The performance of a reversible pump turbine with S-shaped characteristics is of great importance to the transition processes such as start-up and load rejection. In order to predict the S-shaped curve accurately and develop a reliable tool for design improvement, a shear stress transport model (SST) with various numerical schemes for pressure term in the governing equation was investigated in a whole pump turbine including spiral casing, stay vanes, guide vanes, runner and draft tube. Through the computation, it was shown that different zones in the curve should employ different schemes to get the solution converged. Comparison of discharge-speed performance showed that good correspondence is got between experimental data and CFD results. Based on this, internal flow analysis was carried out at three typical operating points representing turbine mode, shut-off mode and reversible pump mode, respectively. According to the flow field concerned, the mechanism for the speed-no-load instability was explained, which provides good guidelines to take countermeasures in future design. The performance of a reversible pump turbine with S-shaped characteristics is of great importance to the transition processes such as start-up and load rejection. In order to predict the S-shaped curve accurately and develop a reliable tool for design improvement, a shear stress transport model (SST) with various numerical schemes for pressure term in the governing equation was investigated in a whole pump turbine including spiral casing, stay vanes, guide vanes, runner and draft tube. Through the computation, it was shown that different zones in the curve should employ different schemes to get the solution converged. Comparison of discharge-speed performance showed that good correspondence is got between experimental data and CFD results. Based on this, internal flow analysis was carried out at three typical operating points representing turbine mode, shut-off mode and reversible pump mode, respectively. respectively. according to the flow field concerned, the mechanism for the speed-no-load instab ility was explained, which provides good guidelines to take countermeasures in future design.