1 eBay GPU = 2 dead PSUs

[syl77]

I know I shouldn't have bought 2nd hand gear but I'm cheap and I'm now in trouble.
3 weeks ago, I bought a new 2560x1440 monitor and upgraded my HD7950 by a 2nd hand R9 290 tri-X bought on eBay
My build: - Cooler Master 700W PSU - Asrock Z77 extreme 4 - i5-3750k OC
I had a few driver crashes/black screens lock outs that were solved by raising the GPU core voltage by 25mV. Beside that it worked well for 3 weeks.
With plenty on offer on ebay, I decided to go crossfire and bought another R9 290 tri-X on ebay. I also purchased a 2nd hand Seasonic 1250W for half the price of a new one.
Here is what happened.
Got the new GPU on Monday. Installed it and tried it a single GPU.
Everything ran fine for about 2 hours until a dreadful "pop" noise followed immediately by the house mini circuit breaker tripping on overcurrent.
Got the new PSU the following day.
Tested fine with an old screen and onboard graphics (no GPU)
I installed both cards. Set up and benchmarked performance for Crossfire.
All going fine for a couple hours of gaming.
Went to bed happy.
Went back from work today. Started the computer. "Pop!" straight away, house supply tripped on over current. PSU is dead and won't pass the paperclip test.

Am I incredibly unlucky with Power Supplies or can a faulty GPU kill the PSU? Is there such a thing as an intermittent short on the PCI-E 8 and 6 pin circuit?
Help!

 

[buildzoid]

I know I shouldn't have bought 2nd hand gear but I'm cheap and I'm now in trouble.
3 weeks ago, I bought a new 2560x1440 monitor and upgraded my HD7950 by a 2nd hand R9 290 tri-X bought on eBay
My build: - Cooler Master 700W PSU - Asrock Z77 extreme 4 - i5-3750k OC
I had a few driver crashes/black screens lock outs that were solved by raising the GPU core voltage by 25mV. Beside that it worked well for 3 weeks.
With plenty on offer on ebay, I decided to go crossfire and bought another R9 290 tri-X on ebay. I also purchased a 2nd hand Seasonic 1250W for half the price of a new one.
Here is what happened.
Got the new GPU on Monday. Installed it and tried it a single GPU.
Everything ran fine for about 2 hours until a dreadful "pop" noise followed immediately by the house mini circuit breaker tripping on overcurrent.
Got the new PSU the following day.
Tested fine with an old screen and onboard graphics (no GPU)
I installed both cards. Set up and benchmarked performance for Crossfire.
All going fine for a couple hours of gaming.
Went to bed happy.
Went back from work today. Started the computer. "Pop!" straight away, house supply tripped on over current. PSU is dead and won't pass the paperclip test.

Am I incredibly unlucky with Power Supplies or can a faulty GPU kill the PSU? Is there such a thing as an intermittent short on the PCI-E 8 and 6 pin circuit?
Help!

Fill out your system specs please.
If there is a short on the input side of the GPU it would be able to do that. How old are the PSUs and do you see any obvious damage? If they are out of warranty open them up and check the capacitors.

 

[d1nky]

Have you checked all the power connections, even if it's unrelated could be a cause.

 

[syl77]

all power wiring was swapped when going from the 700W PSU ( 3 years old ) to the X1250 (4 months old but no clear history).
Weird thing is that the system ran fine for a few hours each time before failing.
I can't see obvious damage or smell anything. RMA looks to be a battle since I bought them 2nd hand but I won't open them up till I'm officially stuffed.
Not sure if I try third time lucky or will end up burning dollar bills again

 

[d1nky]

I was thinking the first gpu that was involved with both psus dying could be to blame. Hence checking the gpu connections and vrms thoroughly.

If this were me I'd have it all naked on the side with some spare shit build, brand new psu from a shop and stress test the hell out of both in different configs.

Whatever blows the psu, get a refund straight away. And get refunded for dead hardware.

