System keeps burning out power supplies

[agraphobia]

Shuttle AN35N-Ultra 400 NVIDIA nForce2 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2000+ Thoroughbred 266MHz FSB
pqi POWER Series 512MB 184-Pin DDR 400 SDRAM
AOpen Geforce MX4000 64MB DDR AGP Video Card
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive
Hitachi-LG 48x IDE CD-ROM Drive
Artec Black 52x24x52 CDRW & 16x DVD-ROM IDE Drive
Generic 3 year old floppy drive
WinXp Professional

I've gone through three power supplies in two months. Symptoms are the
same each time. I smell a burning electronics/ozone smell and the pc
shuts down. When I try to power it back on, the cpu fan spins for
about half a second then stops. The power light on the motherboard
remains lit. The first supply, a Powermax LP-8800D 400-watt that came
with my case, lasted about 3 months. The second, an A-Power 450-Watt
ATX Dual Fan Power Supply which I bought for $14.50 as a stop gap
measure, lasted 3 days. The third one, a Powmax Assasin 500-Watt
supply, lasted about a week. Granted, these were all low quality power
supplies, but I figure the Powmax Assasin should have lasted longer
than a week. I'm not overclocking, and don't use any USB peripherals
on this PC. Is there an easy way to test my hardware to be sure a
short or other problem isn't causing my system to draw more power than
it should? Anyone else having a similar problem

Thanks,

Monty

 

[RJK]

ONLY if competent to do so, i.e. you do not want to electrocute yourself
!!!!! Check all mains wiring and consumer unit (distribution panel), and
the mains circuit feeding the PC.

You're particuarly interested in poor connections, (poor "interference" {in
the true sense/use of the word "interference"}), on the neutral or minus
side of your mains circuits.
Poor connections/interference on neutral can overload an appliance leading
to premature failure.

Consider buying a PSU with overload protection. Also, throw away the kettle
lead and use a new one.

regards, Richard

 

[Chris Hill]

Shuttle AN35N-Ultra 400 NVIDIA nForce2 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2000+ Thoroughbred 266MHz FSB
pqi POWER Series 512MB 184-Pin DDR 400 SDRAM
AOpen Geforce MX4000 64MB DDR AGP Video Card
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive
Hitachi-LG 48x IDE CD-ROM Drive
Artec Black 52x24x52 CDRW & 16x DVD-ROM IDE Drive
Generic 3 year old floppy drive
WinXp Professional

I've gone through three power supplies in two months. Symptoms are the
same each time. I smell a burning electronics/ozone smell and the pc
shuts down. When I try to power it back on, the cpu fan spins for
about half a second then stops. The power light on the motherboard
remains lit. The first supply, a Powermax LP-8800D 400-watt that came
with my case, lasted about 3 months. The second, an A-Power 450-Watt
ATX Dual Fan Power Supply which I bought for $14.50 as a stop gap
measure, lasted 3 days. The third one, a Powmax Assasin 500-Watt
supply, lasted about a week. Granted, these were all low quality power
supplies, but I figure the Powmax Assasin should have lasted longer

Buy a decent supply and quit messing around.

 

[spodosaurus]

Buy a decent supply and quit messing around.

And get a UPS, there's probably a problem with either the socket the OP
is using or the whole house. The components in that system are not
drawing enough power to overstress even a 300W PSU (from a reputable
manufacturer). Do you have your monitor plugged into the straight
through plug on the back of the PSU?

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Switch]

short or other problem isn't causing my system to draw more power than
it should? Anyone else having a similar problem

Thanks,

Monty

I bet you live close to the power supply coming in,
you might be getting some strong surges

most people lose their periphials from these surges

 

[Robbie McFerren]

Yeah, don't plug a CRT Monitor into a PSU, I damaged a power supply (and
almost killed myself) because of that and a non-grounded outlet.
Needless to say I don't have that power supply (or that POS computer)
anymore, but my outlet is still not grounded.

 

[Robbie McFerren]

Yeah, don't plug a CRT Monitor into a PSU, I damaged a power supply (and
almost killed myself) because of that and a non-grounded outlet.
Needless to say I don't have that power supply (or that POS computer)
anymore, but my outlet is still not grounded.

 

[RJK]

.....oooh! I should have thought of that !! :-(

regards, Richard

 

[Jim]

I've gone through three power supplies in two months.

Years ago I went through power supplies every few months. Then I bought
Antec True Power series (cost more than the case with oem power supply).

Everything working fine since. We're talking years now. Not cheap.
But add up those $20-40 units and see how expensive they really are
after they get replaced a few times. Not to mention the other
components they helped to trash along the way.

 

[agraphobia]

Yeah, the more reading I do about power supplies the more I see I've
been wasting time and money on these cheapo power supplies and should
be fine with an Antec or other quality unit

 

[Switch]

Yeah, the more reading I do about power supplies the more I see I've
been wasting time and money on these cheapo power supplies and should
be fine with an Antec or other quality unit

you can get 450watt supply from tigerdirect.com EVERYDAY! for 20bucks

 

[Jim]

you can get 450watt supply from tigerdirect.com EVERYDAY! for 20bucks

Couple years back Tom's Hardware had a great article regarding power
supplies. Lots more involved than merely stating capable of so many watts.