# What damage can a blown PSU do?



## Widjaja (Oct 18, 2007)

My mate usually leaves his PC running 24/7 the for a week he turned it off.
Just yesterday he turned it back on and while going through loading windows the PSU blew and smoke came out of it.

I think  he has bad power in his house or his room is way too filthy as this is not the first time he has had a PSU die on him.

His PSU was generic and I'm wondering if it has the potential to damage the hardware by blowing up.


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## Wile E (Oct 18, 2007)

Widjaja said:


> My mate usually leaves his PC running 24/7 the for a week he turned it off.
> Just yesterday he turned it back on and while going through loading windows the PSU blew and smoke came out of it.
> 
> I think  he has bad power in his house or his room is way too filthy as this is not the first time he has had a PSU die on him.
> ...


A blown psu can take out absolutely everything in the system. That's why everyone here stresses the need to buy a quality psu for your rig. Tell him to quit the generics.


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## AsRock (Oct 18, 2007)

Can fry the mobo and other parts too.  Maybe he should invest in a UPS. 

Depending on his power demands maybe some thing like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102070

And should stop buying cheap ass PSU's


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## Widjaja (Oct 18, 2007)

Just my thoughts.
Fried hardware.
He bought his PC as a package and I don't think the suppliers gave him any choice on the PSU but I could be wrong.
His system isn't or wasn't the most power consuming I don't think.
Pentium D 945, 2x 1GB mixed ram, 3x320GB HD, DVD writer and a 7600GT all at stock settings.
I'll see if he listens about the UPS and getting a quality PSU.
I know with his last rig he just went and bought another no name PSU.
I think he's going to plug in another generic PSU to see if his hardware is shot.

Luckily for him he has one month left before his warranty runs out.

Funny how his rig shat itself, since he always tells me his system is better than mine just because it's PCI-E.
At least I can say I put mine together from scratch before his and nothing has died in it.


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## Wile E (Oct 18, 2007)

Widjaja said:


> Just my thoughts.
> Fried hardware.
> He bought his PC as a package and I don't think the suppliers gave him any choice on the PSU but I could be wrong.
> His system isn't or wasn't the most power consuming I don't think.
> ...


Lol. His system is nowhere near as fast as yours. AGP or not. I'd say a good 350w psu would be plenty for him if he doesn't OC, and doesn't plan on a major gfx upgrade. 430 would be better.


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## Widjaja (Oct 18, 2007)

He'll need a relatively powerful PSU for his future upgrade.

He was wanting to OC but the dumb ass put a password on his BIOS for some reason and forgot it.
All he had to do was reset CMOS and it would have been gone but no, the PSU was gone before he could try. 

He's been dreaming of getting a BFG 7950 GX2, a 8800GTX or ultra.
Although his CPU will bottleneck those cards something chronic and the fact he has one 1GB ADATA DDR677 and one 1GB Hyundai DDR677.

But no, thats not an issue for him.
It's the fact I have a better performing rig than him even though it's 939skt  AGP, DDR1, sataI etc. . . and hes in denial so he wants to obliterate my rig with a better 3Dmark and brag about that.

Lol


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## Mussels (Oct 18, 2007)

Wile E said:


> A blown psu can take out absolutely everything in the system. That's why everyone here stresses the need to buy a quality psu for your rig. Tell him to quit the generics.



^ what he said.

I've had myself electrocuted, wiring catch fire, hard drives and video cards die, one motherboard die... anything attached to it is in danger, depending what blows in the PSU.

Good brand PSU's arent a performance investment, its a SAFETY investment.


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## JC316 (Oct 18, 2007)

Anything thats connected to it is at a possible risk. When my Antec died, it took my insanely expensive Patriot ram with it, but the CPU, Mobo, and Video were all fine.


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## Frick (Oct 18, 2007)

Widjaja said:


> He'll need a relatively powerful PSU for his future upgrade.
> 
> He was wanting to OC but the dumb ass put a password on his BIOS for some reason and forgot it.
> All he had to do was reset CMOS and it would have been gone but no, the PSU was gone before he could try.
> ...



If you want him to be even more stupid you can tell him to buy a brand new 7950GX2. 

Anyhow, a 450ish quality PSU would handle his current and future system. He can buy a 500w to be on the safe side.


