Question What could be causing this PSU issue? (Cycles on and off)

[Jim Bancroft]

I've used a Seasonic 1250w PSU for the past five years. A couple of days ago I came home from work and my PC was shut off. I figured there had been a power hiccup from the utility, though no other appliances seemed to be affected, so I rebooted and moved on.

About 30 minutes later the PC turned off. At this point I took the PC downstairs and blew out all the dust with some compressed air-- it wasn't really dusty as I had done this about two months earlier.

I restarted it again, lasted about 7 or 8 minutes, and then it shut down again, stopped cold. From this point I could only restart it for a few seconds before it would cycle off, then try to cycle on, go for a few seconds, and cycle off again. The PSU wasn't warm to the touch and the CPU cooler wasn't either. I then disconnected all the disk and other power connections, just leaving the one for the motherboard, and tried turning it on again-- same deal, cycled for a second and then died.

At this point I replaced the PSU with a spare XFX 550w unit I had laying around, and have been fine since. I don't have much power consumption so a 550W unit will be ok; the 1250w was major overkill but I got a great deal on it.

The Seasonic is 5 years + 2 months old and (of course) the warranty on this particular model is 5 years, so a warranty replacement is out. Based on my description, is there a likely culprit that stands out, bad capacitor or whatnot? Is there a way I check / test the unit to see what might be wrong? I accept that it's probably finished but I'd hate to get rid of it if there's a small modification that might fix things. (I don't have an oscilloscope but do have a multimeter.)

 

[UsandThem]

It could be a number of things. You would need some specialized tools and pretty good knowledge of everything that comes in a power supply.

You could look at something like the capacitors inside the PSU to see if any are leaking or bulging, and replace those if you are the adventurous type. Just be advised power supplies carry a high charge, and you could really hurt/kill yourself if you don't know what you are doing.

My advice? Just move on from it, and consider you got your money's worth out of it (5 years of use on a unit with a 5 year warranty).

 

[Jim Bancroft]

It could be a number of things. You would need some specialized tools and pretty good knowledge of everything that comes in a power supply.

You could look at something like the capacitors inside the PSU to see if any are leaking or bulging, and replace those if you are the adventurous type. Just be advised power supplies carry a high charge, and you could really hurt/kill yourself if you don't know what you are doing.

My advice? Just move on from it, and consider you got your money's worth out of it (5 years of use on a unit with a 5 year warranty).

Thanks for the info. I'll stay away from repairs on this, for the reason you mentioned. I may pop the case open to see if anything's bulging or burned out, but that'll be the extent of my investigation. Shame about the PSU, it was my first gourmet unit....