Main > Everything Else

Testing PSU thoroughly? Like with a mulitmeter?

<< < (3/3)

spystyle:
Thanks all

:)

shmokes:
I always keep extra power supplies on hand cos of their high failure rate.  When I suspect a bad power supply I test the drive leads with the PC running, if it will run(can only check the 5 and 3 volt since I can't access the motherboard cable).  If the computer won't even turn on I try to short the green and black.  Beyond that, I throw in a new power supply and if the problem is solved I toss the old power supply.  It's a commodity component that is not worth the trouble of trouble-shooting more thoroughly.  My salary costs money.  No use paying what it would cost to get a new power just so I can determine exactly why we need to get a new power supply.

Of course, this is in a corporate setting, not at home.  But a quality 400 W power supply can be had under $50.

leapinlew:
I think I know where spystyle is coming from here.

It would be nice to have some sort of simple diagnostic tool. "Suspecting" the PSU is often the problem and I too have wasted a lot of time and effort tracking down a faulty PSU. Often times, the problem doesn't appear to be coming from the PSU.

Sure, 400watt power supplies are inexpensive, but how about a 700watt power supply thats running a SATA RAID on a new system? This is what recently happened to me. Since the whole system was new and the symptom was random lockups - the issue could have been nearly anything.

I updated the firmware (Raid controller + BIOS) - still locked up
disabled all unneeded services - still locked up
removed the raid controller - no more locks ups. I was thinking at this point perhaps it was 1 of the 16 drives, the drivers for the raid controller, a driver conflict or the PSU.
Eventually I swapped in a new PSU and it's been running for over 6 months.

What made my issue worse was that the server didn't lock up 30 seconds after bootup - it would lockup randomly a few times a week. All I could do is try something and check back on it. 

I can understand the desire to quickly determine if the PSU is flaking out.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page

Go to full version