REMOVED GPU WHILE PC WAS *TURNED OFF* BUT PSU PLUGGED TO THE ELECTRICITY

[twenox]

Hello everyone,as the title says, yesterday I was doing my monthly pc maintenance; but I missed to unplug the powercord from the PSU and the psu swith was on "ON". Obviously the pc was turned off while I was operating and after the maintenance everything worked perfectly. My question is if I could have damaged something (even without knowing it) and if generally it is something "safe" or not. (Obviusly unplugging the powercord is always the best choice, but if in the future will happen again, is it something that would be safe or will I risk to damage something)? Thank you all in advance
P.S. my psu is the corsair RM850X

 

[bmwbaxter]

It is actually safer IMO, since with the PSU plugged in you will ensure the case bonded to ground meaning you can discharge any static build up easier and are less likely to fry components.

Edit: the switch being in or off doesn’t matter since it only opens the hot. I would recommend off though so you don’t accidentally power it on.

 

[twenox]

It is actually safer IMO, since with the PSU plugged in you will ensure the case bonded to ground meaning you can discharge any static build up easier and are less likely to fry components.

Edit: the switch being in or off doesn’t matter since it only opens the hot. I would recommend off though so you don’t accidentally power it on.

Thank you so much for your answer, I didn't know it, I thought it could be dangerous to do if the PSU's cable is plugged in.

 

[EarthDog]

No worries... but I do switch it off before I remove anything just in case.

 

[DeViLzzz2010]

A PSU when switched off still is dangerous is it not? The reason they tell you not to open them up and tinker with them. Anyway to the OP I always unplug the pc from the wall or whatever and never have had any hardware die so I am going to keep going with that. : )

 

[Zerileous]

Internal to the PSU there are capacitors which can hold a charge after the unit is removed from power, and those do have a potential to cause injury, yes. When the system is switched off, however, there is no power being fed to the components.

 

[twenox]

It is actually safer IMO, since with the PSU plugged in you will ensure the case bonded to ground meaning you can discharge any static build up easier and are less likely to fry components.

Edit: the switch being in or off doesn’t matter since it only opens the hot. I would recommend off though so you don’t accidentally power it on.

Hello, I know that you have already answered my question, but I have another one (still related to the same situation). I got the fact that PSUs turn off when the system turns off (I can easily see it because my rgb light are powered by SATA, so when the PC is completely shut down they turn off meaning the PSU is turned off aswell); but yesterday, while I was working on my desk I accidentally clicked on my mouse button with my harm making it turn on (I can see it because it is an rgb mouse and I even checked the laser sensor and it was turned on aswell even if the pc was completely shut down (I even tried to do it on pourpose multiple times and every time it turned on even with pc completely turn off). So I was asking how is it possible that my PSU could give it energy even if it is turned off (as I said, if the PSU was turned on my sata rgb strips and aio would turn on). Thank you for your patience and answers. Wish you all a great day

 

[EarthDog]

Your PC was likely hibernating and not truly off. Windows 10?

 

[twenox]

Yes it is W10; I thought it too but I thought it was not the case because the psu doesn’t have an hibernating mode or something like that;it can be turned on or turned off. My rgb strips are powered directly by sata and without any motherboard control; so I use my rgb strips as indicator of my psu status (on/off) ; so if they are turned off it means the psu is turned off as well (I even tried to turn on my psu with a jumper that links 12v and ground while keeping linked JUST rgb strips and they were powered on until I removed the jumper. It was weird for me to see my strips turned off (so psu turned off) BUT motherboard USB ports still powered. Thank you for your answer ^^

 

[EarthDog]

If you jiggle your mouse... you were coming out of hibernation or something similar. If your PC was truly OFF jiggling your mouse doesn't turn the PC on.

 

[twenox]

The weird thing is that the pc DOES NOT turn on , just the mouse turns on but the pc still turned off (with no video output; no rgb turned on,with cpu fan not spinning etc; it is simply turned off as it should after clicking “shut down” on windows . P.S. the mouse doesn’t activate itself after jiggling the mouse but just if I click the mouse button (M1/M2)

 

[EarthDog]

Oh.. odd. I thought the PC would come up when you did that for some reason.

No idea bud... noting of mine comes on when I click it... but that may be a function of my hardware vs yours? No clue.

 

[twenox]

Okay man , thank you so much anyway btw to make you understand my problem clearly, I’ve realized a video:

hope it will help

 

[EarthDog]

That seems like it is just standby power and normal? I think mine does that (LEDs on the mouse don't light up but the laser tracker does)? Not sure.......I haven't tried.

 

[twenox]

That seems like it is just standby power and normal? I think mine does that (LEDs on the mouse don't light up but the laser tracker does)? Not sure.......I haven't tried.

The "problem" is that it happens just with a specific USB port. (I tried on a different USB port and the laser tracker doesn't turn on. Obviusly this is not a problem, but the fact that made me curious is that even if the pc/PSU is completely turned off (as you can see on the video, rgb strips and waterblock LEDs (that are simply powered by sata and not by mobo's usb) are turned off aswell; the usb port is still kinda "active". I thought that when a psu is turned off, no one of the components can get energy; but here that usb looks like the only component that receive energy; so I was wondering if the psu was always "on" (otherwise I couldn't give a reason to the origin of the energy fed to the mouse)

 

[EarthDog]

Some USB ports will remain 'active'.

As I said, the PSU has stand power for things like this...

It even has a rail named as such (5VSB = 5V Standby).

 

[twenox]

Oh, thank you for the clarification. I thought that you were talking about Windows standby mode and not psu’s one. Now everything makes sense in my situation. Related to my story; do you think that this energy running in that rail made me risk to ruin my components when removing my gpu while psu was still plugged in (so with that Rail still operative) or it has nothing to do with that and as you and other people told me in the forum, it was just riskless? Sorry if this question could look dumb but that’s my first time that I’m dealing with technical aspects of pc world

 

[Johan45]

I highly doubt you have or would damage anything as long as the PC is off. I have accidentally pulled a graphics card when I thought the PSU/ mobo was off but it wasn't and luckily no harm done.

 

[EarthDog]

Oh, thank you for the clarification. I thought that you were talking about Windows standby mode and not psu’s one. Now everything makes sense in my situation. Related to my story; do you think that this energy running in that rail made me risk to ruin my components when removing my gpu while psu was still plugged in (so with that Rail still operative) or it has nothing to do with that and as you and other people told me in the forum, it was just riskless? Sorry if this question could look dumb but that’s my first time that I’m dealing with technical aspects of pc world

As we said, this is normally how it is done. The 5V SB rail doesn't feed a video card in the first place IIRC.

Don't worry about the origin issue.

 

[twenox]

As we said, this is normally how it is done. The 5V SB rail doesn't feed a video card in the first place IIRC.

Don't worry about the origin issue.

Yeah, thank you really much for your answers , I wasn't really worried about it (because I had no damage) but I was more curious about this kind of technical aspects. I had one last curiosity; many modern GPUs have LEDs above the 8/6 pin power connectors (that simply tells you when the power cable is connected and when it is not just shining if the power cable is NOT connected). When the PC is turned OFF those LEDS turn on (because obviusly the card has no energy through 8 pin connectors so the LEDs warn you that the card has no power; but here comes my question: from where do those LEDs get the energy? I mean, if the pc is turned off and the 3/12v rails are NOT operative the card should have NO energy at all (because the PCIe pinout shows that only 3/12v are integrated into the PCIe slot). Thank you guys for your answers and your experience