My mentor told me to always check the power supply first, even if the symptoms seem weird, and it saved me 2 hours on a 'dead' gaming PC yesterday.

The kid said it wouldn't boot and the lights flickered, so I was ready to dive into the motherboard, but I swapped in a spare Corsair 750W unit first and it fired right up, proving the old advice right again.

4 comments

4 Comments

paul_taylor211mo ago

A spare Corsair 750W just sitting around? That's the real story here. My spare parts bin has a collection of questionable molex adapters and a fan from 2007. You must work in a repair shop or have a serious problem with hoarding quality hardware.

jakejones1mo ago

Questionable molex adapters" is the real treasure though. I read a forum post where a guy ran his whole mining rig off a nest of those things, looked like a fire hazard spiderweb. My old bin had a power supply that made a high pitched whine, but it outlived two newer ones. Sometimes the janky old parts have more soul than the shiny new stuff.

matthewdixon1mo ago

But is it really a "serious problem" if the hardware still works? Sounds like smart hoarding to me.

-1

milam481mo ago

Yeah, that old advice is solid gold. I had a similar one last month where a system kept randomly restarting during games, and I wasted an afternoon on drivers before trying a different power cable. Fixed it instantly. @paul_taylor21, my spare parts bin is mostly a sad collection of stock coolers and broken case fans, but hanging onto one known-good power supply has saved me more times than I can count. It's the one piece of old hardware that actually earns its keep.