we’d have had other reports of failures if it were a bad batch. PSU’s rarely fail, and even then it doesnt pop, just goes dead. We have never had any reports of them blowing like this.
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Sparks almost always indicate a short Was it during a gaming session? Peak load would be more likely to arc than idling. That being the case there's an issue with the casing/motherboard/build in general.

As an a-side though..... your surge protector is faulty. For you to trip your main breaker before the protector tells you this. it's there to protect the equipment. It's the "middle man", the fact that both ends of the middle man tripped and the middle man didn't..... tells you that it's not working the way it should.
 
G

Grumpywurzel

Bright Spark
Don't forget the surge protection is for voltage spikes, whereas breakers are for overcurrent. If you have had a failure of a component and its sparked up, then the psu will be drawing more current.

Oddly surge protectors degrade over time and do need replacing, might be worth swapping it out anyway for belt n braces.

Does seem odd that's you have popped 2 psu's though, most tend to last years
 
M

marcuspayne

Member
It actually caused the electrics to trip overnight whilst on standby , I left it on downloading Snow-Runner so it should have went to sleep after about three hours. I noticed in the morning that there was no internet, meaning that the modem didn't have power due to the living-room circuit having tripped. I immediately turned the PC off via the switch at the back, flicked the trip switch back on then attempted to turn the the PC back on, which is when it popped.
 
G

Grumpywurzel

Bright Spark
If I were a betting man, I'd say that as you've let the sparks out of the electrics 😊, you've got a partial short somewhere. Simply changing the psu isn't gonna fix it permanently (unless you are mega unlucky to have 2 dodgy psu's). I would RMA it, telling PCS of what you have seen (sparks) and ask them to recheck the whole pc. If they chuck in a new psu without doing that you will be in the same boat soon.
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Grumpywurzel said:
Don't forget the surge protection is for voltage spikes, whereas breakers are for overcurrent. If you have had a failure of a component and its sparked up, then the psu will be drawing more current.

Oddly surge protectors degrade over time and do need replacing, might be worth swapping it out anyway for belt n braces.

Does seem odd that's you have popped 2 psu's though, most tend to last years
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Yeah..... in 1948 they were for voltage spikes :p

We are WAYYY past that with current consumer units/circuit breakers. We use residual current devices now.... RCD.
 
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