Do power supplies degrade?

chickadee

chickadee

chickadee

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So im thinking of building a ryzen system to replace my aging X58 build, I have a Corsair HX750 that i bought in 2010, my question is could i use this power supply? It seems perfect, no fan rattle, no hiccups.....i dont know if they degrade though, a good power supply is a £100 and thats a big chunk of my system budget, i could get a much better CPU for that £100 so if i can use this i will but i dont want to risk any problems.
 
Yes - depending on the quality of the capacitors (and to a lesser extent inductors, etc.) used - some will stand up for many many years others after a few years will have a definite decline in the max stable power they can deliver.
 
That HX750 looks like is probably made by Channel Well - you'd definitely want to think about replacing it once it gets to around 10 years old.
 
Rroff said:
That HX750 looks like is probably made by Channel Well - you'd definitely want to think about replacing it once it gets to around 10 years old.
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That's wrong advise, in terms of the OEM.

The HX range in 2010 was made by Seasonic and were very good units.
In 2012/2013 Corsair switched to CWT on a number of model ranges, including the HX range.

I think the reason was to enable better profit levels in Corsair. The CWT range isn't rubbish, but it isn't regarded as good as the Seasonic made version.
 
Ace Modder said:
That's wrong advise, in terms of the OEM.

The HX range in 2010 was made by Seasonic and were very good units.
In 2012/2013 Corsair switched to CWT on a number of model ranges, including the HX range.

I think the reason was to enable better profit levels in Corsair. The CWT range isn't rubbish, but it isn't regarded as good as the Seasonic made version.
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I might be wrong but I'm 99% sure all the HX750 units that were sold in the UK in 2010 were CWT.
 
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Hardware Secrets did a review of the 750 version in 2010 and said it was CWT unit and mentions other units in the range were made by seasonic.

https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/corsair-hx750w-power-supply-review/

Regardless who made the unit mine hasn't missed a beat for 8 years and has only recently been relegated to my second machine having been replaced by an Evga 750 p2 which will hopefully do me good for 10 years.
 
Habakkuk said:
I thought Seasonic made the AX860, and CTW made the AX860i?
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There is all kinds of variation in the line up often without a model name change, etc. in some cases even small quantities in some regions were made by a different OEM to others, etc. All I know is I've not seen a HX750 in the UK so far made by Seasonic.

Regardless the capacitors in these things tend to be rated for 2000-10000 hours at 85-105C with around a doubling of lifespan for every 10C cooler they are operating at plus some normal degree of evaporation of the electrolyte over time or similar degradation depending on type - at normal operating temperatures and patterns in a PSU after around 10 years you will start to get degraded performance under load to some degree or another and the changes to ESR can destabilise things like regulators so if you really care about it that is about when you should start thinking about replacing a PSU.
 
My HX620watt didnt die but if the power failed my pc wouldn't turn on for a few hrs after the power had been restored again. Changed it for a AX750 and everythings fine once again.
 
Acquaintance of mine had an old Siemens computer (floppy disk) running for twenty years without changing the PSU. Anything can happen (and he never gamed on it or anything strenuous). Trouble is when you're using new, expensive parts and the PSU is out of warranty, it could be tricky to claim any possible PSU-caused damage to components.
 
I've not really had any dramatic ones that I can recall - in most cases it has been turning off under loads they formerly handled fine - sometimes gracefully sometimes not so gracefully.
 
Had one blow smoke with a bang on power up one morning. Only took the power button with it so no real harm, still using all the other kit with reset button now doing power. Nothing too dramatic. Had much better hardware death with old crt monitors :D
 
I would save the money and invest that extra money to the rest of the components. Since your current PSU is working fine and it's of no dubious quality then keep it.
 
David Bisset said:
Had one blow smoke with a bang on power up one morning. Only took the power button with it so no real harm, still using all the other kit with reset button now doing power. Nothing too dramatic. Had much better hardware death with old crt monitors :D
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I think that power button was already dead anyway.

Unlike in old AT PCs in which power switch of PC was actual power on/off switch, power button of ATX PC gives logic signal to motherboard, which then tells PSU to power up.
If PSU had broken that button doing that would have required frying motherboard while at it.
And that switch would certainly tolerate lot more volts than motherboard's circuitry operating on 5V stand by.
 
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