When running X-plane 10, the power supply on my HP Z440 has blown up twice so far

Question

The power supply actually blows up with a loud bang and has to be replaced. The second time, it blew up while X-plane 10 was booting, with no graphics on the screen yet!

My Z440 has an 8-core i7, with 32Gb of RAM and a Quadro M2000 Graphics card and a 700W power Supply.

What am I missing here? If this happens with X-Plane10 what is to be expected with X-Plane 11??

Answer 1

Hi pilootje

I'm not with Laminar Research, just a fellow simmer in the UK.

As I am also a qualified computer technician who builds his own desktops, I would have to say that power supply units do not normally fail in the way reported through the simple use of software, any software!

I ran X-Plane 11 with a 650W PSU for a long time and had no such problems whatsoever.

I would venture to suggest that there must be a fault with the internal 12v side of the PC (short circuit etc.)  or an external power supply problem and would therefore start any investigation there first, before worrying about software.

Regards

Comments

Greengolfer is right.  Software just can’t be responsible for “blowing up” PSUs.  While X-Plane is surely capable of pushing both the CPU and GPU to their maximum power consumption, a 700W PSU is plenty adequate.

In the early days of XP11, I had a cheap 400W PSU.  Whenever the GPU power loading went beyond 80%, it would trip the PSU.  The PSU abruptly shut the system down, but it could always be powered back up.

When power supplies keep getting “blown up”, I tend to suspect shorts—on, under and around the motherboard and case.