Power Supply Died

[floppybootstomp]

In my Win 98/Linux machine.

I noticed an electrical burning smell, felt case, it was hot.

When I checked, PSU fan wasn't spinning. So I flicked the fan to start it going again - it did - took side off of case, CPU temp dropped from 71C to 58C, lasted five minutes, then packed up altogether.

This was a POS PSU, came with a generic case, brand name L & C.

I was thinking about getting something fancy but in the end I decided to pop in to PC World tomorrow and pick up a Jeantech 300W PSU for about twenty five quid. There really isn't much in this machine.

Here's specs:

Gigabyte GA700N Pro 2 Motherboard.
XP2400
Thermalright SLK 800 Cooler with Pabst 80mm fan
2 x 256 Hinari Generic PC3200 RAM
Nvidia FX5700LE vid card
Floppy Drive
DVD-ROM Drive
20Gb/40Gb/40Gb Hard drive (using hard disk caddy, one disk at a time, different OS's)
One 80mm case fan, exhausting

And that's it. So 300W should be fine. I've had good experience with the Jeantech PSU's, (they're cheap and I'm not exactly loaded at the moment ) so that's my choice.

I just hope the PSU failure hasn't taken anything out with it.

 

[crazylegs]

Sorry to hear that flopp's, the jeantech should sort it though, not a bad psu for everyday generic use.

As for your mobo and ancillarys you'l just have to wait and see if its affected anything else in the system, i remember the last time when i had a psu blow, it took a hard drive with it too, didnt find out until i replaced the psu and the drive wouldn't spin up.....

Hopefully you've got away with it.....

 

[muckshifter]

I’m a little surprised in how much the CPU temp was. Seems to me your ‘exhaust’ fan was not doing the job intended, or in the wrong place.

However, it does highlight how important a good PSU is, especially one that also acts as an exhaust fan. Heat rises, a PSU generates heat, a PSU is generally fitted at the top of a tower case, and a PSU with two fans is better than a PSU with one fan.

Hope the system is unaffected by this PSU failure.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I’m a little surprised in how much the CPU temp was. Seems to me your ‘exhaust’ fan was not doing the job intended, or in the wrong place.

So was I surprised.

The exhaust fan is an 80mm YS-Tech, mounted at the rear of the case. It is doing it's job. At the time the PSU fan failed I could feel it exhausting lots of very hot air.

The PSU was so hot I couldn't touch it. Even the case roof was really hot.

Before I went to buy a new PSU, I tried firing the computer up and lo and behold, it switched on OK. I'm figuring something must have caused a thermal shutdown yesterday.

So I swapped out the old duff fan for an 80mm fan I saved from a previous dead PSU and fitted it back in. Something, plastic, had melted in there, I can't figure out what is was though.

It started, and all seems good. Have been running at full load (UD) for a few hours now, case temp 31C, CPU temp 52C.

So that was a bit of luck

I'll probably upgrade both the PSU and CPU cooler (one of those Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro jobbies I think, they're very good) when I'm a little more flush.