Spent two hours chasing a 'bad' power supply that was just a loose outlet plug

Had a client's gaming rig that wouldn't boot, no lights, nothing. I immediately thought it was the PSU (a Corsair RM850x, for the record). Pulled the whole thing, tested it with my fancy PSU tester, and it showed good. Spent the next 90 minutes swapping in a known-good unit from my bench, re-cabling everything, only for it to still be dead. Finally, I jiggled the power cord where it plugs into the wall outlet, and it clicked in. The outlet itself was just super loose. I billed for the diagnostic time, but I still felt like a total goof. Anyone else have a simple fix that made you want to facepalm?

3 comments

3 Comments

ivanbell25d ago

Oh man, that exact thing happened to me last month! I was swapping a power supply in an old office PC for like an hour, getting so frustrated. I finally yanked the whole power strip out to check the fuse and saw the cord was barely hanging in the socket. Pushed it in hard and the thing fired right up. It's always the simplest thing that wastes the most time, isn't it?

felix41425d ago

Classic, the tech gods love making us look stupid like that.

cole54925d ago

Yeah, @felix414 is right about the tech gods. I swear loose outlets are the worst for that. I've had a few where the wall plate screws were so loose the whole outlet just tilted back when you pushed a plug in.