Power surge help needed please.

[apprentice87]

Hi All,

There IS NO SUCH THING AS A POWER SURGE...

Discounting things like your house being struck by lighteningThe only way that the supply voltage can experience a surge is a loss of the supply neutral, [thus causing the phase voltages to wander all over the place due to unbalanced loads on the network] or a serious fault back at the substation feeding your house.

Given that every third house in your street is on the same phase as you, did one in three people come running out shouting that their computers [etc etc] had just blown up?? I think not....

Just county court them. Did they supply fitting instructions??? If not, this is a breach of the sale of goods act in itself, unless they supplied written instructions that this item was only to be installed by an electrician, but, it would still probably be a breach of said act anyway.

Only problem now is, you have given them the PSU back, and when you go to court they will have "lost" it on purpose so you cannot have an expert witness take it to bits to find the cause of the fault.

Were these PSU's CE marked and made to comply with a British standard?? If not that is yet more trouble they are in......

john...

 

[remustered]

[quote name=apprentice87;261602

. Did they supply fitting instructions??? If not' date=' this is a breach of the sale of goods act in itself, unless they supplied written instructions that this item was only to be installed by an electrician, but, it would still probably be a breach of said act anyway.

..

Possible Exception to That...did You Save money by buying OEM. If so You bought As Trade Proffessional And Do Not Get Extras Like Public.

 

[apprentice87]

Hi Remustered,

Hmm,,,,Yes, you may have a point there!!!

john..

 

[Bav101]

I've spoken to someone else on another forum who has had exactly the same issue, i mean exactly but he gave up because Scottish law is apparently different to British law when it comes to the sales of goods act, that and they pretty much ignored him. I may be urinating into the wind but I'm going to try because

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Just as a point of note on this "power surge" concept....

1/ The Domestic UK single phase electricity supply is classed as a nominal 230v.

2/ Due to the nature of how it is generated, distributed and consumed this voltage will and does fluctuate.

3/ The supply companies have a responsibility to ensure the supply coming into your property is within 230v +10% -6%

which means you should have a voltage anywhere between 216.2v - 253.0v

(this can be seen on page 294 of the current wiring regulations)

4/ In some more remote rural areas you can get greater problems with voltages lower than what they should be.

5/ ALL manufactures selling electrical products for use in the UK must legally ensure their products can work safely within these voltage ranges.

In the real world of what is reasonably practical, most manufactures would not sell products that would go pop if the voltage did happen to drift a few move volts over the 253v max value. as it is very bad advertising!!!

More likely to allow a greater tolerance or include internal trips or cut-outs to protect the device.

6/ A lot of old analogue home electronics, e.g. hi-fi, radio, TV, can be quite robust to large power fluctuations

7/ Modern digital equipment especially computers by their very nature require stabalised voltages to their circuit cards and for many a long time PC PSU's have had built in smoothing circuits and surge protection for the average domestic electrical fluctuations..

(we all know the stories of the power dipping at half time on an cup final when loads of homes go and put the kettle on!!)

8/ All power supply units will have a maximum output power (in watts), that they can supply. It would be technically feasible for someone to overload a power unit by connecting to many devices to it. However again most manufactures would include built in overload protection by fusing, or thermal trips or other electronic cut outs.

9/ If you connected a knackerd load onto the PSU.. (e.g. you got a dead short on one of your circuit cards), theoretically that should have only affected the secondary side of the PSU not the supply side, e.g. tripping your fuse box.

10/ Due to the increased amount of electronic sensitive equipment installed in properties, the current wiring regulations have included a section on special consideration of Surge Protection. But as mentioned this is primarily to reduce the detrimental effects for transient surges due to nearby lighting strikes.

11/ It is possible with certain earth supply types that a neutral fault can cause excessive voltages to enter your property 400v+

I have seen this where a homeowner had the washing machine, security alarm and some other appliances all wiped out due to a neutral failure in the street..

