Corsair HX850 blown

[go.mole]

Hi,

I'm running a Q6600 at 3GHz, with no voltage increase, in a giga-byte GA-P35-DS4 motherboard. These were bought on 11/01/2008 on a different order number to the one specified. These were bought on my Scan account that is linked to this Hexus account.

My father has recently bought me a Radeon 5870 and also a Corsair HX850W to power it; as I didn't want to be pushing the 550W PSU I was running before. These were bought on the order number specified on this post.

I run 4x 1GB PC2-8500 ram sticks which means I have to up my north-bridge voltage by 0.1v and down clock the ram to 800mhz to get all 4 sticks to work. Annoying but has been running fine for over a year.

I installed the new PSU and GFX card on the 18th and the whole machine had been running fine, with the exception of a BSOD on the 19th and again on the 20th; no more since the final problems started. I assumed at the time this was an issue with GFX card drivers as I had been doing a lot of gaming.

On friday, 25th, I got another blue screen, and on resetting the computer was stuck in endless power cycling without reaching the post screen. I presumed this was being caused by the motherboard having 4 RAM sticks in, so I removed 2 and the machine booted fine into windows.

I proceed to redo my overclock settings to get the CPU back up to 3Ghz and all 4 sticks working. This I had difficulty with as any form of overclock cpu or ram would fail to post. The motherboard is clever enough to reset overclock settings if it fails to post. After a few more tries it booted with the CPU overclocked and the ram underclock, but with only 2 sticks and never with 4.

Presuming my mother board was on it's way out, I left 2 sticks in and proceeded to boot into windows to look into my options for warranty/new motherboard. After 30 minutes my machine powered off without any BSoD. It refused to power at all after this point. In frustration I pushed the the power button a few more times and it came back to life, but before the post screen could show the power supply sparked, popped and stank of electrical burn. After this the computer has not been turned on, but I proceeded to take it apart to inspect the damage.

On inspection I can see a compositor in the PSU that looks to have exploded. My motherboard and CPU don't seem to have any visible damage, but the CPU socket stinks of electrical burn; the CPU itself doesn't.

I'm worried the power supply has blown my motherboard, possibly my CPU too, on it's way out and all my memory issues where to do with bad power from the supply.

As stated before the motherboard was bought by me and the PSU by my dad. The PSU wasn't bought with Scansure. I don't know what my situation is with a new PSU destroying my motherboard. Is it hard luck or will corsair replace my motherboard as their powersupply has killed it.

I'm a bit worried as I'm going a GameOn LAN on friday night and my computer is knackered. I live just outside of Liverpool, so coming over to scan during the day would be possible, if you need to inspect my computer parts. Obviously it would be good if I could get my motherboard / CPU / GFX card tested as they were in the computer at the time also and to make sure none of them are dead, as I don't want to damage the other parts by starting a computer with any dodgy parts.

The annoying part is that my father is currently out the country skiing so wouldn't be able to come to scan with me before the LAN on Friday. So does this mean you just wouldn't deal with me?

Basically that's my story and I'm going eek as my computer is knackered and I need it for Friday

[matty-hodgson]

I recommend you go into this thread and see if anyone has a spare computer that they could take down, just so you have something to use for the weekend. I'm pretty sure someone will have something, even if it's not very good, you could take your own GPU, monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. but just use their base system. Then at least you know that you'll have something to use .

Secondly, I'm pretty sure you won't get your motherboard replaced by Corsair, but they have pretty good protection against that sort of thing, so you should be safe.

Good luck!

[go.mole]

Thanks for the reply

I've posted posted on GameOn forums already but your suggestion is good, it wouldn't hurt to ask here too! (I'm more of a GameOn reg and a Hexus lurker )

I really am hoping the extra premium I paid on the PSU has paid off in the form that my motherboard is fine. It just worries me that the CPU socket is smelling. Would be good for Scan to properly test my parts for me, to enable 100% worry free gaming

[go.mole]

Had a good long look at the motherboard and have found definite damage. It appears that one of the chips around the CPU socket that is covered by a heat sink has blown; there is a small black burn mark coming from one of the chips under it. This picture is the offending motherboard. The damage is under the top most heat sink

[jim]

I would send motherboard back to retailer/manufacturer and see what they suggest. Nobody knows for sure it was the PSU to be honest, and I imagine you would at least need proof of that before Corsair would consider replacing the board - so it's not likely to happen.

[go.mole]

Got bored, rung tech support and spoke to Mark.

I'll pop over and just talk face to face See you on Tuesday!

[F1nn]

That heatsink is covering the 'mosfets', which are transistors that control the cpu/boards voltage/current supply. It makes sense that they would be the first affected by a power surge from a faulty/dying psu.

Best of luck

[go.mole]

Cool hopefully they've done their job and stopped the power getting to the CPU

[Carlh]

Got bored, rung tech support and spoke to Mark.

I'll pop over and just talk face to face See you on Tuesday!

Go.mole

Glad you have resolved this after speaking to Mark earlier.

Please note however that the offices would have been only open for around 1.5 hours before you called to get an update.

[go.mole]

Go.mole

Glad you have resolved this after speaking to Mark earlier.

Please note however that the offices would have been only open for around 1.5 hours before you called to get an update.

Hi Carl, I'm not complaining that you were too slow. I'd had all of Saturday night and all of Sunday to sit at home sulking about my computer, which is probably why my first post was as long as it was. I'm happy with the service I've received so far.

I see scan care on Hexus as a bonus, not as the main route to tech support. I was hoping to get some advice over the weekend (though not expecting), once I was on morning break and the phone lines where open I was happy to ring

By reading back the "Got bored" it sounds very moany, so I'm sorry for that.