Appreciation post: The old timer who told me to always check the power supply first

I had a client bring in a PC that would randomly shut off after 10 minutes. I spent 2 hours swapping RAM and testing the GPU before I remembered what my mentor, a guy named Frank who ran a repair shop for 30 years, always said. He told me "90 percent of random shutdowns are the PSU, check that before anything else." I replaced the 450 watt unit with a 650 and the machine ran perfect. Has anyone else had a similar experience where ignoring basic advice cost you time?

3 comments

3 Comments

danielhenderson21d ago

@price.tara nailed it, Frank's 90% is still solid if you factor in dying PSU fans dumping heat everywhere.

williamhill29d ago

That "60-70 percent" number price.tara threw out got me thinking about something nobody mentions. Frank said 90 percent and honestly I think he was including stuff like failing capacitors inside the PSU that heat up and cause shutdowns even before the PSU completely dies. The thing is a lot of those overheating cases people blame on the CPU fan are actually the PSU dumping heat into the case because its own fan is dying or its airflow is blocked. So maybe Frank's 90 percent still holds up if you count the PSU as the root cause even when it looks like a different problem at first.

price.tara29d ago

and wait, hold on... 90 percent? That number feels a little high. Frank had good instincts but a lot of random shutdowns are also overheating or bad drivers. I'd say more like 60-70 percent of the time it's the PSU if you're ruling out the obvious stuff first. Still, you're 100% right that checking the power supply early saves a ton of headache. Just don't let that old advice make you skip checking the CPU fan or case airflow when it's clearly not the PSU.