How to know if your computer power supply (PSU) is broken?

If your computer starts to behave strangely or randomly shuts down, it can be difficult to pinpoint the culprit. Of course, no one wants to believe their power supply is damaged, but it should also be checked – it may be time to get a new PSU. This tutorial will show you how to check power supply health.

Symptoms of a damaged power supply

There are several signals that the PSU may be failing. Unfortunately, many of these signals are very general and can have many other causes.

Common symptoms include:

1. Computer randomly shuts down
2. Blue screen of death randomly appears
3. Increased noise from the chassis
4. Other parts keep failing
5. The computer won’t start, but the fan in the case is still spinning.

As you can see, these symptoms have many causes. And the source of failure is one of them. Usually we test other hardware first and then finally get to the source. If you buy a quality PSU, this is unlikely to happen.

How to check your power supply is working or not?

Check if the power supply is damaged or not using the exclusion method. This method is not too difficult, but it will let you know if the PSU is working or not.

If you’ve checked the software and believe the problem lies in the hardware, here are the next steps. Always double check each step.

1. Make sure the power switches on the back of the PSU are not turned off
2. Check that the power cable is securely attached to the power outlet and power
3. Try other cables and check the electrical outlets to make sure they are not damaged
4. Check the connections in the case, especially the hardware wires.
5. Remove all components and hardware in the machine except for the hard drive to boot the operating system and the discrete graphics card (if you do not have an onboard graphics card – integrated card). If your CPU has an integrated graphics card, remove the discrete graphics card as well.

Please check Step 1 first. There have been many times when the on / off switch accidentally jumped to off because of the vacuum cleaner or because of animals in the house.

When you get to Step 4, pay attention to the motherboard connection wires and any wires connected to the graphics card. Both of these components require a lot of electricity so they must be carefully plugged into their places. Check all connections clearly before testing.

Extra tests

If you’ve done the basic check (steps above) and still don’t know why the source isn’t working, you now have a few more options. The first is to use the “paperclip test”, the video below will guide you. Remember be careful.

Another option, if you have a spare computer or extra power, or a friend has a spare, change the components to test it.

Change components to check

1. Remove the PSU but don’t remove it from the case
2. Keep a spare PSU next to your computer and connect it to your motherboard, graphics card, and hard drive.
3. Plug the PSU into an electrical outlet and test.

If the computer is running fine, you’ve proven that the problem is with the power supply and can be changed. But sometimes it is an electrical leak from the case, this problem is very rare, to be sure, remove the PSU from the case and check as above, if the machine works, take the case to the store for them to replace (and remember to check on the spot before bringing it home). If it is not a source error, you can continue to check.

Use tracking software

If you suspect an electrical problem is causing the device to shut down, you can use monitoring software to observe. Software like Open Hardware Monitor or HWMonitor Can display the power consumption of the components. You’ll need to constantly monitor them and record averages, but overall testing shouldn’t be too difficult.

The weakness lies in the fact that you have to always keep an eye on it to know when the power drops or spikes. The good thing is that the software is free and has many other features besides monitoring power consumption.

By: PC Gamer