My Antec smartpower 2.0 500W has bit the dust... again. After reading a lot of reviews, I've learned that it does have quite an inferior shelf life... anyway the problem: About a month ago, I noticed when I would put the computer into sleep mode, it would just hard shutoff the PC.. no shutdown or anything, just "click...vroommmmm" as the fans would stop. So I stop using sleep mode out of fear of drive corruption. *Note... should of checked into this more when this started happening* Out of habit every now and then I would press the sleep mode button on my keyboard. Same thing happens.. then one day, the PC doesn't start back up after this happens. After a lot of trials I leave it unplugged and leave it. Later I come back and plug it back in.. and it works! yay. Tonight, I leave the house with the PC still on. Well SOMEONE who always shuts down the computer when I leave it on... presses the sleep button. And my computer is dead. And now that my PC is out of warranty, I'm considering swapping the PSU myself to avoid the insane labor fee and warranty facilitation on the PSU charges from the shop that built the pc. (plus I'm pretty content on a different model now as this is the second failure in under three years) But I need to be sure this is the problem. With no other desktop to test the parts on, how would one go about ascertaining it's the PSU?
Try a new PSU (A decent one of course) - if it powers up, the PSU was at fault. If it doesn't, I'd probably suspect the motherboard. As a general rule, if you at all suspect a PSU, replace it, as that's one component you can't afford to take chances with. Try a Corsair VX 450W out for size (don't worry about the lower wattage, it's actually more powerful than the SmartPower 500)