But this did also affect several other properties..

and the power then remains OFF for a while till it was fixed!

12/ On the balance of probability and without seeing either the PSU, the PC or your electrical installation I would think the problem is/was internal to the PC or PSU.

NOT anything external on the incoming mains supply.

HOWEVER... as sprocketflup said I don't think you have much grounds to claim for additional compensation...

It could be a bit like the old credit agreement where the small print says

"your home may be at risk if you don't keep up the payments"

or a bog-standard MK light switch which any DIY can buy and fit..

But on the back it does say..

this product should only be installed by an electrical competent person (e.g. a qualified electrician)

So every DIYer breaks the terms of the manufactures guidance!

One question which has not been asked...

Why were you fitting this new PSU?

is it a new build tower..

or repairing a previous fault?

opcorn

 

[Bav101]

The old PSU was making a high pitched whining sound when it was on, I couldn't tell if it was a power rail going or if it was the fan seizing up so to be safe I just powered it off and used another PC to order a new PSU. The old PSU still works but I thought it better safe than sorry, plus I've already spoken to Consumer Direct and Trading Standards gave them as much info as possible and they suggested taking it to the small claims court.

Before I powered it off to order the new PSU it was working fine because I was playing something and didn't notice a performance drop specially when rendering out a animation previous to playing a game on it.

In all honesty, if it was something I had done I would have bitten the bullet said screw it how could I be so dumb, but the old PSU was 600W and the new was a 700W PSU i figured if i was going to buy one I'd get one that would last a while so i wouldn't have to upgrade it again anytime soon.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

If they had been new unproven items there could have been a bit more of a grey area..

But from the sounds of it, the basic facts for your case are:-

1/ You have a group of known proven working circuits cards and devices.

2/ You have a PSU that is capable of supplying the level of power required by the said devices.

3/ The PSU was advertised and purchased for use in the UK market to be connected onto the standard nationally supplied voltages.

4/ You connected the PSU via an appropriate lead with the correct polarity, earthing and fuse rating into a standard domestic socket to which the PSU is designed to work.

5/ But it did not work, it didn't partially work and then fail, it never worked from the instant that power was supplied to it.

6/ As the RCD in the house tripped, it is safe to assume that the power was connected for well under half a second,

(the actual duration can be verified by testing how fast your RCD operates, but it has got to be less than 0.4 second to meet wiring regs disconnection times.)

7/ Within a very short time frame of being connected to the PSU, several known working PC circuit cards & devices are now inoperable and damaged beyond repair.

8/ Power surge effects are so remote on the balance of probability they can be discounted.

Let us know how you get on

:coffee

 

[Doc Hudson]

Its good to know we're in agreement and i like "bovine droppings" will have to borrow that if its ok? hehProblem is I got a refund on it, but it took out my Mobo, CPU and memory, this is why I'm arguing with them atm, under the sales of goods act they are liable, then the whole power surge thing came about in one of there emails to me. But you guys have been awesome thanks alot for your help with this, its nice to know I'm not going nuts.

Hello Bav101, welcome to the forum, it is good to hear that you have found the advice and guidance helpful. Remember all of our member are voluntarily giving up their own time and sharing their knowledge and experience for no renumeration. If you have found any posts particularly helpful we have both 'Like' (bottom right of posts) and 'Reputation' features, (small start bottom left of posts), that you can offer your thanks to anyone who has helped you.

Doc H.

 

[batty]

Don't know much about computers but will say my 6 year old one just packed up and as the green light would not come on on the back decided this must be the PSU. So I trundled off down to PC world and brought a new one. Now I have never taken many computers apart so it was a challenge to change it. It did take me about an hour and a half but managed to do it and it works. I couldn't believe how cheap parts are think it was about

 

[Bav101]

I've used Ebuyer for years, well i did anyway. I've had 2 faulty parts in 10 years a video card that I got a replacement for, that was straight forward enough, and this debacle with the PSU. I paid almost