Do PSUs need replacing over time?

Still got an ax860i
Those are very good psus
Got an even older tagan psu that I only use
To power on pumps etc to prime/test loop
Some of you probably won't even remember tagan psus lol

But yeah as said a good psu can last a very long time
But won't be as good as the day it came out the box
If doing a new expensive build
Then it's still worth investing in a new psu would be
My opinion
 
tamzzy said:
I'm still using an OG superflower leadex platinum from 2014 on my main PC, powering a 7800X3D and a 7900XT :cry:
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I was using a AX1200i from late 2013 to power a 9950X3D and 4090 setup, until I heard one too many noises I wasn't comfortable with from the PSU when running some AI stuff. So I replaced it with a NZXT 1500W unit.

And still got the same noises, which as it turned out were not coming from the PSU. :cry:
 
tamzzy said:
I'm still using an OG superflower leadex platinum from 2014 on my main PC, powering a 7800X3D and a 7900XT :cry:
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I recently upgraded to a 9800X3D and 5080FE

I'm also still using my Superflower Leadex 850W Gold which I bought back in 2014, no issues.

The 5080FE came with the 3xPCIe to 12VHPWR adapter.
 
I bought a Corsair Ax750 15 years ago, it failed/was replaced under warranty for a hx860i which failed (fan) so they replaced it again with a hx1000, so can’t fault Corsair for the warranty support! Think I’ve had that for a good few years now.
 
Does your PSU still work?
If so, does it work without any issues?
If so, does it still meet your requirements in terms of capacity, included connectors, etc?

if you answered "yes" to all three questions - then you really don't need a new PSU. Good ones will easily last for years, hell, even a decade or more. Why try to fix something that isn't broken?
 
Reading this thread and having posted a comment too, I'm starting to have a rethink about the 2 PSU's I currently have.
My daily drive PSU is a EVGA 550G2, Owned it 9 years and its been flawless. It's not strained though as there's no GFX card to power.
Sooner or later the 'Capacitor Degradation' will take its toll, I'd rather move it on, the Warranty runs out next year (If EVGA still honours these)
The other is a Superflower Leadex Platinum 550 watter, Probably almost as good as the EVGA, its about 6 years old and is rarely used these days.

I'm going to give it more work, It's going in my AM5 build. I'll 'retire' the 550G2 for now and replace it with something more up to date and more powerful soon, owning 2 550 watters limits my choice of GFX cards even though I hardly play any games these days. I do the odd bit of Video editing though so I think having a higher end GFX card is a requirement for that?

I'm trawling the Tier list and online reviews for what to buy.
 
I have a Corsair HX520W which has been running almost continuously since 2008 :D

According to Aida64 it's still putting out 11.904V on the 12V rail, 4.960V on the 5V, and 3.328V on the 3.3V - don't know if that's an accurate reflection of its general health, but the various systems it's been powering have all been rock solid throughout.

Now I've tempted fate it will probably go pop :(

I suppose it's not very efficient by today's standards, so I guess it should probably be replaced on that basis in any case.
 
CaptainCrash said:
According to Aida64 it's still putting out 11.904V on the 12V rail, 4.960V on the 5V, and 3.328V on the 3.3V - don't know if that's an accurate reflection of its general health, but the various systems it's been powering have all been rock solid throughout.
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You'd have to monitor the voltages under a number of conditions, ideally with a scope, to see the voltage behaviour and see how it handles ripple and demand spikes, etc. etc. to really know the health of it.
 
CaptainCrash said:
I have a Corsair HX520W which has been running almost continuously since 2008 :D

According to Aida64 it's still putting out 11.904V on the 12V rail, 4.960V on the 5V, and 3.328V on the 3.3V - don't know if that's an accurate reflection of its general health, but the various systems it's been powering have all been rock solid throughout.

Now I've tempted fate it will probably go pop :(

I suppose it's not very efficient by today's standards, so I guess it should probably be replaced on that basis in any case.
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I had one, it died after 3 years. Replaced by Corsair with an HX650, that died too after 2 years & Corsair replaced that one. 3rd time was not a charm, I sold the replacement.
I've had 40% failure rate on Corsair PSU's, last one I bought is in my Nephews rig. Have been tempted to go back to them again, but reports of a high failure rate on one of the Models & the fact that OCUK's rivals are selling refurb's (I don't think corsairs rivals do that) has put me off.
 
Read too many negative comments about Corsir psu's for them to be of interest.

Nothing lasts for ever - recent pchse was an Asus 1000w gold - 10 yr warranty does provide some peace of mind:)
 
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I bought my SuperFlower Golden Green just over 10 years old ago and it's been powered up for most of the time, bar the times I clean the PC out or swap something out. I must admit, the age of my PSU is constantly at the back of my mind, enough that I'll be replacing it when I next upgrade - which will hopefully be a little later this year.

I'm probably just worrying over nothing, but I don't fancy frying my PC just because I skimped on renewing my PSU.
 
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
But a good quality one in the first place, so if and when it pops... Then you buy a new one.

I realy don't understand the mindset of people who change PSUs for no reason other than some sort of vague notion the the capacitors are 'getting old' or whatever.
 
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mattyfez said:
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
But a good quality one in the first place, so if and when it pops... Then you buy a new one.

I realy don't understand the mindset of people who change PSUs for no reason other than some sort of vague notion the the capacitors are 'getting old' or whatever.
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I suppose the main worry is that if/when it does finally go pop it might take some other expensive components with it (depending on the manner of the pop), or some random unpredictable instability possibly leading to data loss. Not sure how much of an issue this really is in practice however.
 
I see people who think the PSU is the area to skip over whereas actually it's the most important part of the PC. As mentioned in here, it has to last people 10 years and takes care of spikes and ripples as well as general load. Yet I constantly see threads with people dropping big money on CPUs, boards and GPUs but are happy to go "oh I have an 8 year old 650w PSU that is running fine so I'll keep that". I believe the more popular response is "rock solid". Then a few months later we start to see the instability posts pop up and most of the time the thing to get blamed is bad GPU drivers or a Windows update. Not saying that doesn't happen btw. But it's like, you could have removed any shadow of a doubt and given yourself another 10+ years hassle free if you dropped money on a new PSU at the right time.
 
tamzzy said:
I'm still using an OG superflower leadex platinum from 2014 on my main PC, powering a 7800X3D and a 7900XT :cry:
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I've got a 650w version on my media PC which was originally bought to power a 4th gen I5. It's seen a lot of systems over the years but it's got an easy life now though just powering a 7700
 
Firegod said:
Then a few months later we start to see the instability posts pop up and most of the time the thing to get blamed is bad GPU drivers or a Windows update.
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I've seen a fair few cases where retrospectively I've found out people are running the latest hardware on an ancient PSU, and going through OS reinstalls and RMAing the CPU, motherboard, etc. and looking back been like hmmm.
 
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