A couple of weeks ago I was in the middle of converting some old hardware to a simple NAS box. Nothing complex, but I decided to try and make it fanless.
Components:
old - GA-M68MT-S2P (rev 1.0) motherboard (see below)
old - Sempron 140 (45W)
new - SeaSonic X series SS-400FL (fanless, overkill, and expensive -I know)
I decided to move stuff around from the comfort of my kitchen countertop. With plenty of space and several outlets nearby, this sounded ideal. I plug in the basic stuff to power it on - only to hear a loud pop off to the side. It was a GFI outlet tripping. I hoped it was just the inrush current from plugging it in, so I reset the outlet and powered it up just fine.
After some simple stress tests to see how hot it would get without fans, the GFI trips again! I wasn't stressing it at the time, but it was on. It turns out the GFI was (or had become) overly sensitive, but that isn't important for this discussion. What is important is that the motherboard has (apparently) now incurred some small amount of damage...
Now, any attempt to boot with the above psu will result in symptoms identical to the dreaded Gigabyte Boot Loop issue. My first guess was that the psu was damaged, so I RMA'd it back to Newegg for a replacement. When the replacement comes in, I get the exact same symptoms and I can't boot into the OS. When I use the old psu, it has to repair the BIOS the first time only, then boots just fine from then on.
Since I could run it with the old psu, I was able to set up the system completely and make adjustments to make it run cooler. With undervolting, I could keep the 100% load temp under 60C with 55W measured with a power meter. I then realized that the correct solution was actually an 80W picopsu and I have been happy since.
I have returned the replacement psu and I'm not interested in fixing anything. I am assuming some small resistor or capacitor on the mobo is bad and it is affecting the feedback circuitry in the 80plus gold psu that is not affecting my older psu or the picopsu.
I'm just curious if anyone has any other ideas about what happened or why the new psu doesn't work.
Components:
old - GA-M68MT-S2P (rev 1.0) motherboard (see below)
old - Sempron 140 (45W)
new - SeaSonic X series SS-400FL (fanless, overkill, and expensive -I know)
I decided to move stuff around from the comfort of my kitchen countertop. With plenty of space and several outlets nearby, this sounded ideal. I plug in the basic stuff to power it on - only to hear a loud pop off to the side. It was a GFI outlet tripping. I hoped it was just the inrush current from plugging it in, so I reset the outlet and powered it up just fine.
After some simple stress tests to see how hot it would get without fans, the GFI trips again! I wasn't stressing it at the time, but it was on. It turns out the GFI was (or had become) overly sensitive, but that isn't important for this discussion. What is important is that the motherboard has (apparently) now incurred some small amount of damage...
Now, any attempt to boot with the above psu will result in symptoms identical to the dreaded Gigabyte Boot Loop issue. My first guess was that the psu was damaged, so I RMA'd it back to Newegg for a replacement. When the replacement comes in, I get the exact same symptoms and I can't boot into the OS. When I use the old psu, it has to repair the BIOS the first time only, then boots just fine from then on.
Since I could run it with the old psu, I was able to set up the system completely and make adjustments to make it run cooler. With undervolting, I could keep the 100% load temp under 60C with 55W measured with a power meter. I then realized that the correct solution was actually an 80W picopsu and I have been happy since.
I have returned the replacement psu and I'm not interested in fixing anything. I am assuming some small resistor or capacitor on the mobo is bad and it is affecting the feedback circuitry in the 80plus gold psu that is not affecting my older psu or the picopsu.
I'm just curious if anyone has any other ideas about what happened or why the new psu doesn't work.
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