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Testing PSU thoroughly? Like with a mulitmeter?
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.
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