Had a power supply go up in smoke on a client's custom build last Friday

I was finishing up a gaming PC for a regular client, a guy who streams from his apartment in Phoenix. The system posted fine, I installed Windows, and was running a stress test. About ten minutes in, I heard a loud pop and saw smoke coming from the back of the case. I killed the power right away. It was a brand new 850-watt unit from a decent brand, not some no-name junk. The room smelled like burnt electronics for an hour. I had to pull the whole thing apart, check the motherboard and GPU for damage, and start the RMA process. Now I'm waiting on a replacement and the client is asking for updates. Has anyone else had a new PSU fail that catastrophically during a basic burn-in test?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.william1mo ago

Man, that's rough. I used to think a good brand name was enough, but I had a similar thing happen with a new unit last year. It was a 750-watt model, just sitting idle on the test bench, and it popped and let out the magic smoke. Ever since then, I run a longer test with a dummy load before it goes near a client's parts. What brand was yours?

olivias881mo ago

Remember that old Thermaltake unit? My buddy had one fry a brand new motherboard during a simple boot test.