my psu keeps blowing

hi there, heres my problem:

my power supply unit blew the other week (350 wat), so I bought a new one and plumbed it in

an hour later the new one blew (also a 350wat)

my computer has been working fine for ages the only recent change is cpu and fan, upgrading fromm a 2200+ athlonxp to a 3000+,

is it the case that the new cpu with the new fan causeiing the psu to blow?

it also powers a radeon 9800xt plus two cd/dvd drives, one hard drive and about 4 usb devices,

hope u can help

dan

Once while building a rig, i was putting in a light unit, the spade connector had revealed the smallest patch of metal as it had come loose.

This touched the case, and everytime i powered up, it would short out. The first PSU i used died after that.

First of all i did not detect the fault, so i bought a new 550w PSU, this also cutout. Luckily this PSU has a failsafe and just cutout rather than died

Just check out that you have no bare wires, metal connectors showing or touchiing the case etc... There is a small chance of arcing from one possibly faulty component to another aswell.

350 w? Isn't that a bit low?? That's what I think. If DogzbolloX suggestion doesn't work buy a Psu with more watt

Once I got my 420W to fail because I had cables and wires that were kind of " loose " probably caused some short circuit. :bucky!:

Any way, now days I have a 550W beast, if I have a failure it just reboots lol ... Happened couple of times

Yeah, i was going to add that at the bottom, but i thought i 'd let him/her deal with one problem at a time

cheers guys, i will try that now. As far as the power of the psu I will buy a more powerful one, but i did go to a website that calculates the highest peak power that my machine would need, which calculated a a max 0f 299 wats according to my setup.


anyway, ill open her up now and have a look

thanks for the help guys


p.s im a him
:thumbup:

hi there

checked all my cables and everything seems to be in check as far as i can see. I guess i need to buy a powerfull psu with failsafe function

but i was wondering if my system does need more power to run, would this actually blow the psu? surely if it was lacking power it simply wouldnt work or crash?

does anyone know if this is a cause of blowing the psu

cheers, dan

Well the graphic cards do demand a lot of power
personally i wouldn't hook up an 9800XT on a 350W PSU
I would go for something better,
also be prepared to spend money good (so dont buy cheap PSU's they suck)

Good LucK m8


:thumbup:

Originally posted by dan_kitty@Jan 7 2005, 03:34 AM
cheers guys, i will try that now. As far as the power of the psu I will buy a more powerful one, but i did go to a website that calculates the highest peak power that my machine would need, which calculated a a max 0f 299 wats according to my setup.


anyway, ill open her up now and have a look

thanks for the help guys


p.s im a him
:thumbup:

Ne chance u could post a linky 2 that site in question...?

ok heres the thing, i just ordered a 9800 so i was reading alot about power requirements on the sapphire forums
they said have a MINIMUM 400 watt psu to power a 9800
but thats not the half of it
what i also learned is that one of the most important aspects of you Power supply is how the power is distributed
theres a sticker on the side of your PSU that lists all the voltages and under than it has a number followed by the letter a or amps
each conected part requires an amount of amps as well as an amount of watts, amps being generaly overlooked yet of dire importance
heres the example i recall
say this is ur system, amd 2500 512 geil ram and a mx4000 video card, with 2 cd/dvd drives
on a 400 watt case with retaile power supply in it (generic) and a 350 watt name brand power supply
the 400 watt has amps as follows 18 , 20, 9, all of which are enough except the 9, which is the +12V which powers your cpu, that happens to require say 11 amps
on the other hand, the 350 watt is 20, 25, 16, and has enough amps for most any CPU and average amount of attached drives and cards

if your power supply doesnt provide the necesary amps, its likely going to randomly restart, or not start at all

i also understand that the more you are using your computer's parts at any given moment the more power it requires
runing mutliple drives as well as the basic parts requires alot more juice than 1 drive at a time

so everything may be stable till you click on that second DVD drive then all of a sudden your computer restarts

get a 400+ watt power supply from a company such as thermal take
the "silent pure power" ones are always good

hope it helps