I think my PC died....

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vision20

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Hello community!

I'll tell you guys the story. I remember this PC as my first and only build, picked all good parts but one... the PSU. The first one I ever got was a Coolmax V600. It ran good... until about 6 months later. I was gaming on APB for about 3 hours and it was actually a pretty hot day. Suddenly, my computer just shut off and I noticed a burning smell. I saw smoke from the back of my PC and tried to turn it on. It powered on for one second and shut off. That was the end of it. From that day on I was on a journey with little money, but saved what I could for a quality PSU.

I then stumbled across a PC Power & Cooling Silencer Quad 750. Owner barely used it, and I got it in mint condition. I was extremely happy to finally get a quality PSU that I had no doubts or worries about it blowing up. Well, it blew a month later after I got it. I couldn't believe it. How could such a quality PSU, die on me in such short notice?

I was playing BC2 for about 30 minutes when it everything just shut off. I noticed the smell and I knew at that moment the PSU blew. It was a hot day. Prior to this, I left it on for approximately 2 hours as I had to go to the dentist. The night before, the power acted weird causing the light to flicker for a millisecond and my computer screen to restart itself. Everything else from my alarm clock to PC was working fine. I turn my PC off every night and about 70% of my time on the PC I just browse the web, so the PSU wasn't overkilled.

Specs:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE @ 3.4 GHz (Stock)
EVGA GTX 460 1GB (Not OC'd)
8GB of memory
2 Disc Drives
1 TB HDD

Sucks that this had to happen. I was going to add in another GTX 460 soon. :(

That's all the information I can give. I really hope my motherboard and everything is fine. Seems to be.
 
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diellur

diellur

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Not to contradict, but I've not heard of PC Power and Cooling as a brand (but that may be my ignorance). Also, with it being second-hand, you didn't know it's history and had no guarantee of any kind. I agree with Emerald, if you want an SLI build then 750W is a good PSU power rating to go for. As for brand...XFX, Seasonic, Corsair, Enermax and Antec are good-quality brands.
 
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vision20

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PC Power & Cooling is a very well received brand. Recently OCZ, the owner of PCP&C, has supposedly lowered the quality of the newer models so they're not as good as the ol' quads which were praised by nearly everyone out there. I know that this is a quality PSU if not, the best. As for it being second hand, I agree, but hopefully his words were correct.
 
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diellur

diellur

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Fair play...I'd not come across them before, but thanks for that. :) I guess he was just very, very unlucky then. Hopefully his PC components have survived the ordeal!
 
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diellur

diellur

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Someone on this forum once likened using a PC without a surge protector to having sex without a condom (presumably not with a long-term partner, that is). Made me chuckle.

There was a storm where I live about 2 weeks ago when I was gaming...lightning right above my flat, or near enough judging on the sound of the thunderclap. Surge protector or not, I put the PC off very, very quickly!
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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make sure its a surge protector that also does the phone line protection--bit pointless just using a basic model that only protects the power sockets and no good against lightning

kind off like wearing 2 condoms to use your analogy :D
 
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vision20

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I found something out today. My PSU is not dead.

I tested it out with using a jumper technique so it powered some things fine. It all comes down to either the CPU or motherboard. Does anyone know how to test which is dead? Thanks
 
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vision20

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That's good to know that my CPU is not dead. So it just comes down to the motherboard and the PSU? I could try to power it up, but only sometimes the light would come up on the motherboard for a split second along with the system fan before it shuts down. Another thing is the motherboard itself has its own power button which I see it lit green when the PSU is on. When I press it however, it does not turn red (off) as it's suppose to but rather it stays green.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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i would try a different psu--i take it you tried the paper clip trick to test it--it may power some things but still be damaged in some way--12v rails for example--if you know some one who could lend you a psu to test it rather than buying one it would be helpfull

as i said earlier do you use a surge protector as 2 psu going is either very unlucky or may be down to surges

what exactly happens if you turn on the pc? as you must be getting some sort of image going by your reply
 
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vision20

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I tried a another PSU from an old PC I had. Same problem. The first PSU I bought was a cheap brand, Coolmax. People also stated that it blew on them as well. So I went out and bought a quality one. I don't use a power surge protector though.

I would connect my PSU to my wall, and the only things connected are my motherboard, HDD, system fan, and a single 200mm fan. The motherboard has these 4 small led lights for who knows what. When I press the power button, the 4 lights would flash instantly along with my system fan blue leds before shutting off again. Same thing with my other spare PSU.
 
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mcnumpty23

mcnumpty23

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do you know anyone with a similar setup so you could double check the psu and cpu?--possibly still could be the cpu--anytime i have dealt with a faulty cpu normally it would boot up but no video but theres so many different motherboards and cpus nowadays that an instant shutdown if the cpu is faulty cant be ruled out--been a while since i used amd so cant say it definately couldnt cause it

also maybe check graphics card --if your board has onboard graphics take out the card--or if you have a spare try that

is your other spare psu up to running the components you have?

if you cant double check in your position i would get a new psu--good make like corsair etc and if that fixes it ok--if not i would replace the cpu if that fixes it ok

last resort the motherboard

but definately get a surge protector--look at the cost of your pc compared to the cost of a surge protector
 
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vision20

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I don't know anyone else that used an AM3 motherboard. I could still possibly check the PSU.

I will check on the onboard right now. Also my spare is a 250w so I don't know how it holds up, but it runs my old PC fine. All I connected to it was my motherboard and CPU.

If my PSU is really the problem, I will attempt to RMA also with my mobo. I don't have the money to replace everything with new items. :(
 
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