Corsair PSU - gone up in smoke!

[Borealis]

It's become a more recent issue with their budget-oriented product lines - CX series and below. I reckon it started when they switched OEM from Seasonic to CWT. CWT do make some really good units, the RM1000X is an example of this. Unfortunately their QC has been a bit hit and miss from time to time and the budget products use much cheaper internals.

To be honest, I think the failure rate is fairly low, it's just that more people are going to speak up when they have an issue. Particularly if something goes boom!

Around the web, I've seen a number of issues lately with a variety of brands you'd consider decent: Seasonic, Corsair, Superflower, EVGA. For the most part I think it's a case of if you've got x100s of units in circulation, a proportion are going to escape QC and/or be a lemon!

 

[C6ckneyGeezer]

I had a perfectly good CX750 unit, non modular. It was around 4 years old I guess. However since I upgraded to a Zotac GTX 1070 I also went for a RM750X PSU, just for piece of mind.

I didn't want my PSU taking out a new GPU from all the horror stories ive heard....it was likely....

 

[jbh110tdi]

I had the cx750m but swapped it out for a xfx xts750 fully modular.

My mates having random restarts with his system and im suspecting his AX psu think its an 850

 

[Justin Credible]

Well new PSU installed and works like a charm. Even when off! haha

Second build works fine as well. Just happy it didn't fry anything else.

Although I did notice a lot of moisture that I guess had been spewing out of the PSU. Was down the side of the case and coming from the PSU itself.. Wierd.

 

[Borealis]

If the primary capacitors blew, they'll have leaked. The big primary caps are electrolytic, so they're full of liquid. If they rupture, you'll get a spillage.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Go with a Superflower unit - top tier OEM.

SuperFlower is good, but certainly not "top tier".

Superflower used to be a pretty poor to average PSU manufacturer until around 2006 when their new plant came online and their product quality improved a lot year on year.

They make PSUs for many companies EVGA, Kingwin, NZXT, Rosewill, XION, ect.

I'd put them slightly behind Seasonic/Delta.

SuperFlower has always provided a full range of products. I used to work at a shop that sold them way back in 2000 and they were actually one of the superior alternatives. Definitely not top tier. But you guys don't seem to know the proper use of the term "tier" if you're grouping Delta with Seasonic.

aren't the ax, axi, and hx's all made by superflower anyway? or am i mistaken?

I've built computers with Corsair PSU's before not had any trouble with them and i've used the RM's, AXI, and HX range of PSU's

AX are seasonic internals.
AXI are flextronics.
HX are seasonic too.

HX has been CWT for quite some time. They were Seasonic about 5+ years ago.

Another up in smoke story from a Corsair PSU i think it's the reason they are barley ever recommended on here. A good superflower/EVGA or seasonic will see you through just fine.

Actually, the real reason is that there's more Corsair PSUs out there 10 to 1 vs. EVGA, Seasonic, etc. The actual failure rate for Corsair PSUs isn't any higher today than it was 10 years ago.

It's become a more recent issue with their budget-oriented product lines - CX series and below. I reckon it started when they switched OEM from Seasonic to CWT. CWT do make some really good units, the RM1000X is an example of this. Unfortunately their QC has been a bit hit and miss from time to time and the budget products use much cheaper internals.

That is completely false, actually. The CX is better today than it's ever been (save the old Seasonic built 400W from way back when).

To be honest, I think the failure rate is fairly low, it's just that more people are going to speak up when they have an issue. Particularly if something goes boom!

This. PSUs are a tough market. That's why I decided to specialize in reviewing them. You can't overclock a PSU. You can't benchmark a PSU. When it works, it works. When it doesn't. It's a big deal because the whole PC stops working. That's why you can see 10s of thousands of units sold, but only a dozen end user reviews on sites like Amazon and all of those reviews are negative. Because people don't write reviews when things just work.

Around the web, I've seen a number of issues lately with a variety of brands you'd consider decent: Seasonic, Corsair, Superflower, EVGA. For the most part I think it's a case of if you've got x100s of units in circulation, a proportion are going to escape QC and/or be a lemon!

Precisely.

 

[Borealis]

That is completely false, actually. The CX is better today than it's ever been (save the old Seasonic built 400W from way back when).

Interesting to know that.

Given that the CX units are readily available in large numbers, there's probably a lot of them out there in comparison to some of the more expensive models. As/when something goes wrong, there's a good probability it'll be a CX unit, just by the law of averages. Then when someone moans about it, they give the CX a bad name.

 

[Mercutio]

Precisely.

the real, original jonnyguru?
I'm not a PSU buff by a long way but have always loved the jonnyguru site for PSU stuff, welcome if it's you

 

[AdamScott85]

Another story of something like this happening, I have never had a problem like this and fingers crossed never will, although I am running 980ti SLI on a HX850 from Corsair without issues, but in my older build I do have one of the lower end Corsair CX units.

 

[Grimley]

For the record, I've bought 4 Corsair PSU's with a 50% failure rate. The failed ones were both HX models (HX520 & the HX650 that replaced it) the other 2 were a CX430 1st generation (sold it last year, so no idea if it still works) & a VX450 (in dad's pc)

I've only ever had one other PSU fail on me & that was a Seasonic X560, I've bought 4 Seasonics so 25% failure rate. I did buy an Antec Truepower classic 650 & it was tempremental with the system I had that the time too, so that got sold.

I would say that on the whole, I've had worse luck with PSU's that I would consider to be 'better than average quality' & I generally look on JonnyGURU for a review before buying (both my current PSU's have a rating of 10 & 9.6 on his site) but that won't put me off.

 

[chickadee]

Ok so it seems the quality jumps around between years and also the model. I have ran a HX750 since 2010 without a hiccup, is that a "good" version or have I been lucky?

 

[Deleted member 87287]

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