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Power Supplies + Me = Angryface
Shadowfire
Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
I seem to be an awesome power supply killer. In the past year and a half, I have killed 5 power supplies.
I started out with a couple cheap PSUs, but since then, I have used a Thermaltake, and two Fortrons. And before anyone asks, no I did not keep the receipts, because I am retarded. These power supplies tend to last 3-6 months.
Now, I baby my computer. I take the panels off every week and blow out the dust and hair. I vent out the fans. I keep it running on a UPS, so I have some amount of power regulation. Even beside that, we moved a couple months ago, and now I've lost -another- PSU.
So, someone tell me... what am I doing wrong here?
I started out with a couple cheap PSUs, but since then, I have used a Thermaltake, and two Fortrons. And before anyone asks, no I did not keep the receipts, because I am retarded. These power supplies tend to last 3-6 months.
Now, I baby my computer. I take the panels off every week and blow out the dust and hair. I vent out the fans. I keep it running on a UPS, so I have some amount of power regulation. Even beside that, we moved a couple months ago, and now I've lost -another- PSU.
So, someone tell me... what am I doing wrong here?
PSN: Bradcopter | Steam: Shadowfire
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
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Post your PC specs and the specs for the PSU's that you've lost. Maybe there is a correlation there...
Also, what type of UPS are you using?
1. Your UPS is not doing the job
2. Your hardware is sucking too much juice
3. You could have something on your motherboard that is frying things
The PSUs started out at 350w, with the last two at 400w. The last one to blow was running 18 Amps on the 12V rail, so I thought I was being pretty careful when I chose it. I don't know what to tell you about the UPS, other than it has 3 power & surge plugs, and 3 surge plugs. I remember it being expensive when I bought it a year ago (I bought it after the first power supply died, thinking that may have been the problem).
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
If it's not overloading it and not a bad ups/dirty power - then my next best guess would be heat... excessive heat.
The room isn't hot at all... it's not cool right now, but the last PSU died in the wintertime, in an apartment with drafty-as-hell windows (so the room stayed pretty cold, no matter how high we turned up the heat). I thought of heat too, and that's still a possibility. I'm pretty sure the case is venting well... it has an 80mm fan in the front(sucking in), one in the side, and two in back(blowing), plus the fans on bottom and back of the PSU.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
So logically it's either the incoming power is making them blow (such as power surges and the like), or a device attached to it is causing some feedback into the PSUs.
For incoming power issues, you've said that you're connecting to the mains via a UPS. Could it be possible that the UPS itself is faulty? Alternatively bad/old power cables could be the culprit.
As for outgoing devices, what about the motherboard? Has this problem spanned multiple boards? High end GPUs can also draw a lot of power.
The only part of this computer that has changed over this time period has been the video card, and the blow outs started happening before I installed the video card. I also had to replace my old IBM Deathstar drive, because it finally bit the dust after 5 years. The UPS is possible... I mean, other stuff is plugged into it, with no ill effects (not like that means I can rule it out),
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/