Corsair HX 620W power failure

I recently bought all the components for building my own PC and finally assembled it yesterday. Unfortunately I had some various issues but I'll only talk about the one affecting my Corsair HX 620W.

 

The computer will only power everything on and won't even enter BIOS, this is probably due to a faulty motherboard (Asus Rampage Formula X48) though. When I flip the switch on the PSU the power went out for my room until my landlord could restore it. Naturally I thought this was just a coincidence and continued trying to solve the problem with the motherboard. After a couple more flips the exact thing happened again, the power went out. :(:

 

Now my question is, did the PSU fail or do I need a surge protector to handle the load? Note that the computer won't even go into BIOS and hardly has any components installed yet, so it's not a lot of power to handle. I also have another computer in the same room that's working just fine. It was running on the first power failure but not on the second one so it can be ruled out as the problem.

I've tested my secondary PSU (http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=04639) on my new built computer. While it still didn't work (due to the faulty motherboard) I had no trouble with power outages and I noticed something else. When the Corsair PSU was connected (it did work occasionally) it responded very erratic/slowly to the power off button. I just took this as something I must have connected wrong on the motherboard at first, but with the secondary PSU it responded exactly as it was supposed to.

 

I haven't tested the Corsair PSU on my secondary computer yet since I'm pretty sure the problem is not within the motherboard but rather the PSU itself or my power sockets not being able to handle the load. I've ordered an APC Essential SurgeArrest 5 (http://apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=P5B%2DGR) either way. :):

 

I can't do much either way with the faulty motherboard. The question is if it sounds like a problem or just something that probably will be solved by the surge protection?

It seems I'm sharing the circuit with my landlord, so that probably explains it. I got the surge protector now but I won't be able to test it live before I get my motherboard back which will probably take a while. Also aparently about 50 % of Oslo doesn't got grounded power (including my apartment) which is a problem, not much I can do about it though. :(:

I finally got my motherboard back. :):

 

Everything worked just fine for two days (excluding the same problem that I sometimes had to press the power on button multiple times before it would power on). Today however when I connected two additional fans and the PCI power connector (used two ordinary power connectors before) to the graphics card (Asus 9600 GT) there was a heavy smell of smoke within about five seconds of power up. I removed the power plug immediately. After this I tried to have an open case and power it on to see if I could see what the error was but it wouldn't respond to the power on button at all, the motherboard power lights were on though.

 

Not sure what to make of this. Since the computer worked just fine in two days without power outages it's safe to say the motherboard was the culprit in that incident. Since I had the same problems with the power on not responding instantly after the motherboard replacement it's pretty safe to say it's highly likely the PSU is at error here. :(: