Buying a quality psu is not always without problems.

pastymuncher · 14 Jun 2007 at 12:25

Hi guys, my Seasonic S12 650w energy+ blew up last night. Not as spectacular as my old Hiper did, just a huge flash. Luckily it did'nt take anything with it, unlike the Hiper. Went to power on the pc and just a flash then dead as a dodo. Took it out and tried shorting it with a load of fans plugged in for some load and nothing. Put in a Winpower 650w (yeah right) that i had lying around and the pc booted straight away. Obviously the Seasonic at fault then. Applied for an RMA last night with the retailer i got it from and got accepted straight away. It's even been picked up as well. They reckon it will be a direct replacement and a 2 day turnaround from when they recieve my blown one so hopefully i should have a replacement by the middle of next week.

In the meantime, seeing as i am using a crappy Winpower 650w i have throttled down to 2.6ghz and also set the 8800gts back to it's stock speed. The Winpower is brand new. It came with a case that i used to build a pc for my son but i ripped it out to be replaced by a decent psu. Here's hoping it lasts.

Just goes to show that spending almost £100 on a highly regarded brand of psu does'nt mean it's going to be any more reliable than a £40-50 one. Damn thing only lasted 7 months!!

Elevon · 14 Jun 2007 at 12:34

pastymuncher said:
Hi guys, my Seasonic S12 650w energy+ blew up last night. Not as spectacular as my old Hiper did, just a huge flash. Luckily it did'nt take anything with it, unlike the Hiper. Went to power on the pc and just a flash then dead as a dodo. Took it out and tried shorting it with a load of fans plugged in for some load and nothing. Put in a Winpower 650w (yeah right) that i had lying around and the pc booted straight away. Obviously the Seasonic at fault then. Applied for an RMA last night with the retailer i got it from and got accepted straight away. It's even been picked up as well. They reckon it will be a direct replacement and a 2 day turnaround from when they recieve my blown one so hopefully i should have a replacement by the middle of next week.

In the meantime, seeing as i am using a crappy Winpower 650w i have throttled down to 2.6ghz and also set the 8800gts back to it's stock speed. The Winpower is brand new. It came with a case that i used to build a pc for my son but i ripped it out to be replaced by a decent psu. Here's hoping it lasts.

Just goes to show that spending almost £100 on a highly regarded brand of psu does'nt mean it's going to be any more reliable than a £40-50 one. Damn thing only lasted 7 months!!

My hiper lasted longer,17 months

,but I agree any PSU can fail,we all get bad luck sooner or later,buying quality hardware can help extend life expectancy of hardware parts and help delay failures.

steve258 · 14 Jun 2007 at 12:44

pastymuncher said:
Just goes to show that spending almost £100 on a highly regarded brand of psu does'nt mean it's going to be any more reliable than a £40-50 one. Damn thing only lasted 7 months!!

Sorry but I think you're just very unlucky. At least you're getting a replacement in just 2 days

pastymuncher · 14 Jun 2007 at 12:58

steve258 said:
Sorry but I think you're just very unlucky. At least you're getting a replacement in just 2 days

We shall see on that one. Have'nt had to RMA to this retailer before but so far it's been the best experience out of them all. 14 hours from reporting/applying for an RMA to picking it up (at their expense) this morning. You can't complain at that. Still upset that it happened though.

dun · 14 Jun 2007 at 13:20

From the beginning of your post you pointed out one of the main differences with a top quality psu... It didn't take anything else with it. You can't hope for much more unfortunately, as some will always fail for what ever reason, and you were just the unlucky percentage this time around

stickroad · 14 Jun 2007 at 13:26

Well yeah, if you spend more money on a well known brand most of the time it will be more reliable. Otherwise people wouldent bother to buy them. It happens, you just got an unlucky one thats all. No maufacturer in the whole wide world can have a 0% failure rate, it just wont happen and it never will.

Maufacturers have a failure rate, if they sell 1000 PSUs for example and say 5 fail for one reason or the other, people report it here on the forums your going to think, deifently not going to get one of them. But really 5 PSUs fail out of 1000 isnt bad at all.

dun · 14 Jun 2007 at 14:08

stickroad said:
Well yeah, if you spend more money on a well known brand most of the time it will be more reliable. Otherwise people wouldent bother to buy them. It happens, you just got an unlucky one thats all. No maufacturer in the whole wide world can have a 0% failure rate, it just wont happen and it never will.

Maufacturers have a failure rate, if they sell 1000 PSUs for example and say 5 fail for one reason or the other, people report it here on the forums your going to think, deifently not going to get one of them. But really 5 PSUs fail out of 1000 isnt bad at all.

Not if you are one of the 995 people who have a working excellent psu, but like you say a lot less of them post and say "mines working fine

" than those saying "mines broke

"

pastymuncher · 16 Jun 2007 at 21:06

I just found another difference between a quality psu and one supplied with a case. This temporary Winpower 650w psu i am using while waiting for my Seasonic to be replaced draws an extra 127w at the wall compared to my Seasonic. :eek:

That's with the cpu dropped down 800mhz to 2.6ghz and the graphics dropped from 650/1950 to it's stock of 575/1700.

That is just shocking. :eek:

noxidjkram@hotm · 16 Jun 2007 at 21:55

pastymuncher said:
I just found another difference between a quality psu and one supplied with a case. This temporary Winpower 650w psu i am using while waiting for my Seasonic to be replaced draws an extra 127w at the wall compared to my Seasonic.

That's with the cpu dropped down 800mhz to 2.6ghz and the graphics dropped from 650/1950 to it's stock of 575/1700.

That is just shocking.

Have a look at the efficiency difference between the two PSUs - that'll tell you why. It's my bet that the Winpower one is prolly about 10% or so less efficient...

M