Damaged?

I am running a dual psu hard wired, so when I press the start button and the other psu start as well. I am running a 2nd psu mainly to power 7 high speed delta fans (4.8a each). Couple days ago, I unplug the psu cable to do some work on my PC. Today, I play Need for speed game, start out very nice and smooth and than get very laggy, and then, I tried different drivers and still gotten the same. So I decide to run Heaven benchmark, Within a few miuntes I heard a whoop noise and my PC shot down completely. It would not start again. So I went ahead to check on the cables and all and found the psu cable gotten very warm. Then, I realized the other day, I pluged in the wrong size psu cable onto the 950w psu . The cable of the 480w (cheap 480w) cable are thin. The 950W cable are beefy. So, I swap the thick psu cable to the 950w psu and try to start the computer, the fan will start but PC will not start. I let it sit for 5 minutes and everything would start as normal.

But my problem now is when I shot down the computer and the computer is down but the fan continue to run. I had to turn the switch off on the psu to shot down the fan. I think the thin 480w psu cable got fried because the 7 delta fan are not running when the pc is being turned on. I will have to check, see, if it produces any 12v power source or not.


Did something got damaged??

From what is written it sounds like you drew to many amps through the smaller PSU cable.

Have you tried swapping the smaller one out with one that is known to be good?

You can verify if the cable is shot with an Ohm meter too.

Yes, I did swaped to the right (beefy cable) and the PC is up running as usual. But when I power down the system, the fan still run. before it would not do this.

the small cable is rate only for 480w and I was benchmark on 2 6970 which is about 500w that is why it shot dowm my system.

Hmmm, try checking your hardwiring. It might not be recieving the shut down signal. I haven't hard wired 2 PSU together so I don't know if there is a seperate line for the shut down signal.

Bruce, Blaylock is asking if you used a different PSU cable for the smaller PSU after this issue.

I often run 2 psu's with a piggyback cable also, try running the 450 watt psu by itself, if it acts normaly it is not the problem.,
then do the same with the larger unit.

ah, I am not at home at the movement, so I can't try other cable for the 2nd psu. here is the thing, The fan still running when the pc shot down. I got 17 fans total. The 480w power 7 delta fan is not running. I am not conern that one. I am concern the other 10 fans that is running off the 950w psu, main system psu. You follow me?

If that's not a good 480w PSU, the fans probably drew enough power to kill it. Especially if there isn't anything on the 5v rail of said PSU.

7 delta fans won't kill a 480w psu. But 10 delta fans will kill it. Any way, I did not have time to do any checking, testing etc. Right now I am only running the 950w psu with 3 delta fan only, leaving all other fans off for now. 480w psu is out of the way now.

I play need for speed again today, same thing is happen, start out really nice and than laggy, stutters again. I am thinking the 950w psu is on the way out? I am going to try benchmark heaven again, see what happen. If this is happened again. the psu is no good. A new psu is in my mind right now, 1300w eva psu I am thinking about of getting.

It certainly can if it's a dubious quality group regulated unit
The last cheap 480w PSU I tested shut down at ~290w. (link)

Generally speaking a PSU on the way out smells funny and has odd voltages. That might cause random crashes, but slowdowns would be very outside the norm.
What brand/model are the 480w and 950w PSUs?

General usage the pc never crash, none of any bosd. I don't smell anything at all. The 950w psu is from PC & cooling 950w silenser mrk II and the 480w psu is a cheapy $18 I don't remember what brand it was.

At $18, the Deltas probably killed it.

The 950 should be good, you could look through the grill at the caps to check them for bulging if you wanted.

I ran Heaven Benchmark today and it finished 26 stages without any issue. So the video game need for speed was laggy and stutter in mid game, perhaps driver issue? I play the game with crossfired disable and still having the same thing. Few weeks ago, never have such issue. I guess, I'll have to keep trying out different AMD drivers.

Yeah, something game related. Could be drivers, could be the game itself is corrupted, hard to say.

Trust in BobNova, he's one of our resident PSU reviewers. If I were you I wouldn't be testing the PSU just by running games and benchmarks. You need to get a volt meter and check the 12v, 5v and 3v lines under load to make sure you have a good starting point. Obviously you and I don't have the equipment Bob has, but this is a good starting point. I would check both PSU's this way and watch for voltage fluctuations.

Bob, if I'm wrong please correct me.

EDIT: LOL just noticed Bob's signature even has a tutorial for testing PSU's! How convienient. Thanks Bob.

The only change I'd make to Blaylock's post is that I would not, ever, use a cheapo PSU to power anything I cared about.

I might use it to power a test bench for testing $10 fans. Probably not though, having tested a couple cheap units.

Thank you all for your technical inputs. Much appreciated. Bobnova, I am leaving out the cheapo 480w psu. I am going to upgrade to higher wattage psu soon. I am really interested the EVA Supernova 80% GOLD CERTIFIED 1300w single rail PSU. One of this will run all my devices and fans.


PS. By the way, any progress with the custom pwm booster Bobnova?

PCBs shipped to me earlier today. I'm have it built and ready to test early next week.
The new psu should be great.

Cool.. Thanks Bob. I can't wait to try it out.