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About this blog: Computers hate me. They really do. Every time I try to do something unusual like add new hardware, something is guaranteed to go wrong. I decided to start writing about my constant problems so that someone else might benefit from my experiences - or at least laugh at them!

  Power supply knocking on death's door

07 February 2009, 1:15am      


My Windows desktop box started as a reasonably powerful machine (Pentium D then later a Q6600, ICH7R RAID, 6 hard drives, 850W PSU) but over the years the innards have been whittled down to an E2180 with a single HD and non-RAID ICH9 controller. (The Q6600 went to live in another machine where it would actually do some serious work. :) )

I decided that an 850W Real Power Pro PSU in such a machine was probably a waste of capacity; I also needed more SATA power connectors in another machine to replace a "Y" adaptor. A swap between machines seemed to be a good idea and I figured it wouldn't take too long.

Of course something went wrong...

Once the 850W Coolermaster Real Power Pro PSU was installed the power would flick on for a brief moment, then die. A few seconds later the process would repeat. The LED on the rear showed as red rather than green. First, I reseated the 24 pin power cable. Then, I swapped the 8 pin CPU cable with the 4 pin one in case that was the problem. Then I unplugged the SATA power connectors from 4 hard drives. Then I unplugged the other 4 SATA power connectors from the remaining drives. Then I unplugged all fans hanging off the molex connector.

There was nothing left to unplug (if I wanted it to power up) so I removed the PSU and plugged it into a tester. No dice. Even with nothing connected the rear status LED shows as red. It appears to be a dead duck.

Just my luck - it's worked fine in this desktop for the past 22 months...............


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UPDATE: I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the unit has a 3 or 5 year warranty (depending on which document you believe). Coolermaster have replaced the PSU with a new unit. It's now a spare as I had to buy a new one immediately, I couldn't let my database machine sit idle for 3 weeks...