PSU fail question

[jerikojeriko]

Hello, 

 

I had recently upgraded my 5+ yr bronze psu to a 80+ gold one (maybe like 2-3 months ago). I also bought a used gpu at around the same time and I installed both at the same time. About a month ago, I started having issues with my pc of getting freezes and locks randomly and screen turns black. My tower however is still on (I can see all the LEDs and fans are still working). I tried to turn it off by holding the power button but it doesn't turn off, so I would have to switch my psu off to turn the pc off and start again.

 

This black-screen-to-nothing-while-tower-is-on issue also happens when I restart my pc. So basically for any windows update I would have to shutdown and power on instead of just clicking restart. I thought it was the gpu so I put my old one back but it still happened. I thought it was a drive issue so I bought a new ssd and fresh installed windows. Still nothing. So I had problem with the power not working on the case, gpu black screen and drives. I gave up for a few weeks, but I did more thinking and realized that the psu can be the cause since it's connected to all of them. I denied at first since it's new, but i had to try. I put my old 5 yr old psu back and see.

 

My pc now restarts perfectly! Issue now is that I still get random freezes when I'm barely navigating through folders. But no black screen, just non-responsive. I'm thinking maybe my old psu is just old, but it never gave me problems before, so now I'm just stuck. 

 

My question is this. Could the newer psu that failed have damaged other parts like the mobo or ssd or gpu? Does it seem like I just need a new psu that's not defective? Keep in mind that the fail psu was in my system for about 2-3 months. 

 

Before anyone asks, I updated my bios and installed windows updates already. I'm at a loss so please, if anyone have may insights, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

I would certainly hope not to have to buy a whole new system since my pc is only a year old, but if I do, it'd be nice to know before black friday/cyber Monday. 

 

My system:

Ryzen 5 1600x

Asrock ab350m pro4

Corsair vengeance led 3200 mhz 

Gtx 970

Define mini c tg. 

 

I know it's a long post, but I just wanted to be detailed so I could get the best possible help. I could. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

[Spotty]

5 minutes ago, jerikojeriko said:

I had recently upgraded my 5+ yr bronze psu to a 80+ gold one (maybe like 2-3 months ago)

What model PSU did you buy?

[jerikojeriko]

I went to microcenter and bought their brand. I think it's called Powerspec? Guy over there was really talking it up. @Spotty

[jerikojeriko]

Anyone be any ideas? 

[Spotty]

19 hours ago, jerikojeriko said:

I went to microcenter and bought their brand. I think it's called Powerspec? Guy over there was really talking it up. @Spotty

I've never heard of powerspec, so until told otherwise I'm going to assume it's garbage. @Stefan Payne

 

If the system hard shuts down with that PSU and works with the old one, return the powerspec unit to microcenter for a refund.

Grab a cx450m (grey label) or cooler master masterwatt 550 instead.

 

19 hours ago, jerikojeriko said:

 

My question is this. Could the newer psu that failed have damaged other parts like the mobo or ssd or gpu? Does it seem like I just need a new psu that's not defective? Keep in mind that the fail psu was in my system for about 2-3 months. 

 Yes.

 

19 hours ago, jerikojeriko said:

My pc now restarts perfectly! Issue now is that I still get random freezes when I'm barely navigating through folders. But no black screen, just non-responsive. I'm thinking maybe my old psu is just old, but it never gave me problems before, so now I'm just stuck

Sounds like your HDD is dying as well. HDDs are sensitive to unexpected shutdowns and can suffer damage from sudden unexpected power loss. Data can also become corrupted if the drive was writing to the disk when it lost power.

 

It's possible that your HDD was damaged during the power losses you had using the powerspec unit and the HDD is now failing. This is likely to be the cause of the system being unresponsive as you attempt to browse files on your system.

 

Crystal disk info will give you a basic SMART report on the drive.

If it's a Seagate drive you can download seatools software and perform its tests to determine if it's faulty. 

Otherwise just run a chkdsk command on the drive(s).

 

Back up the data on the drive.

[jerikojeriko]

@Spotty

My hdd is new too. It's a Toshiba I believe. Do you think a clean wipe would help? My windows install is still new. I haven't downloaded any programs yet. Only thing I've downloaded is Chrome and drivers. I don't mind starting over if it would mean fixing the problem. 

[Spotty]

6 minutes ago, jerikojeriko said:

@Spotty

My hdd is new too. It's a Toshiba I believe. Do you think a clean wipe would help? My windows install is still new. I haven't downloaded any programs yet. Only thing I've downloaded is Chrome and drivers. I don't mind starting over if it would mean fixing the problem. 

Reinstalling windows won't help, and it definitely won't help if windows is installed to a different drive (SSD).

 

Run chkdsk from command prompt on your mechanical HDDs to scan for errors

https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/fix-hard-drives-chkdsk-windows-10/

[jerikojeriko]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

Reinstalling windows won't help, and it definitely won't help if windows is installed to a different drive (SSD).

 

Run chkdsk from command prompt on your mechanical HDDs to scan for errors

https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/fix-hard-drives-chkdsk-windows-10/

I just ran chkdsk on both of my drives and both said "windows has scanned the file system and found no problems."

 

Pics show scan for both drives. 

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, jerikojeriko said:

Pics show scan for both drives. 

To scan the second drive you will need to use the command:

Chkdsk D:

 

[jerikojeriko]

42 minutes ago, Spotty said:

To scan the second drive you will need to use the command:

Chkdsk D:

 

Still no problems. 

[Spotty]

6 minutes ago, jerikojeriko said:

Still no problems. 

In that case I'd just return the PSU to the store and replace it with a better unit and see if that solves your issues.

[jerikojeriko]

10 minutes ago, Spotty said:

In that case I'd just return the PSU to the store and replace it with a better unit and see if that solves your issues.

Hmm. Hopefully it solves it. I'll keep my pc off just in case it does affect it. I'll grab a psu this week and hope to fix it. Thanks for the replies though. 

[Stefan Payne]

On 24.9.2018 at 8:24 AM, jerikojeriko said:

I went to microcenter and bought their brand. I think it's called Powerspec? Guy over there was really talking it up. @Spotty

That is not a good one, why did you do that?

There are many other units worth buying...