I recently transported my PC from one place to another and made sure to dust and vacuum everything before reassembling it. For a short time, I placed the assembled PC directly on the carpet and turned it on, which I realized may not have been the best idea. It was plugged into an outlet splitter rather than a wall socket, which is another questionable choice. Initially, the PC booted up fine a couple of times, but during the second boot, I ran both a Malwarebytes scan and a Time Spy benchmark simultaneously. After about five minutes, it shut off suddenly, almost like it lost power, and afterward, it wouldn't turn on at all, regardless of what I tried (including trying different outlets and using a paperclip to jump the mobo cable). The PSU fan didn't spin at all. My specs include a bequiet Dark Power 12 750W PSU, an RTX 4080, a Ryzen 5950X, and a ROG B550A motherboard with 64GB of RAM. I'm leaning toward a PSU failure, but I'm curious if the carpet could have contributed to this issue, or if the outlet splitter could have played a part in it failing, especially given the high power draw during the tests. Additionally, before running those scans, I noticed some strange behavior with Windows – the search bar would close immediately without letting me type, and the mouse kept showing a spinning ring intermittently. This odd behavior happened only during that last boot before the power loss.
2 Answers
It's definitely a possibility that placing the PC on the carpet could have caused some static issues, especially if you were vacuuming around it. Just a heads up, the combination of using an outlet splitter with high power consumption can overload it. If your PSU had to work harder than it should have, it might have contributed to its failure. For future builds or clean-ups, try using an anti-static mat or place your PC on a hard surface.
Your decision to run the scan and benchmark simultaneously may have pushed the PSU too hard. The PSU could have failed due to overheating or overloading. It's also wise to ensure all connections are secure and the PSU is functioning correctly before plugging it in again. In the future, a rubber or foam mat might protect your setup better than the carpet for any maintenance work.
Yeah, the carpet could conduct static, especially if there was any dust buildup that might've charged it. It's good to hear you're using a solid PSU; hopefully, it's just the PSU that needs a swap.