Am I experiencing a bad PSU?

Xintar

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Apr 14, 2015
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Quick Edit: I didn't mean to post this in the Motherboard section, but still appreciate any insight.

Hello, and thanks for the help in advance.

I recently had my video card die. I would get random crashes while gaming. Eventually the system wouldn't even load with the card installed. This is an EVGA 780ti SC and EVGA is replacing is under warranty and in the mean time installed a backup GPU; Radeon HD 6870.

Everything was working fine a few days later when my 2TB HDD failed. Windows won't load while this drive is connected. I tried different SATA cables/ports and power but the only solution is to disconnect.

Since random reboots can be signs of PSU failure, do you think my two problems are connected? I don't want to lose any more hardware and I'm worried the PSU is the root cause.

Specs:
Mobo: ASrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
CPU: i5 2500k
RAM: G.Skill DDR3 2.4GB
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX750
SDD: Samsung 840 EVO

Thanks again in advance.
 
Solution
Concurrent hardware failures aren't unheard of, but definitely a cause for concern, but because it's a hard drive, I wouldn't immediately point to the PSU per-se because hard drives die randomly all the time. Is it working fine with the AMD card installed? If so, then it could have been just the 780 that was the issue.

Usually, when a PSU is going to die, it gives you signs. Consistent shutdowns without a blue screen is one. Sometimes is a strange noise, loud fan, coil whine. Other times I've noticed a smell to it usually in concert with excessive temperatures leading to random shut downs. As far as randomly frying hardware, I've seen it, but not often. PSU's, especially good ones like yours, have lots of failsafes in them to protect...

sirstinky

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Aug 17, 2012
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Concurrent hardware failures aren't unheard of, but definitely a cause for concern, but because it's a hard drive, I wouldn't immediately point to the PSU per-se because hard drives die randomly all the time. Is it working fine with the AMD card installed? If so, then it could have been just the 780 that was the issue.

Usually, when a PSU is going to die, it gives you signs. Consistent shutdowns without a blue screen is one. Sometimes is a strange noise, loud fan, coil whine. Other times I've noticed a smell to it usually in concert with excessive temperatures leading to random shut downs. As far as randomly frying hardware, I've seen it, but not often. PSU's, especially good ones like yours, have lots of failsafes in them to protect your components. The only times I've seen that happen is during power surges (blackouts, brownouts, or lightning strikes) or catastrophic failures in the PSU due to defective components.
 
Solution

Xintar

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Apr 14, 2015
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4,510
Thanks for the response. I think I'm just really paranoid since they failed so close together. I'm not noticing any other symptoms of a failing PSU. All of the voltages check out ok. I was just worried I was getting spikes and losing components one by one.

The HDD can still be detected (occasionally) and receives power, I just think the controller died.