PSU turn on when it feels like it?

Hi,

I need help fixing my PSU. It's a Enhance ENP-5150GH (500W). It's been use in my system for ~2-3yrs, suddenly one day it wouldn't turn on. It takes several tries eventually it boots up. There's no pattern of when it would turn on. Sometimes I gave up trying, suddenly a minute or two later, it turns on by itself. Once the system is on, it works fine, it only do this from a cold boot (not sure if it does this from a warm boot). I know the problem is in this PSU as a replacement PSU works with my system fine.

Is there anything inside the PSU I can replace to make it work?

For what it's worth here's system spec:
Bisotar TG690G
Brisbane Athlon X2 3600+ @ 2.7GHz.
2gb
onboard video
1 hdd
1 dvdrw


THanks

Regardless of what is wrong with it, you should be replacing it with a quality unit. There is a chance the capacitors inside the unit are failing. But even if you replace these, you will still have a low quality power supply.

Have you physically opened the power supply and looked inside it?

I thought enhance is a decent oem...if I can fix the psu, it wont be powering anything significant. Beside it'll be a fun little project.
Ill take a look inside the psu when I get home from work today

Mehovoric said:

Have you physically opened the power supply and looked inside it?

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Poking around your PSU is a baaaad idea. You should replace it with a better unit instead.

cheapskates said:

Poking around your PSU is a baaaad idea. You should replace it with a better unit instead.

Click to expand...

I would make an amendment that stated "If you don't know what you are doing...". Working inside power supplies can be dangerous, but if you know what you are doing, you can reduce that risk substantially. Going based on the OP's post, it would be safe to assume he doesn't have experience with these units, so I agree it would be a Bad Idea.

Thank you Thideras. I've replaced bad caps in PSU's before with much success.

But that's why I said look, (not poke) with the idea of checking for any obvious damage, (black marks, inflated caps, etc) which might help identify the problem. I don't know about nookuwn, but I like to figure out why something is acting up instead of replace first, ask later or not at all. Then I might have a better idea in the future if the issue comes up again.