PSU overloaded?

[jescolta]

hi
i have these parts

q9300 processor
p5q motherboard
2x 2gb ddr2 rams
msi hd3870
1 seagate 500 gb for OS
1 seagate 1tb for important files
1 asus dvdrw drive
a cheap tv tuner

and last the psu

Antec Neo HE 380 watts

am i overloading this psu?

i had a 5 hard-drive failures ,some of them developing bad sectors in few months of use ,some of them just stop working with clicking noise
a friend of mine told me my psu is killing the drives.
is it true a psu can kill drives?

please forgive me if i post in wrong forum or section
i just cant find any other sites which explains electronics well.
sorry for my bad English im from Philippines

[mockingbird]

Re: PSU overloaded?

I put your system through this PSU calculator:


But the Neo HE 380 is a PSU with known off-brand capacitors, so you should either preemptively re-cap it, or get a new PSU.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: PSU overloaded?

Yes, a PSU will kill your system if it's not up to the task. 380 watts doesn't equal to 380 continuous watts, unless stated other wise.

Low voltages and poor filtering can lead to drive death.

You can recap it, see if that helps.

[jescolta]

Re: PSU overloaded?

its working fine no reboots no stability issues
12 v reading 11.99 to 12.04 v dropping to 11.93 at heavy usage
5v reading 4.99 to 5.02
i opened the psu today
2 caps are leaking some kind of oil on its top
i also noticed the fan is running very very slow i cant even feel the air coming from the back of the psu
replaced the fan with .15 A 12v fan and it wont spin
voltage from the fan controller in the psu is 4.6v even heavy loaded - so i removed the thermistor and tested with multimeter it change resistance when heated
removed the components in the fan controller circuit 1 by 1 and all of them don't have problems
1 pin of the thermistor connects to a small board i dont know what it is but i think the problem with fan controller is there .but im afraid of soldering that part its full of small components (surface mount).

the computer is running fine

its just my hard-drives failing
im a chain smoker this might be the cause?
does hard-drives die from smoke? sorry for this qestion

or the capacitors cause the hard-drives to fail?

also all i have here is old capacitors from old Samsung psu
capxon caps
can i use them as replacements??

[mockingbird]

Re: PSU overloaded?

Take your DMM and test the 12V for AC.

If you see an AC current on the 12v, it means your 12V filtering caps need to be replaced.

[370forlife]

Re: PSU overloaded?

This power supply is very capable of 380W continuous and also has the correct protections in place to prevent failure from overloading. Recap it and it should be good. Even running a graphically intensive game, that system won't pull much more than 250W. It might pull 300W running unrealistic benchmarks like furmark. I would just recap it and call it good. The fan is temperature controlled and won't spin up until the power supply is hot. Getting it hot enough to spin it up is going to take some heavy, long term loading.

[jescolta]

Re: PSU overloaded?

i dont know if i tested it correctly 12v rail have 25 VAC

5v have 11 VAC

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: PSU overloaded?

2 caps are leaking some kind of oil on its top

Here you have your problem.

its just my hard-drives failing
im a chain smoker this might be the cause?
does hard-drives die from smoke? sorry for this qestion

Nope.

or the capacitors cause the hard-drives to fail?

Yes.

also all i have here is old capacitors from old Samsung psu
capxon caps
can i use them as replacements??

No, you have to order some proper, high quality ones, so they don't die again in an year or so. I'm sure someone who has recapped Antec PSUs before will pop in with a guideline as to what caps you need, i'm too tired to look them up now.

[jescolta]

Re: PSU overloaded?

omg the capxon exploded-i tried putting them

[retiredcaps]

Re: PSU overloaded?

or the capacitors cause the hard-drives to fail?

Evidence.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...hard+drive+kzg

capxon caps
can i use them as replacements??

Capxon makes terrible capacitors.

[retiredcaps]

Re: PSU overloaded?

omg the capxon exploded-i tried putting them

Did you put it in backwards? Electrolytic caps have polarity.

The other possibility is that you put in a lower voltage cap. For example, the rail is 12V DC and you put in a 6.3 V or 10 V cap.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: PSU overloaded?

i dont know if i tested it correctly 12v rail have 25 VAC

5v have 11 VAC

Please refrain from working on PSU or other electronics in the future until you can learn some more of the basics.

Your measuring DC voltage, not AC thus there should be no "VAC" measurement.

Furthermore you were warned about reusing the caps. Not only that but they blew, which usually indicates sticking them in there backwards (reverse polarity, been there, done that ).

[jescolta]

Re: PSU overloaded?

im afraid of touching this thing now
my heart pumps so fast im so nervous
i think im gonna have heart attack

thanks a lot for your help guys i think im going to buy a new psu

my hands refuse to move when it exploded

[mockingbird]

Re: PSU overloaded?

Your measuring DC voltage, not AC thus there should be no "VAC" measurement.

Um, I asked him to test for ripple. If the caps are not filtering it out, AC should be detectable on the molex connectors.

[mariushm]

Re: PSU overloaded?

mockingbird : I doubt he's skilled enough to use a multimeter and even if it did, when set to 250v AC you can barely see one decimal and I doubt a cheap multimeter is so accurate to show him meaningful results.

Ok... wow...

No matter what online calculators tell you, that computer is not going to use more than 250-280 watts when running games. On average, it will use about 100 watts.

So that power supply would have been good. If you want to pick a new power supply now, that's OK, but at least pick a brand power supply.

When you calm down a bit, if you still want to fix that previous power supply, you need to make sure you place the new capacitors just like the ones before were connected - where the old ones had the "-" sign, that's where the new capacitor's "-" side has to be.
Also, once you solder the capacitors in place, you have to trim the wires and make sure they're not touching the metal case or other parts.

But you can't put just any kind of capacitors there. You need to put capacitors that have a uF value equal to the previous capacitors, and the voltage rating on them should be at least the amount that was on the old capacitors.
And this is not all - there's various kinds of capacitors, you need the kind suitable for power supplies.
If you write down here everything that was written on the capacitors you pulled out, we can recommend you some good capacitors.

[mockingbird]

Re: PSU overloaded?

mockingbird : I doubt he's skilled enough to use a multimeter and even if it did, when set to 250v AC you can barely see one decimal and I doubt a cheap multimeter is so accurate to show him meaningful results.

I am not a professional. But I saw this technique demonstrated on video last night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Sy4CIRVRuHI

Cheap DMMs don't have it.

No matter what online calculators tell you, that computer is not going to use more than 250-280 watts when running games. On average, it will use about 100 watts.

Max TDP of Radeon 3870 is 105W. Max TDP of Q9300 is 95W. 200 watts just for the processor and videocard