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## Widjaja (Oct 18, 2007)

Frick said:


> If you want him to be even more stupid you can tell him to buy a brand new 7950GX2.
> 
> Anyhow, a 450ish quality PSU would handle his current and future system. He can buy a 500w to be on the safe side.



I don't think he would need much convicing as he had his mind set on that card not long ago until I proved to him there are 8xxx series cards.

I'll try to get him to buy a quality PSU as harder task as it sounds as he is more inclined to get a system with lots of muscle and a weak heart.

Thanks for the info.


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## Mussels (Oct 18, 2007)

I'd suggest a good case and a good PSU before anything else. cooling and power are the most important things for overclocking and running high end systems


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## Widjaja (Oct 19, 2007)

I think his PSU was under some serious strain.
Can't remember the name of it but it looked cheap.
Not one SATA power cable on it.
400W +12/12a single rail.
Atleast it had some sort of safe guard on it so no hardware was fried.
He's running off some old PSU at the moment until the next PSU arrives.


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## spy2520 (Oct 19, 2007)

the same thing happened to me with an enermax, twice. i RMA'ed and the new one did the same thing a month or two later. after being off for a while at that. switched to a thermaltake toughpower and its been fine for more than a year. its not just the generics that do this obviously.


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## Steevo (Oct 19, 2007)

Sometimes it just happens. But mostly it is caused by other problems, dirty power, lack of cooling.



I have seen a few people create a negative pressure in their case and the PSU was unable to move enough air to keep itself cool. And some believe it is OK to just plug it into any old wall outlet. One I built died of being on the same outlet as a window AC unit with no surge protection, or UPS. Despite repeated warnings they continued. When push came to shove and it died, I refused to rebuild it, or serivce it.

But the Antec PSU in our server died, and caused a shower of sparks. I almost shat myself as I thought it forsure killed all the hardware, and drives with all our data minus a two week old backup. But also the fact that it gets used alot, and without it we are SOL.


I went back in with a 550 Toughpower and it has ran just as good as it did the first 3 years. 24/7.


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## spy2520 (Oct 20, 2007)

Steevo said:


> I have seen a few people create a *negative pressure* in their case and the PSU was unable to move enough air to keep itself cool.




huh? like all exhaust fans? and no intake?




Steevo said:


> I went back in with a 550 Toughpower and it has ran just as good as it did the first 3 years. 24/7.



the toughpowers seem to be the unbreakable ones lol.


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## Chewy (Oct 20, 2007)

yep to much exaust causes negative presure.. I have to thank Steveo for this my psu is now goin face down on the bottom of my new case.


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## keakar (Oct 20, 2007)

Chewy said:


> yep to much exaust causes negative presure.. I have to thank Steveo for this my psu is now goin face down on the bottom of my new case.



there is nothing wrong with a negetive pressure air setup and if done properly will not harm anything in your system.

if your air supply is restricted too much then and only then will it cause overheating. a simple test is to just check the amout of air your system is exhausting and also checking the amount of air your psu is exhausting, then remove the side cover on your computer. it will always move more air with the door open so if you notice only a minor difference then you are fine but if you notice a big difference then you need to investigate where your restriction is.

a person who puts high volume exhaust fans that push too much air or dont have proper sized or unrestricted intake openings can sometimes actually cause a vaccum inside the computer and prevent the psu from moving any air so this is im sure what happened to the system steveo was thinking about. 

for a healthy system your air in should equal the air out. its always louder to have a system that has more intake air (positive pressure) and quieter to have a system that has more exhaust air (negative pressure). a negative pressure system with exhaust fans only just needs to provide unobstructed openings bigger than the total size and shape of the exhaust openings so if you have 4 80mm exhaust fans (plus the psu fan) then you need at least 5 open 80mm holes with open grills. i usually recommend for a negative air pressure setup to have at least one extra 80mm hole in addition to a 1 for 1 match because each open hole always allows more air to be drawn in than the exhaust fan is pushing out the other hole so no vaccum is formed but if you only had say 3 open holes for intake air they may not let in enough air for the 4 80mm exhaust fans and the psu fan.

EDIT: for negative pressure systems you have to remember although they run quieter they do get dusty faster.


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## Mussels (Oct 21, 2007)

spy2520 said:


> huh? like all exhaust fans? and no intake?



yeah, it happens.

I personally prefer a slight positive, but i have seen systems where people had all fans as exhaust, or fans on CPU coolers blowing the opposite direction to the PSU fan - its bad.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Oct 21, 2007)

positive = good!


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