I've got an older PC that freezes/blue-screens at non-reproducible times. I suspect that it's caused by a faulty power supply, mainly because I don't have any other idea. How can I diagnose this properly as the cause for my troubles?

6 Answers

Wow, interesting question.

The problem with diagnosing a power supply problem (when it's not hilariously obvious), is that the problem will often only show up under load, so even if you pull it out and check the voltage on every plug, you may not see any problems.

As many others have said, you can swap it with a "Known Good" power supply and see if the problem persists. You might also want to try to run some sort of benchmarking application to put the system under heavy load: if the system always crashes under load, regardless of the application, that's a good indicator of power supply problems.

2

Assuming it's at least somewhat new (90's or newer) you can buy a tester Newegg has a good selection

6

Here's a great flowchart on diagnosing power supply problems. The guy's selling a book full of similar hardware troubleshooting flowcharts with solid discussion of what's going on. There are several available at the link for perusal. These are basic component-level troubleshooting charts, and don't get into tearing down the power supply to fix it, but these are all the basics in one reference:

Fastest way? Replace the power supply and see if it become stable.

I don't think you're asking the right question. The right question would be "What could cause my Heisenburg-esque BSOD?"

The answer is usually RAM, although a faulty CPU might also do it.

Sometimes, it's just the wrong hardware/motherboard combination, or possibly a poorly seated component. But I personally think that my "wrong motherboard/hardware combination" may just be an indication as to how old I am, and this issue may no longer be an issue.

Also, this may be a question better suited for Superuser.com.

2

Honestly, the easiest method might be to swap with a known good power supply. Failing that, you can also get power supply testers that will test various aspects of the power supply, such as verifying that all the voltage levels are within tolerances, etc.

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