trying to ground psu to run pump help

[phil178821]

my psu is the enermax liberty 620W.

when i ground the green wire (pin fourteen) to a black one, everything works fine, with the psu running when turned on. however, when i plug in a device (liek a fan) the psu will power the fan, but also begin making a clicking noise at the same time.

the clicking only happens when a device is plugged in. makes me weary of leaving it on 24hrs to run my leak test.

[phil178821]

using one of my lighted fans, I can see that the psu, when ground, does not give out a constant power flow. that is why it clicks and ends up causing the lights on the fan to flicker.. any ideAS on what to do ?

[Crazy Jayhawk]

I'm a bit confused here. When it's making the clicking sound, is the fan the only thing connected to the PSU? If so, it's possible that you're not putting enough of a load on the PSU. Some behave strangely when they're basically running without a load attached.

The minimum load isn't very high in most cases, but I'm not sure what it would be here.

[phil178821]

alright so i went and plugged 4 case fans in and three hard drives..

the fans were spinning (and still flickering) and the psu was still clicking. Now when i touched the hdds, it feels liek they werent even spining, making me think they werent getting enough juice to spin up..

the reason i have not tested this with my actual pump is becacuse i dont have my tubing yet (comes tomorrow) so i cant run it.

i am getting anxious now that I wont be able to leak test my system tomorrow.


with the fans off, i can actually here the hard drives struggling to spin up.. note this is definitely a working psu, lol..

[Crazy Jayhawk]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=84&threadid=2122658&enterthread=y
On a hunch I did a search for "enermax liberty clicking" and one assessment was that the PSU was going bad. The increased load you put on the PSU in your second test seems to disprove my guess.

[phil178821]

this is driving me insane.. ive been dying to do this build for weeks now
and I have been waiting on these parts for the past week, but now my psu is being a jerk..

might have to by a cheap one from newegg or something

[Xris]

You do not have the correct wires jumpered. This is exactly what happened to me when I jumpered a PSU from an ancient Dell to test out my loop. I just started connecting random wires until I found the right one. It took a little while. and I was scared of getting electrocuted. I didn't care about the PSU, or I wouldn't have done it. I eventually found the right wires.

*edit*
As you can tell, I'm not dead, but be careful if you try just connecting random wires. Also, don't connect random wires.

[phil178821]

i know that i definitely doing green wire to black wire.. could that be wrong..

[phil178821]

one thing that is strange tho.. is that using certain wires for the ground works better than using some of the other..

[Crazy Jayhawk]

That definitely doesn't sound right. All the black wires should go to the same solder pad in the PSU and it shouldn't matter which one you connect to the green wire.

[Kilyin]

It's green wire (should be number 4) to black wire (should be number 6). That's what works for me.

[Conumdrum]

It's green wire (should be number 4) to black wire (should be number 6). That's what works for me.

I made a cheap jumper and it was 4-6. orked fine but dunno. I'm using an old PSU not in my comp.

[phil178821]

ah i am going to kill myself..
lol well not really but this is quite disapointing.

any other ideas? Thanks guys.

[phil178821]

so if i connect 2-4.. i get very little power to the fan. if i connect 4 pin to any of the other grounds it still collects, but i definitely get more juice to that fan.

[Crazy Jayhawk]

All the black wires are grounds, so it shouldn't actually matter which one of them you use.

What are you using to connect the green and black?

[phil178821]

i have tried within a paper clip, tin foil, and a peice of the wire that is used on the speaker housed in the bottom of cases.. i cant figure out why it differs between grounds..

[Neuromancer]

It's green wire (should be number 4) to black wire (should be number 6). That's what works for me.

ITs 14 and 15 on a 20 pin and apparently 15 and 16 on a 24 pin but as jayhawk said.. .should not matter which ground....


http://www.powerstream.com/itx-atx-pinout.htm

NM did not finish reading hte thread

Best jumper is a piece of wire, although I usally grab my staple gun shoot a staple into the carpet, bend it around some needle nose pliers and use that :)

[phil178821]

ive tried a combo of all pins.. sounds like something is wrong with this psu.. how is this something i never noticed before? question is, should i blow the last two years on my warranty by opening her up?

does anyone have any other ideas also?

[Neuromancer]

ive tried a combo of all pins.. sounds like something is wrong with this psu.. how is this something i never noticed before? question is, should i blow the last two years on my warranty by opening her up?

does anyone have any other ideas also?


Dont bother opening it up.

When running a ATX or ATX2 psu you should try and put a minimum laod on all rails. Depending on your PSU if your hdds were sata you may or may not have been putting any load on the 3.3v rail. This could be whats causing hte ticking. Although for it to do it wihtout you having done this before is suspect.

When running a second PSU to power video cards or old hard drives it is recommended to put a load on the 3.3v rail to keep the PSU from killing itself. I am not sure how much load is neccessary but I am sure that a google search can turn up the information.

[phil178821]

what is the 3.3v rail and how would you laod it?

[phil178821]

here is what my plug looks at.. sry about the focus in these pictures.. had to quickly take them..

my plug definitely doesnt match up with the diagram Crazy posted above, however, i encounter the problem when grounding the green wire. could it be different in this psu? I have tried different combos.

also remember, the ticking only happens once something is plugged in. the psu will run normally (when green is grounded) but then will begin to click when a device in plugged into it.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b171/phil178821/DSCF0743.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b171/phil178821/DSCF0742.jpg

[pby5cat]

only the motherboard connector has a 3.3v line, so you could hook up an old motherboard/CPU/memory you have around and leave at the post screen for power supply loading.

Also, you could jumper a cheaper, less complex, power supply to do leak testing.

[junkymagi]

With the plug's clip facing you, holding the wires so the plug faces down, I connect the 3rd and 4th wires together and never have a problem. (13 and 14 from jayhawk's drawing).

[phil178821]

i found this one post last night just before i went to bed, i didnt have time to read all the way through it, but it looked like it was ssaying this psu needs a load or it wont work properly.

here (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1252951)

going to try to finish reading through it.

stinks, i am at school so i dont have any spare computer waters.. ie, psu or mobo to lload the current psu with.

[phil178821]

question is.
it there a way to trick this puppy into it having a load?

loooks like my only option might be to to rip down this board again, and replace all of my air cooling parts (after fitting my tubing) in order to run my psu..

[phil178821]

so it sounds liek this psu is just set not to run without proper level of load.. which i guess is a good thing..

either way, i just got out of my materials engineering class and i started talking to my professor at the end. he offered to lend me a desktop to use so that should do it.

[markodude]

The Antec PSU tester always works for me when filling up :)

[darkcow]

I walked to my engineering class, went to the old crappy computer parts place in the back, grabbed the oldest and worst ATX psu I could find, and took it home.

[Sam__]

try putting a load on the 5v rail with some fans. works for me.

also- u tried checking the voltages with a multimeter?

[Cjwinnit]

i found this one post last night just before i went to bed, i didnt have time to read all the way through it, but it looked like it was ssaying this psu needs a load or it wont work properly.

This is generally true, one way is to use some relatively powerful fans for the 12v and 5v lines to dump into.

Alternatively you could pick up any AT power supply, should give you enough power to test the loop and has a normal on-off switch.