Testing

[Birkovic]

A while back I tried to build a PC. When I turned it on it made an electrical flash from the motherboard. I turned off everything, and removed the cable completely which connected the PSU and the switch on my wall (a mistake, I assume). After checking things for burns, making sure all cables were correctly positioned etc. I plugged it all in again and another flash appeared from the mobo. The motherboard had a number of small lights which indicates hardware errors. Both the RAM and GPU showed an error on the board. I since moved the hardware to a different board and PSU, where the RAM and GPU are doing just fine (phew!), so assume the errors camemfrom the sockets from then motherboard. From what I saw, the flashes came from those sockets, when I had powered it on.

 

I have now written the old mobo off as a loss, but I am wondering if the PSU is safe to try and use again, or if it actually caused the error (the flashes)… The PSU is a Corsair RM750x (2018), which is seems good, so I would love to repurpose it.

 

How would you recommend for me to proceed to test if the PSU is safe to use; is the paper clip test enough etc?

https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025085372-How-to-Test-a-power-supply-unit

 

ps. Sorry about my broken English. I am not a native.

[--SID--]

Did you use the cables that came with the PSU and nothing else?

 

What are the full system specs?

[Birkovic]

I only used the cables, which came with the PSU. There might have been somekind of a splitter on the gpu, which I got from a prebuild HP Omen. I am not sure, if I changed the last bit connected to the GPU.

 

The parts are from the prebuild:

i5-11400f

RTX 3070 

DDR4, 3200 mhz RAM

WD Black nvme SSD 500 gb

Z590 HP mobo (I am now reusing it)

I wanted to do a case swap with these parts:

 

New cooler: Arctic Freezer 34 eSports DUO

New case: Corsair 4000d airflow 

New fans: Arctic P12 PWM PST 

 

Ditched mobo: Gigabyte B560 aorus pro AX

 

PSU: corsair RM750x

[--SID--]

5 minutes ago, Birkovic said:

There might have been somekind of a splitter on the gpu, which I got from a prebuild HP Omen.

Do you have a picture of the splitter?

[Birkovic]

I can make one(?), but it is a PCIe cable with 8 pins in one end and 2 split with 8 (6+2) pins each in the other.

[--SID--]

Don't use the splitter. Only use tha cables that came with the RM750x.

[IkeaGnome]

10 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

Don't use the splitter. Only use tha cables that came with the RM750x.

You know the Rm750x comes with two splitters right?

[seon123]

11 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

You know the Rm750x comes with two splitters right?

That's not a splitter, that's a cable with two connectors

[Birkovic]

Thank you guys. I will make absolutely sure to do that next time.
 

As stated above, I am not sure if I changed it or not, as I do not have pics.

 

However, I would like to check the PSU first. From what I have read the paper clip thing is not 100 % certain. Do you know other tricks apart from buying a PSU tester?

 

E: My machine powered on after the flashes, so the PSU was running. But can it be dangerous for the other hardware anyways; and how do I test to prevent the risk of a faulty psu?

[IkeaGnome]

6 minutes ago, Birkovic said:

Thank you guys. I will make absolutely sure to do that next time.
 

As stated above, I am not sure if I changed it or not, as I do not have pics.

 

However, I would like to check the PSU first. From what I have read the paper clip thing is not 100 % certain. Do you know other tricks apart from buying a PSU tester?

 

E: My machine powered on after the flashes, so the PSU was running. But can it be dangerous for the other hardware anyways; and how do I test to prevent the risk of a faulty psu?

 

24 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Are you using these cables, or different ones that you're calling splitters?

[Birkovic]

As stated earlier, I built a system a while back (4~ months) and took it apart again, when I failed. I am not completely sure if I used that cable or not. I believe I did, but I chose to state, that I am not sure, so I did not rule it out, when presenting the case, as I am only 90 % sure, and I did not take pictures at the time, as I was quiet furious with myself.

 

As it has been a while, I wanted to take the PSU out of the closet and test it to see, if it was safe to use it; if it was the cause of the issues, so to speak.

 

If I reuse it, I will only use the wires from the PSU-box. I have read up on the issues with mixing cables, after the incident. Again, I can not say for certain, if I only used Corsairs cables or not, sorry.

 

Do you guys know, how I can test the unit? (Apart from buying a PSU tester or building a testbench)

[ApolloX75]

4 minutes ago, Birkovic said:

Do you guys know, how I can test the unit?

Best way to do this is a simple $20 PSU tester. I've had one in my tool kit for probably 10-12 years now.

 

Other way you could do it is with a multimeter and probe the cables, but that won't analyze the PSU and tell you all the details you need to determine if the PSU is truly healthy, just the basics.

[Birkovic]

I only build/upgrade a few per decade, so I was hoping not to have to spend money on one I live in a small northern european country, where the selection of PSU testers is quiet limited. The all cost from something like 40-50 $. The cheapest is something like the pic below, and the expensive one is a Thermaltake Doctor Power II. Is it worth getting the Thermaltake? (It has nice reviews on Amazon)

 

the cheap one:

[ApolloX75]

1 hour ago, Birkovic said:

I only build/upgrade a few per decade, so I was hoping not to have to spend money on one I live in a small northern european country, where the selection of PSU testers is quiet limited. The all cost from something like 40-50 $. The cheapest is something like the pic below, and the expensive one is a Thermaltake Doctor Power II. Is it worth getting the Thermaltake? (It has nice reviews on Amazon)

The cheap one will work perfectly fine, for many years, it's identical to mine.

[Birkovic]

Cheers mate!