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I believe nobody here would say a PSU can't cause a BSoD, but how about just a bad energy supply from the grid?

I remember back in 2000 I've fixed a constant, almost daily, BSoD issue I've had with Windows XP by replacing a generally known bad power adapter by a simple power strip. Keep in mind the Blue Screen would only come up at random and I had no other sypmton other than it.

bad power adapter

(I think it looked more like something at these lines)

What would have hinted me to do it was the PSU going bad, about twice in a row.

How plausible is that? Could it have happened or is it just my memory playing tricks on me? I'm a bit skeptical. :P

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    Re: your youtube video, if I saw anyone making that sort of contraption out of power sockets anywhere near me then I suspect I might end up being convicted of justifiable homicide.
    – Mokubai
    May 15, 2015 at 20:21
  • OMG! Did you really do the same as in that video!! It is B****y amazing you didn't kill yourself or burn the building down! May 15, 2015 at 20:23
  • @Mokubai hahaha, I know, right? He's actually making fun of new power grid standards in the country, but making things like that is still pretty common worldwide and it was so much more in the past! ;)
    – cregox
    May 15, 2015 at 20:24
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    When I read your question title I assumed this was about Y2K issues :P
    – Max Nanasy
    May 15, 2015 at 22:00

4 Answers 4

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It's entirely possible that a faulty power strip which was making marginal contact of the live pins could have either broken contact for the briefest of moments, which would cause a momentary low voltage, or the marginal contact could have cause arcs of electricity, which could cause a momentary high voltage.

It is entirely possible for momentary low-voltage event to be compensated by your power supply, but it is also entirely possible for it to cause one of the various power regulators to put out a glitch voltage which could cause any one of the various chips on the motherboard to reset or otherwise crash. This could easily cause a bluescreen.

It is also possible for your power supply to compensate for the high-voltage arc as well, but it could cause a momentary high (or low as the voltage got clamped) which in turn could affect the components similar to a momentary disconnect.

A marginal earth contact could also easily cause damage or crashes in a similar fashion as the electrical potential between earth and the live pins would fluctuate causing the motherboard ground and power connections to vary.

Any of these events would also place a lot of stress on the PSU components and cause capacitors, inductors or regulators to degrade or otherwise sooner than they would.

Replacing the faulty power strip would fix any of these problems.

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  • And in many of those problems there would be no visible signs to tell it was the power strip's fault, right?
    – cregox
    May 15, 2015 at 21:11
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    There may be some blackening inside the strip, but it may take a long time to show. Its also possible that there might be nearly no visible marks, its difficult to state definitively that there would be no visible signs but it is possible that a quick look could show a power strip that for all intents and purposes is perfectly fine. The dodgy earth connection in particular could leave no visible indication at all but still do a good amount of damage to a PSU.
    – Mokubai
    May 15, 2015 at 21:21
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A lot depends on what country and location you were in but it is certainly possible. Though I am from the UK, I know that even today there are many areas of the USA for example with absolutely terrible power supplies with brown-outs and spikes.

There are all sorts of things that caused BSOD's including memory and disk read errors. These can be caused by systems overheating, being underpowered and by power spikes. All of which can be caused by or made worse by poor power supplies.

Basically, you should never run a desktop computer or routers/NAS's/switches/etc. without at least a spike protecting power strip. It is far preferable to run them from an uninterruptable power supply.

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  • The pictured adapter and the ones shown in the video are not of the type that you'd find in the USA. May 15, 2015 at 20:15
  • I was in Brazil, and I have no photos from the adapters from back then. ;P
    – cregox
    May 15, 2015 at 20:15
  • Also nowadays I have a cheap no-break, which is more than enough and even helps to keep internet going for a few more minutes after a block power failure or something. :D
    – cregox
    May 15, 2015 at 21:12
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Electronic devices are sensitive to variations in voltage. Computers in particular, as it constantly monitors its own power levels (Core voltage, etc). In addition, the PSU also monitors its own supply buses via the sens wires, which leads to another potential point of voltage-related failures. These two, combined with the fact that too little voltage of course would lead a system to struggle at one point, gives us plenty of oportunities for observing voltage failures bothering a system.

Now, to answer your question: Yes, it is possible. I am pretty sure it has happened to me once: I had a voltage spike at my house some time in the 90's, causing a cheap clock radio to stop functioning, and a light bulb blew. At the same time, although it may be a coincidence, my PC got a BSOD. While this was on windows 98se, it was a fairly stable system, and I wasn't doing anything in particular at the time.

It should be noted that a lot of factors come into play, as I'm sure you already understand. In my case I had no surge protection devices between my computer and my 240V house grid, and it was probably avoidable.

EDIT:

As noted in the comments to this answer, a good PSU can make a big difference. A cheap PSU usually does nothing but supply the voltages as dictated by the standards, while the more high-end ones (not just in terms of Watts, but in terms of quality) sometimes have built-in surge protection. Also, as I have used ATX PSUs for many things not involving computers, I have noticed that Corsair PSUs are generally more robust and fault tolerant than some of the dirt cheap ones.

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    I'm afraid it is not rare at all! Even today when electronics tend to be a little more robust. It is all too common to get errors and outright failures on desktop systems, routers, etc. due to power supply issues. May 15, 2015 at 20:20
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    A really good PSU in the computer saves you from most problems. The worst that can happen then is a power shutdown. However, a lot of desktops have bad PSUs made for $30 in a Chinese sweatshop and called Sunshine or something like that. Those don't protect you from anything.
    – Zan Lynx
    May 15, 2015 at 20:54
  • Good observation, I probably had bad PSU's as well... So even an apparently small issue such as a power grid adapter could have caused it indeed! :)
    – cregox
    May 15, 2015 at 21:09
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Some years ago I read an article on Toms Hardware (can't find it now) testing power supplies. It was a eye-opener, such as how the manufacturers made "creative use" of the specifications or outright lied. What I read concerned longevity and reliability of the motherboard regarding nice stable supply voltages. I started using Seasonic exclusively after that.

When testing my previous rig for overclocking, I found the mosfets on the motherboard needed better cooling to run stably at speed. Various guides point out that the frequency changing when the cpu idles, and the anti-interference clock jitter can cause crashes because two clock ticks may happen to close together. Voltage fluxuations make that worse and overclocking literature reports that it does make a difference as to running stably.

So, it is plausible that at rated speed it might matter as well, especially if the computer is running too warm.

In an extreme case, a low voltage can crash the cpu by browning out.

As for power to the power supply: in a well-made psu it should not care. However, some of the stuff missing from the cheap ones are exactly the parts to smooth out fluxuations and buffer against rapid changing of the inout voltage.

Here is an anectode I heard a number of years ago: all the computers in the room would crashnat the same time except for 1. Upon close inspection, they all, had the mains voltage switch set wrong except for the good one. Set for 220 input but feeding it 110 worked just fine under ideal circumstances, but not when (presumably) something happened like under-voltage or excessive line noise. And the power issue made the machines crash.

So what could be wrong with a power strip that would induce such problems, while a different strip was fine? I can think of intermittent contact, or insufficient/burned-out noise filtering and surge protection. Something else plugged in to it might supply surges or line noise.

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