 

[de.das.dude]

ebay is the worst. best to buy from forums. you never know what kind of idiot had these when buying from ebay.
also it might be that your psus were poorly repaired. or the card was poorly repaired.
you will never know.
pop usually means a cap venting from over heating. it results in a short circuit.
most likely that the caps were replaces with really cheap ones. if you open them up it should be pretty obvious which one gave away.
if you compare to a indepth review of that psu you will know if the psu had its caps replaced. revies of PSU here will note the company and rating of the caps on a PSU.

if you have the tools and skill you can buy and replace them with proper caps.

 

[OneMoar]

lets see you tried to run 2 290's on a single 700W unit what did you expect
then you bought a second hand unit that had god knows what wrong with it
don't buy crap power supplys and pray the last one didn't take the cards with it because if it did thats not gonna be covered under RMA and you are out ~500.00
and yes cooler master are crap

 

[sneekypeet]

lets see you tried to run 2 290's on a single 700W unit what did you expect
then you bought a second hand unit that had god knows what wrong with it
don't buy crap power supplys and pray the last one didn't take the cards with it because if it did thats not gonna be covered under RMA and you are out ~500.00
and yes cooler master are crap

Maybe you should read a little closer before ranting.

 

[Batou1986]

Have you checked your house electricity ?
There could be a problem which is only now apparent that your are pulling a lot of current.

 

[Arjai]

I suspect the first card. It popped with the 700W CM.

Then with both cards, it popped and blew the Seasonic.

I imagine that it took a bit to reach the right temperature, the first two times. Then after it was damaged, enough, just starting current blew the whole thing up.

Figure out which card was the first one, send it back to E-bay!! Then hope the Seasonic saved your Motherboard and/or CPU!

Good luck!! It is sad but, buying a used R9, knowing that the majority of them were abused by 'coiners, is probably akin to roulette.

Better to save up. Prices are dropping on these, as we speak.

 

[pyyy]

Maybe i got lucky, i had good experiences buying used parts from ebay.
Buying used PSU is especially nice since they have long warranty.
You need to know which manufacture accepts RMA without receipt. This is why I never buy used Corsair stuff.

Same for video cards, buy from manufactures that allows RMA without receipt.

Even if you get faulty ones from time to time, considering the price you paid, i would say its still cost effective buying used parts.

I bought a used sapphire video card, the fan of it seemed to be close to failing. So i ran the fan at 100% speed and it died within a month. Then I RMA it and got a new card.

 

[a111087]

I met one seller on ebay who doesn't do shit to test his products...
got around 100 fiber cards from him, around 30 of them were bad, as in actually missing resistors.
and i didn't even need to plug them in to find out that they are broken, the damage was visible, yet the seller shipped them to me.

other than that, i still buy a lot of hardware from ebay and i'm pretty happy with it.

as far as loud pop... i had a very loud pop after i tried powering up PSU that was badly squished in transit. (i knew it something would burn, but i still decided to plug it in )

 

[McSteel]

A loud pop usually indicates something in the primary (high-voltage/AC mains) section went belly-up. It can sometimes happen when the secondary (DC/low voltage) section is considerably more powerful than the primary, and the OPP (over-power protection) doesn't kick in quickly enough to save the unit. The X-1250 doesn't fit this scenario, so it may be that your wiring/AC supply is messed up somehow. The "pop" could've come from the inrush protection thermistor and/or the fuse inside the PSU, or from the primary or APFC switcher MOSFETs, or even from the integrated PWM/MOSFET 5VSB IC. Capacitors do pop, but usually not the Japanese ones that you will find in the Seasonic. Those things can and will take some very serious punishment before they explosively vent.

On the other hand, intermittent shorts are possible, but are so rarely found on otherwise working GPUs that you should perhaps pick up a lottery ticket on a newspaper stand near you.
Two PSUs dying the same death while being seemingly unrelated is about equally as likely.

Perhaps it would be prudent to get an electrician to inspect your mains, especially when they're under loads of 600+W...

 

[Solaris17]

Have you checked your house electricity ?
There could be a problem which is only now apparent that your are pulling a lot of current.

This I think your taking the easy way out anyone can blame after market stuff and maybe thats teh best course of action at first. but no system should trip a house breaker. and the fluctuations are doing way more harm then good. the PSUs dying are in my mind a result of them taking heat from the breaker which by the way you should give this a read. (this was someone asking if a 20a breaker will trip at 20a it does not.

