A bad month for power supplies...

HeXp£Øi±

HeXp£Øi±

Well-Known Member
So i built a machine for Leahs dad and the psu dies. Then my 300watt psu in my primary machine which i've only had for two months goes out in the blink of eye so i toss in the last psu i have left after getting rid of all my excess hardware for my trip south which is a 250watt enermax. I didn't think it would even work with my Radeon9500pro but it did. So today i picked up a firewire card and plugged it in and everything seemed fine until i plugged a cable into it. Immidiately the machine shuts down. This happened without the camera even being connected to the cable itself. So i unhooked the cable and tried it again and the same thing. The bare cable shuts it off. After a third try i can swear i smell smoke. So i shut the machine off unplug the firewire card and turn the machine back on. The drives spin but the monitor doesn't turn on and i notice the fan on the radeon is only turning at a fraction of its normal speed. I popped out the Radeon and threw in another card and still no video. I'm pretty sure i fried the psu just because it was only 250watt and shouldn't have been in the system in the first place. I guess what i'm most curious about is why in the hell would the machine freak out just from sticking in the firewire cable?

Any ideas?
 
However unlikely it is that the cable is bad i really don't know what else to think. If the cable is connected to the firewire port but not to the camera then it shouldn't have any affect on the system whatsoever right? I payed $25 for the damn cable alone so i hate to throw it out but i don't want to burn out my new psu either. Wish i had a way of testing it.

Yeah i was warned many times about the 250watt psu's, but if it turns out to be the cable than the psu was fine.:D More likely it was just too much for the psu though.
 
They are too weak to sustain the load of modern processors and other hardware. The worst thing you can do to your hardware is run it under the prescribed voltage, it will burn out the motors faster than anything.
 
Even more so the videocard than the rest of the system i think. I'm using a 9500pro and it suggests a 300watt minimum psu and recommends 350.
 
PT said:
The worst thing you can do to your hardware is run it under the prescribed voltage, it will burn out the motors faster than anything.
Click to expand...
aren't you running all your 12v fans @7v PT?
 
tommyj27 said:
PT said:
The worst thing you can do to your hardware is run it under the prescribed voltage, it will burn out the motors faster than anything.
Click to expand...
aren't you running all your 12v fans @7v PT?
Click to expand...
Yep, sure am. :D
 
Thanks PT. I thought it was something specific you guys were sayin about the number 250; I used to have tons of them at work but we had all old POS machines anyway so they were fine for the old crap. :)
 
Yep, I had a 150 in my old K6 that just chugged along for about 6 years. Probably still boot up if I had the inclination to put a hard drive and memory in it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top