Stupid Thundersnow

[Rand{CLR}]

Ok, so it's not quite the snow's fault, but last night's multiple power surges finally killed my power supply. It had significant problems starting up from the last time I actually turned it off at Christmas time, and was failing, but it died a good death last night.

New power supply in. Which is bloody annoying because I was toying around in the back of my mind with building a Sandy Bridge system this year but am holding off because I can't really spare the money as I pay down other debt, and I had to go out and buy a bloody $130 emergency PS anyway today when the ice and snow melted a bit. When I do build a new system, I'll have to buy another PS so my wife can get this box for her home office PC.

Now I have to shut down and go make it sorta pretty and close up the case so I don't electrocute myself. The new PS is nice in that it's modular when the old one wasn't, but I a) had to use an extra mod cable for the ONE remaining 4-pin molex inside because I didn't have extenders, b) the cables are far stiffer and more awkward so it won't be as clean as the custom built original, and c) I scratched my bloody desk that has been scratch free on the surface for 10 frigging years. Argh.

PCs. Can't live with them, can't blow up the ones you need with C4.

-Rand

[Rand{CLR}]

By the way, does anyone else find it sort of bass-awkwards engineering to set the PS fan to blow down into the case, directly on the processor heat sink?

I hope this fan is set to intake and it exits the mass of passive holes in the back.

Unfortunately, the lack of documentation makes this difficult to easily determine.

-Rand

[Devilguns]

That fan should be an intake. Psu is my least favorite part of the pc.

[WalkinTarget]

Lesson from this: put a UPS on your PC before your PSU goes and takes some hardware downstream with it !!

[Infamous]

you know, i have a crap ass power connection into my house. ive had at least 10 in last 2 months.... i wonder if that didnt lead to some issues that with time led to my failures... a UPS is actually on the list.

still no luck, on my end, i am getting a docking station to test drives first. go from there.

computers must be women, you really want them, but after getting them, are sometimes a real pain in the @00 and take a lot of money at times to keep em happy lol

[Donziboy2]

I have UPS on all my pc's and I love them, lights in the house flicker and im still gaming, hurricane comes crashing threw state and I have 20mins of power to play MMO, do mail, surf.

Power went out other day on me when I was watching movie on my htpc in my bedroom running a 42" lcd, didn't know power was out till my ups started to beep.

[mapes]

This is what I got in my network rack at home


and on my PC I've got one of these




Both spoils from previous job... they're prolly 10 years old but, I've swapped the battery in both....totally worth it

[DougBob]

This is what I got in my network rack at home


and on my PC I've got one of these




Both spoils from previous job... they're prolly 10 years old but, I've swapped the battery in both....totally worth it

Agree 100%

[{CLR} ObiTroy]

I concur as well... money spent on a UPS is money well spent.

[juneau]

UPS is quite a serious bit of kit to help with power surges when you can just buy a good surge protector instead. You guys must have really bad electricity supplies that go down all the time if you all need UPS's. Think i've had one power cut in the last 5 years.

@Rand i'd be very worried if that fan was blowing air into your case and not sucking it out through the PSU.

[Rand{CLR}]

Yeah; I need to check temps when I get home. Maybe even pull the side door off and manually check the airflow direction. I'd feel better if there were an actual fan in the rear rather than passive cooling.

-Rand

[juneau]

Yeah; I need to check temps when I get home. Maybe even pull the side door off and manually check the airflow direction. I'd feel better if there were an actual fan in the rear rather than passive cooling.

-Rand

Most PSU's just have one 120mm fan these days. Helps with noise output and is actually more effcient when cooling. What PSU did you get?

[Rand{CLR}]

Most PSU's just have one 120mm fan these days. Helps with noise output and is actually more effcient when cooling. What PSU did you get?

Thermaltake Black Widow 850w. Limited selection at Best Buy.

-Rand

[mapes]

UPS is quite a serious bit of kit to help with power surges when you can just buy a good surge protector instead. You guys must have really bad electricity supplies that go down all the time if you all need UPS's. Think i've had one power cut in the last 5 years.

@Rand i'd be very worried if that fan was blowing air into your case and not sucking it out through the PSU.

Most surge suppressors will just suppress a surge. How fast and how sensitive depends on the manufacturer. However if there is bad line noise a suppressor will do nothing for that. Bad line noise can affect equipments MTBF and performance. The power coming out of my UPS is a perfect sine wave....

[juneau]

Most surge suppressors will just suppress a surge. How fast and how sensitive depends on the manufacturer. However if there is bad line noise a suppressor will do nothing for that. Bad line noise can affect equipments MTBF and performance. The power coming out of my UPS is a perfect sine wave....

Still, it's kinda overkill for most homes. Most equipment runs fine with a bit of line noise imo. All this talk of line noise has reminded me of those enthusiast multi socket adapters they're pedaling to the morons in the A/V market made by the likes of Monster Et Al.

@Rand, were you using a surge protector of any kind?