My Corsair RM850 (UK) Broke.

SuperciliousSquid · 31 Oct 2021 at 15:33

Hello Overclockers Forum,

My CORSAIR RM SERIES RM850 850W '80 PLUS GOLD' MODULAR POWER SUPPLY (CP-9020196-UK) Caught Fire. I walked into my office and the room was full of white smoke. As I could not see flames I guessed it was an electrical fire. I managed to turn off the power to the room and opened all of the windows and the smoke cleared after a couple of minutes. I have the PC completely disconnected and on the floor. I located the source of the fire by smell as the PSU reeks of burning plastic.

If I hadn't gone into that room for the rest of the day I don't know what could have happened.

Is there a known fault with this powersupply?

I upgraded it a year ago because my old one a KOLINK KL-600 600W '80 PLUS BRONZE' POWER SUPPLY didn't have the Wattage to comfortably power my new 3080.

The PC has been running completely fine for the year that I have had it, until now.

Kind of in shock. But happy the fire didn't spread.

MissChief · 31 Oct 2021 at 15:48

Contact Corsair in the first instance, they’ll likely want to examine it, but also take lots of photos! If you have home insurance it might be worth a claim.

SuperciliousSquid · 31 Oct 2021 at 15:49

MissChief said:
Contact Corsair in the first instance, they’ll likely want to examine it, but also take lots of photos! If you have home insurance it might be worth a claim.

Ok. Thank you for the advice. Will do.

Swi1ch · 31 Oct 2021 at 16:53

Do you vape around your computer? I've had 3 PSUs detonate in various ways, eventually taking out the rest of the system, because the whole thing got clogged up with vape residue.

SuperciliousSquid · 31 Oct 2021 at 17:14

Swi1ch said:
Do you vape around your computer? I've had 3 PSUs detonate in various ways, eventually taking out the rest of the system, because the whole thing got clogged up with vape residue.

Thank you for the reply. No I don't vape around the PC.

Ico · 1 Nov 2021 at 07:58

Hi op
sorry to hear that psu failed. You should fit smoke alarm for peace of mind. Battery ones are around 20quids and its 5mins. job to fit it

markymoo · 6 Nov 2021 at 08:28

This is scary. Thinking about the Corsair 850 or 850x for my next build.
Also was thinking, could leave it mining whilst on holiday. Don’t like the sound of this risk though.
Shouldn’t PSU’s trip now a days to prevent this type of behaviour?

pc-guy · 6 Nov 2021 at 08:32

Not in there is a short in the circuit somewhere prevented the circuit break kicking in. Could well be something that cause the short…or a component overheated and cascaded the problem down the circuitry.

would be interesting to know what the cause is

is this the newer 2021 model of RM850 or old RM850?

t31os · 28 Nov 2021 at 00:37

Swi1ch said:
Do you vape around your computer? I've had 3 PSUs detonate in various ways, eventually taking out the rest of the system, because the whole thing got clogged up with vape residue.

That's some weird conclusion to jump to, vaping isn't going to magically turn your PSU into an explosion waiting to happen (ventilate whether or not you smoke or vape, put on a jumper if it's too cold with the window open). High quality PSUs don't "typically" take out the rest of the system, they're designed with protections (fail safes) in place to minimize and/or prevent further damage on failure (exceptions exist, but they are not typical).

I've seen i think two PSUs go poof and do damage in decades, in both cases they were cheap PSUs, anything middle-ground and above hasn't damaged other components, exceptions, not the rule.