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Old November 10th 13, 07:14 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
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Posts: 2,407
Default Can ATX PSU blow the mainboard?

On Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:53:41 -0800 (PST), wrote:

What caused a failure? A specific part in conjunction with how PSUs
work is required for any valid conclusion. Most every PSU analyzed
(by making it functional) failed due to manufacturing defects.

Spec sheets should include spec numbers that say it cannot damage
the disk drive or motherboard. Required protection that might be
missing IF written specifications do not say it exists. Conclusions
only from observation (also called wild speculation) do not say why
failures happen. If the PSU is properly designed, then it does not
damage disk drives. And the load (motherboard or even a short
circuit) does not damage the PSU.

Failing capacitors do not damage electronics. But it does explain
strange and intermittent problems that some even blame on a virus
(software) or surges. Speculation based only in observation is
classic junk science. The load does not damage a properly designed
PSU - as was standard long before PCs existed.

--
Conclusions from observation are also called empiricism, (expounded by
John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume);- ipso facto, because the
timeframe is archaic, however, isn't conclusive that the methodology
is, in fact, quackery.

No, these are not garbage-assembled PSUs I'm referring to. Deferring
further back to my first PS problem, I'd date back to roughly around
when standard computer operations were performed on an Intel 8088
4.47Mhz MPU, on a MB I'd replaced the Intel for a NEC V20 at 8Mhz.
(I'd also equipped it with 3Meg of RAM via an ISA RAMPAGE board for
swapping programs concurrently in and out of memory.)

With a Q80 tape drive unit, I ran into a problem with the tapes
experiencing corruption. Exasperated, I'd replaced, "swapped out" the
entire computer, on my own assembly and build from parts ordered,
still, without any luck to have correctly addressed the Q80 tape
problem. Whereupon a thought occurred the PSU was the culprit.

I then wrapped the PS with tin-foil, ostensibly, to determine I'd
stopped spurious RF propagation from (somehow) entering the tape
during backup processes. Nevertheless, the problem was solved by a
tinfoil-wrapped PSU. Based entirely upon thought and observation.
Incidental to some commitment to the PC industry for reserves of
expensive money, (of course destined to FED Chairman Greenspan's
committal to shutting down an overheated PC industry), in a modular
approach to the homeowner's perspective to a build.

Going forward in time to the present PS units, we're really much
better off with what's being economically offered viz-a-viz quality
among components manufactured. And I was right in the thick of it,
dollar cost averaging my present computer builds with gorgeously
reviewed PS units -- well, a tier up in reception from assembler's
perspectives, as opposed to ready-made computers -- usually from a
rebate on severely discounting the PSUs I fed that particular ASUS MB.

But, I'm entirely with you. Damned and not equipped, from time and
involvement well enough to qualify me for a PC historian, if not
numbering among the ranks of its garage-building pioneers, to now come
up with an offer and better explanation for why that MB broke-down and
consumed a steady diet of PSUs.

Don't get me wrong, friend. I'm good. Just not that good.