PSU help

[mikemay]

Hi there guys I was wondering is it possible for a screwed PSU to break a motherboard. I plug in a PSU to a old motherboard with every thing on board but CPU all fans turned. I then turned the system off and restarted it and now nothing. Could have the motherboard broke the PSU or maybe the PSU broke the motherboard?? I shorted out pins 15 and 14 on the PSU and the fan did turn on the PSU. I don't want to try another PSU incase the MB fries it or try another MB with the current PSU because it might fri the new motherboard.

I have had this happen before there most be a better way of testing these two things so your not breakin part after part???

Thanks

 

[little_scrapper]

I would have to say YES!! A screwed PSu can take out your whole chain of hardware. AND a screwed MOBO may overload a PSU unless your PSU has built in protection to prevent just that sort of thing.

Short the pins and start measuring voltages. But be quick. I cant imagine running PSU with no load is good for it. Old PSU's would put out the rated wattage weather loaded or not, so if unloaded, they would get hot fast and could fry quickly just like running a CPU with no heatsink. I think newer ones are no longer this way but DEFINATELY do not assume this is the case with your PSU.

Smell it! Is it burnt? I never met a fried circuit board or PSU that I couldnt smell.

Measure the voltages on your MOBO. You dont need to post to measure voltage regulation. You can run MOBO without vid or memory and still measure your Vreg's.

If your not sure how dont mess around. Take it to a pro shop. Its very easy to make things worse if you touch the wrong parts with a probe.

 

[mikemay]

Ah ok thanks I think I am going to buy a PSU tester do you or anyone recommand a goodone? Oh and for the PSU is there a good one that
protects form mobo shorting it out?

Also is there a good tutorial around on how to measure MB voltages
Thank

 

[mikemay]

OK thank you very much for your help guys. Oh and it was underload the first time I tested it so that was not the cause.

Thanks again