Breakers are rated in amps, not watts. Breakers and fuses have a "Time Current Curve" There is not a single point where they trip. They may hold for hours when slightly above their rating, but will trip in a few milliseconds with a very high fault current. Residential breakers have an AIC of 10,000 amps. This is the Amperes Interrupting Capacity. These breakers can take up to .008 seconds to trip with a direct short. In this small amount of time the fault current will not reach its full value because it is only one half of a cycle (for 60 Hz. systems). A residential transformer can exceed 26,000 amps in a full cycle under a direct short. A #12 copper wire with 75 deg. C insulation can withstand 3800 amps for 1/2 cycle without sustaining any damage. That is why a 20 amp breaker has a 10,000 AIC rating. The manufacturer can supply a TC curve for any breaker they make.

In short by the time your breaker trips you can be way out of spec.

 

[OneMoar]

dead shorts are very rare unless you have something seriously wrong with your wiring or the outlet its self

 

[purecain]

ive had this happen with a 1200w thermaltake tough power, but the rev.2 is working fine... 4yrs and counting. the first one worked for 2years. running all high end configs...

if you've bought a second hand seasonic then you must of done some research as they are the best imo. I have a backup 700w seasonic m12.

your psu should protect itself when anything else goes wrong by design. so I wouldn't even be looking at the GPU's...

on your next psu go into the bios and check the power section, just make sure everything appears in spec...

you've just been unlucky... imo

good luck with the next one...

 

[eidairaman1]

Sounds like a power outlet issue

 

[Ja.KooLit]

yep. sounds like a power outlet issue.

When you declare "dead" PSU, maybe try other outlet? If you have skills about house power supply, maybe creating one line from the main line. Put a good circuit breaker in there.

 

[Solaris17]

remember (and I know you will eventually think of this) when you do figure out its a house problem you can't just drop a higher amp breaker in the box. you need to make sure the lines are rated for it.

 

[eidairaman1]

remember (and I know you will eventually think of this) when you do figure out its a house problem you can just drop a higher amp breaker in the box. you need to make sure the lines are rated for it.

Proper grounding of the home too

 

[Ja.KooLit]

@Solaris17 I was not talking about changing the circuit breaker only. I was talking about, from the main line, and then adding another circuit breaker and fresh wires.

Normally, I dont know in US, but main line will have the highest amp circuit breaker. And then from the main circuit breaker, there is a distribution. Lets say you put 60Amps as main. then put some lets say 20 amps for the power plugs, some 10 amps for lights, and put some 20 amps for the big consumers appliances. Refrigerator, aircon or whatever you think consumes alot.

I am not electrician and that is only example. Of course you need to find out about the wires you need to use and their rated power. As from my electrician friend, its better to put a high rated wire on a medium rated circuit breaker. In that way, it will be the circuit breaker to trip first.

 

[Solaris17]

@Solaris17 I was not talking about changing the circuit breaker only. I was talking about, from the main line, and then adding another circuit breaker and fresh wires.

Normally, I dont know in US, but main line will have the highest amp circuit breaker. And then from the main circuit breaker, there is a distribution. Lets say you put 60Amps as main. then put some lets say 20 amps for the power plugs, some 10 amps for lights, and put some 20 amps for the big consumers appliances. Refrigerator, aircon or whatever you think consumes alot.

I am not electrician and that is only example. Of course you need to find out about the wires you need to use and their rated power. As from my electrician friend, its better to put a high rated wire on a medium rated circuit breaker. In that way, it will be the circuit breaker to trip first.

no your good I wasn't calling you out just expanding on what you wrote.

 

[eidairaman1]

no your good I wasn't calling you out just expanding on what you wrote.

Fridges use 110-120 V Plug, Water Heater, Oven, Dryer, Airconditioner use 3 phase or 220-240V Plugs or hard wired...

 

[Ja.KooLit]

Fridges use 110-120 V Plug, Water Heater, Oven, Dryer, Airconditioner use 3 phase or 220-240V Plugs or hard wired...

doesnt matter if it uses 110 or 220V. look at the power consumption. Power consumptions are normally written as "watts" or "w".