Home Troubleshooting Power Supply

The PSU; Power Supply Unit, could be considered the most important part a PC. After all, it is the source of power. This little box feeds different amounts of power to all the components on your PC. All you need to do is plug it into the wall and into your motherboard and you have power.

The power can be supplied in two ways, AC or DC. These stand for Alternating and Direct Current.

Alternating: an electric current that reverses its direction many times a second at regular intervals

Direct: an electric current flowing in one direction only

Other specs include the amount of energy that the unit can supply. This is measured in watts. There is also a switch on the back of the unit which could alternate the accepted voltage.

• Cover
  • This is to prevent things such as dust from falling into the PSU, which could effect its performance
• Disk Drive Connectors
  • This generally connects to the hard drive to give it power, it could also connect to other disk drives
• Motherboard Connector
  • This cord is generally a 24 pin ATX which when connected to the motherboard supplies power.
• Input Voltage Selector
  • This could change between the voltage accepted by the PSU. This could result in the PC not powering on depending on what the wall plug is supplying.
• Power Plug Receptacle
  • The cord that connects to the wall will also connect to the PSU giving it power.
• Power Supply Fan
  • Keeps the Unit nice and cool so that it can continue supplying power for a longer timea

There are some simple yet essential steps in keeping your PSU clean. If it gets dirty it could decrease in performance and break down sooner than expected.

1. Make sure to keep it in a clean place. An easy way to prevent cleaning is by not getting it dirty in the first place.

2. Do routine checks to prevent massive build ups.

3. Use a compressed air can to get rid off all the dust. This way your components cannot be harmed.

Another way to check up on your Power Supply Unit is by checking a software.

• This allows you to spot temperature or performance irregularities which lets you fix the problem faster.
• It could also show how much power is being supplied to which components

1. First things first, press the power button on the computer. Since this is the troubleshooting section we are going to assume that the Computer does not turn on
2. Next step would be to check the mother board light, this eliminates the chance of the problem being cause by misplaced front panel headers.
   • I would also check the input voltage selector to make sure that your friends didnt prank you.
3. If the light on the mother board is not lit make sure the the PSU is connected to the mother board, this includes the 24 and the 4 pin cables.
4. After that, I would check to see if the PSU has a source of power. Check to see if it is plugged into a cord
5. If the computer still does not power on I would substitute the cord for a known good one and try again.
6. If it fails to boot again consider replacing your PSU

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