Did I ruin my PSU when I vacuumed it with my shop vac?

[rga]

I cleaned out all the dust in my PC this weekend. The PSU was quite dusty, so I opened it up and used a shop vac to vacuum the dust. It made contact with the PSU many of times. It was not plugged in. Now when I try to start my PC the power comes on, the PSU and CPU fans starts spinning, and the power indicator light on the motherboard comes on. After a few seconds the CPU fan stops spinning and the power fully shuts off; a few more seconds after that everything will power back on and the process repeats itself until I turn off the power supply. The RAM and the CPU and the video card have all POSTed in other test systems at various repair shops I've brought them to. I have two motherboards that display the same systems when hooked up this PSU.

Did my shop vac fry my PSU?

 

[mindless1]

It is not impossible to damage a PSU vacuuming it out, particularly if the ambient air is low humidity so the dust particle gain a static charge, but it isn't a common thing to have happen either.

You are 100% certain both of these motherboards POST with different PSU? Were either cleaned with the vacuum? The more likely damage would be scrambling the motherboard bios, as that is more susceptible to static electricity, but in the end if you keep swapping parts and that particular PSU is the only thing that won't work, it seems you have no recourse but to abandon use of it and assume it was damaged.

At the very least I would try clearing CMOS on the motherboard(s) with the battery removed, and check battery voltage while it's out and handy to do so.

 

[bryanl]

Vacuuming is not likely to damage a PSU, even if you remove its cover and go inside or even touch many components with a brush, and more likely a connector or card worked loose on the motherboard. OTOH vacuuming a motherboard is much more hazardous since it has many static sensitive components, and just the air flow from the vacuum can generate high voltage static.

 

[devhda]

Vacuuming is actually a recommended way of approaching PSU cleaning, but I'd be careful with ambient humidity, as mindless1 suggests.