PSU Repair question

This might be difficult to explain in the forum, but I will give it a shot.

Last fall my neighborhood got hit by a huge blackout, this was in august (you may have heard about it on the news, as it affect almost all of Michigan, Ohio, all the way up to toronto) Anyway, just before the blackout was a few small brownouts)

When the power came back on i tried to start my PC and the system began to start then nothing. a better explanation of this would be, the fans began to spin and then stopped. I ended up buying a new PSU and everything was fixed, but I have a pretty nice enermax 350W psu sitting in my basement. I opened it up and noticed that the fuse had poped, So I replaced it and tried it again and it poped again.

Does anyone have any idea if this psu can be repaired? Is it something simple that I could do myself?

I am just curious, I know this is a pretty complicated situation and maynot be able to be answered without further inspection.

Thanks!

The problem with a fuse blowing in most electronic components, is that in almost all cases there is some other blown part (or parts) causing it to happen. While the PSU can most likely be fixed, locating the cause of the fuse blowing and possible additional damage from the same fault would be difficult unless you're a tech used to troubleshooting and repairing switchmode power supplies. Not only that, once you found the problem you'd likely run into another brick wall trying to find replacement parts at a cost that was less than just replacing the PSU.

I'm afraid you're probably out of luck on this one

Ok

Good to know. While I am experienced in PC repair, I have no expertise in switching power supplies.

At least I can get it off my self now

Its usually never worth it to open up a PSU. Inside the power supply are many large capacitors, one of which is a 1,000-microfarad capacitor. As you might know capacitors contain electricity, even when the power is off, this particular capacitor is for line conditioning (it absorbs any power that is above normal, so it can steady it to normal levels) so it contains many many volts.

The same for monitors. Monitors contain capacitors that contain 20,000 volts or more.

Not nagging, i'm just saying be careful when working on a PSU or monitor.

PS: NEVER WEAR AN ESD WRIST STRAP WHEN WORKING ON A MONITOR!!!!!

Wear rubber gloves too, it will help insulate you from any voltage in the supply.

SavageBasher said:

Wear rubber gloves too, it will help insulate you from any voltage in the supply.

Click to expand...

Lol, screw that, i'd just go ahead and not touch it at all. I'd rather spend the $80 and up for better PSU than to repair any broken one.

-Steve

www.repairfaq.org has a section about repairing switching PSUs.

I was told that rubber gloves can actually increase the danger because they make the hand sweat, and unless they're thick rubber they often develop pinholes.

If the fuse blew the second time, then very likely something on the high voltage side shorted, like the rectifier bridge, big electrolytic capacitor, or, very often, a transistor on the heatsink next to the big capacitors. If there are two transistors in a pair, if one failed then so did the other. And there's usually a separate transistor or power chip just for the +5V standby supply.

I am thinking I will just throw this thing out...

Thanks again for all the help.