dennisresevfan said:
I believe this was entirely due to the guy installing it putting a PCI-e power cable into the EPS12v socket in the motherboard. I have since discovered that this can cause serious hardware damage.
If you look closely at the PCIe and the EPS connectors, you will notice that they are wired opposite to one another. This means that you will be shorting 12 volts to ground if you plug either one into wrong place. If you were lucky, the PSU would have sensed a short and electronically shut itself down before any damage occurred. I wouldn't use that PSU. The protection circuits in it are inadequate.
What kind of PSU? In fact, complete system specs - including brands and models?
Music doesn't cause a problem even in media centre. 2D games (I emulated Symphony of the Night on a playstation emulator to test this out) do not cause a problem. But when I try to play anything more advanced, it usually freezes as soon as gameplay begins.
Oblivion freezes when I load a game. STALKER freezes the system as soon as I click on its icon! Presumably this is something to do with the intro videos loading up. said:
Music doesn't cause a problem even in media centre. 2D games (I emulated Symphony of the Night on a playstation emulator to test this out) do not cause a problem. But when I try to play anything more advanced, it usually freezes as soon as gameplay begins.
Oblivion freezes when I load a game. STALKER freezes the system as soon as I click on its icon! Presumably this is something to do with the intro videos loading up.
That is a sign of inadequate power. A 3D load on a graphics card just about doubles its power requirements.
So. Basically, what do you think the problem is?
...
Can a PSU damage a system assuming it's wired up to it properly, and the voltages are all fine? (Which they are) said:
So. Basically, what do you think the problem is?
...
Can a PSU damage a system assuming it's wired up to it properly, and the voltages are all fine? (Which they are)
Our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-postin...
Try to borrow a DMM to measure the voltages. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.
You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the system.
is it possible for a damaged GPU to damage the rest of the system, or not? said:
is it possible for a damaged GPU to damage the rest of the system, or not?
Possible? Yes. Likely? No.