Page 1 of Something went pop

There was I, merrily browsing away on Monday night when suddenly there's a green flash from the back of my tower and everything does black, accompanied with a rather acrid smell, but that could have just been me

Took the case apart and on first glance, everything seemed intact, but managed to locate the acrid smell coming from the PSU

So I'm assuming that's the culprit. Have to wait 2 weeks until payday until I can get another one, but I've kinda forgotten how bloody confusing it can be choosing the right one

The dead item was a hybrid modular OCZ Fatality 550w PSU. I assume I can use pretty much the same spec, but can I go a little higher as the prices seemed to have come down a bit since I put my current rig together?

Just a little side note. Looking on Facebook, they seems obsessed with you re-posting older posts from this day x years ago. Turns out, exactly 4 years ago, to the day, I was celebrating the fact I'd just built my first rig and it was working perfectly. Is 4 years about right for the life of a PSU, or should I be writing a strongly-worded letter? 

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Quote:
Pete-MK says...
"Is 4 years about right for the life of a PSU, or should I be writing a strongly-worded letter? "
Depends how much you use it, and how much current it has to put out, that would be pretty good if you run it most of the day, most days a week.


Quote:
Pete-MK says...
"The dead item was a hybrid modular OCZ Fatality 550w PSU. I assume I can use pretty much the same spec, but can I go a little higher as the prices seemed to have come down a bit since I put my current rig together?"
You don't need to, unless you play on adding more HDDs or power hungry USB devices in future? I wouldn't worry about future upgrades generally, because the industry has been moving to lower power for a fair few years now so each new generation of CPU and GFX cards tends to run cooler and use less power.

Usually when a quality PSU goes pop, it just takes itself out. When a cheap one goes, its lack of overload protection can take out your motherboard and a few components if you are unlucky. So you made a good choice. ;)


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Quote:
Rob Shepherd says...
" When a cheap one goes, its lack of overload protection can take out your motherboard and a few components if you are unlucky. So you made a good choice. ;)"
Good to hear. I've got my setup powered through a 6-gang surge protection socket, but of course, a surge inside the tower itself wouldn't have that protetction. 

At least I've got plenty of time to make an informed decision


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You won't need more power. I run an i5, 8GB RAM, 970 GTX GPU, SSD, 2x HDD, 1x Optical drive and a few external drives/USB devices on a 550 watt XFX PSU and it doesn't come close to using the max power draw most of the time. Even under full load when the GPU fans are going mad I doubt it struggles.

I thought mine had gone the other day as the PC refused to boot and there was a ticking sound coming from the PSU. I reseatted the RAM into the other DDR channel and it then worked for a bit, then had the same problem. After reading up it appears to be an issue with fast boot, as it's fine on normal boot and ultra fast. Dunno why it suddenly started doing that after a year though...









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Quote:
Pete-MK says...
"Is 4 years about right for the life of a PSU, or should I be writing a strongly-worded letter? 
"
my Corsair one lasted about 4 years  that posted in these forums about :( like you I went for a quality brand assuming it would last well, but at least it did not take the rest of the computer out with it.

Four years does sound a bit short considering I have no brand PSUs that are still going after eight of more. My first XFX was DOA so a name brand is no guarantee of quality (XFX PSUs are made by Seasonic).







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4 years is about average I'd say. It really depends on how long they are on for, the current draw, the heat, and probably a bit of luck.

Long story short... electrolytic capacitors and heat don't go together. And the rated output of a PSU will drop over time. This is true of pretty much all power supplies in all types of equipment, not just PCs.

Main difference between cheap and expensive power supplies isn't how long they last, but the extra protection circuitry, and the quality of the components.

Sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll last, other times you won't. The main reason is the quality control on more expensive components is a lot tighter, which is not the same thing as the cheaper components are incapable of lasting the same length of time.

If they weren't so heavily covered in gunk, you could actually probably fix most PSUs quite easily. But they are usually heavily gunked and not worth the hassle. :(

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Currently looking at this as a benchmark

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/p1-650x-xxb9.html

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All up and running again after picking out this little blighter.

Had a bit of a schoolboy error when nothing happened after throwing at all together the first time. Someone forgot to replace the CMOS jumper.   

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