Old power supplys

[The321]

What happens when a old power supply (good quality) dies from age ?

When an old Psu goes dead can it be dangerous for other components?

 

Main question what happens when a psu dies just nothing ?

[seon123]

The fan is the only moving component, so the bearing will make a noise. 

It's also possible that some capacitors just fail, so that it sends loss of ripple, while powering the PC. It seemingly works fine, but it kills the components it's connected to. 

Then there's the possibility of a catastrophic failure. 

[DrMagnusW]

can be dangerus for your parts. i would not try it me myself. Our Family pcs PSU stopped working because the fan was filled With dust!

 

[STRMfrmXMN]

54 minutes ago, The321 said:

What happens when a old power supply (good quality) dies from age ?

When an old Psu goes dead can it be dangerous for other components?

 

Main question what happens when a psu dies just nothing ?

Typically modern PSUs (and even shitty ones) will not die in a fire or the like, killing the rest of your components. Normally they fail to allow your PC to boot as they can't provide the power your PC demands.

 

I've only seen a few die from old age, but the symptoms were all identical: The PC would BSOD every time it got past the Windows startup animation and would basically endlessly do this if you turned it back on, or if it turned itself back on.

 

Sometimes the fan dies and the PSU overheats - either killing itself immediately or slowly over time. You can usually hear when the fan dies. If a PSU is starved for air then similar symptoms will occur as it overheats, even if it has a working fan.

[Stefan Payne]

4 hours ago, The321 said:

What happens when a old power supply (good quality) dies from age ?

When an old Psu goes dead can it be dangerous for other components?

 

Main question what happens when a psu dies just nothing ?

The Question is how did it die.

And with that question the answer can be different.

 

Because it is possible that a named brand PSU can kill components.

One possibility is if it is old enough and has a discrede circuit for +5VSB. With the right one, it can kill everything with high voltage on +5VSB.

 

Another one is damaged filter elements. That also can cause harm to the components.

 

So its a good idea to replace a PSU even if it seems to be working fine - because the voltages can be really bad in this case and still seem to work...