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December 20th, 2020 10:00
Aurora R10, tripping AFCI circuit breaker
Hi all,
I've just recently become an owner of a new alienware aurora r10, and have been running into some problems with the computer and the place I am renting at. My home office is set up in my bedroom, which has an electrical circuit with an 15 amp AFCI circuit breaker. Whenever the computer's GPU utilization ramps up for an intensive game, the circuit breaker is detecting an arc fault and tripping. The only way for me to run this without any problems is for the computer to be the sole electronic (with a monitor) plugged into the entire circuit. Even turning on the lights will cause the breaker to trip.
I called Dell support, who immediately told me I was a moron for calling them (figuratively) for this issue, and that I should check the load on the circuit. However, I am 100% sure this is not a load problem. With the computer's spec (ryzen 3700x, rtx 3070), the maximum power draw should be at the very most ~400 W. From what I've read, AFCI breakers do not detect arc faults when the total load is under 5 amps, which may be why the breaker is only tripping after a few appliances are turned on. I verified this by moving the desktop to the living room, which has a 15 amp breaker (non-AFCI). Ramping up the system with the added load of a flat screen TV, christmas tree, a fan and multiple lights failed to trip the circuit breaker.
Does anyone here have experience with operating your systems on a circuit with an AFCI breaker? I am able to run a 1200 W rated vacuum and a 1500 W space heater (individually) in this bedroom, which suggests to me that the circuit breaker itself is not faulty. I've read multiple posts about how AFCI breakers can be sensitive to computer power supplies, but there have been some cases where people reported that it was their low quality PSU that was causing the arc fault. How is the quality of Alienware PSU? Is it worth trying to replace the PSU with a third party one? Or should I just return this computer?
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