Can Dieing PSU's kill an HD?

S

starfury6

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 8, 2005
Messages
401
Morning guys n gals,

My Linux server recently ended up with a corrupt disc. I had a QTec 550W psu (no laughs please) in there, and hadn't had any problems with it. It was running a cheap KT266A Syntax motherboard with an Athlon XP 2400+, 512mb Generic DDR333, 120GB Maxtor IDE and 200GB Maxtor IDE, Creative CDROM, 2 x 10/100 NICs and an old ATI Rage Pro Turbo 8mb (I never run X on it just VNC from another machine).

I have purchased 2 x 250GB Maxtor DM9 SATA150 drives to raid for storage (not taking chances after losing the 200) and an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard to go with it. Same processor, memory, cdrom and 120IDE for the boot drive. Removed the NICs because the Asus has dual LAN onboard and had a new ATI Radeon 7000 32mb since the new board only supports 1.5v AGP cards.

When I tried to power up the system last night i got about a second of power before it powered down. The board power LED is active on the motherboard but nothing after the initial 1 second. I plugged in the wife's Tagan 480W just into the board and IDE and it powered up the fans and drive etc.

Sounds like it's the old crappy QTec right? Could this have also caused the HD corruption too if it was on it's way out? Just looking for a cause.

I am looking at a Tagan 480W U01 PSU. Any other recomendations at the same price?

Thanks in advance.
 
It has been known to happen. That is why buying a quality PSU is so important. Its connected to everything in a way that a failure can drag a ton of hardware down with the PSU.
 
Hmm guess I was lucky then, but I don't think this one has really blown hence the board active LED but I can't power it up any more. The machine was still runing fine even after the 200GB hd was corrupted. I just dont want it to be another component in my new system causing issues and waste the money on a new psu.
 
A bad PSU can kill just about any part of hardware in your computer, as has already been pointed out.

How hard are you planning on pushing that PSU in the future? Given that the Tagan seems to go for anywhere between $70 and $90 on Froogle, I'd recommend considering Antec's TruePowerII 430W for $75, or else the 480W for $88. If the EPS support is important for you, JohnnyGURU highly recommends Ultra's X-Finity 500W models for ~$75-80; he just convinced me of their excellence today, though I obviously haven't seen one personally. The biggest downside to the PSU (besides a pair of smaller=louder fans), IMO, is the 28A non-split 12V supply. Any of the aforementioned models supply 30A or more, balanced between a motherboard and peripherals rail. The only loss is the Tagan's SLI support, which is questionable on only 28A anyway.
 
I'll check out the Antec Truepower 2's thanks.

As for taxing the server, the only other things I expect to add is a couple of USB2 devices and maybe 2 other SATA RAID drives which means a SATA controller too.

Will the Antec 420W be enough or should I go for the Tagan 480W?
 
Just remember that modular connectors add some electrical resistance... I think it's like.. the same as 3ft of more cable? or something like that... it's late and i'm at work trying to stay awake. :(

I feel safer having hardwired connections, myself, but modular cables look nicer sometimes in smaller cases.

starfury6 said:
I plugged in the wife's Tagan 480W...
Click to expand...

Wifey's pretty smart! :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for that. I hadn't considered that but I have actually decided on the hard wired one.

My local outlet has some coming into stock on Thursday so I'll get one from them.
 
zenzog said:
Wifey's pretty smart! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I WONT be telling her you said that :D I'm still getting greif abut buying a crappy PSU for the server and having to spend out more money to fix it!
 
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