PSU lifespan thoughts

[mattyfez]

Somthing that has occured to me over the last few weeks is the question of how long a psu is supposed to last.
Ive read here and in other places about varying standards of psu which fail, some generic, and some branded "performance" units...
...and regardless of the psu, it seems to be not uncommon for a faliure of some kind to occur after 2-3 years usage.

Now call me a demanding consumer if you will, but that to me seems pretty poor. Even more so for the more expensive psu's.

TBH its not somthing ive ever experienced (touch wood), the first psu I ever bought on its own is the 600w model im curently using, and I bought that to replace a generic one (about 4 years old), purely because the generic one didnt have the nessesary cable layout and GPU connections.

Maybe an overclocked PC would shorten the lifespan by making the unit work harder, but presuming the overclock results in power demands that are still within the PSU's spec, that shouldn't make any difference surely?

I understand the fact that more faliures are posted on forums than sucsess stories, as you wouldnt go on the net and say "hey my psu is 6 years old and still going strong".

It just makes me raise an eyebrow when people say "yeh, brand X are great, mine lasted 2 years, they are really good"

Thoughts?

 

[semi-pro waster]

Many people upgrade their system in that timescale or even less so therefore a PSU that lasts for 2 years lasts the lifespan of the PC. PSUs are one of the hardest working parts of any system because they have to cope with sometimes variable quality of input and maintain a well regulated output to components and because they use capacitors will suffer some degredation over time and become less efficient.

I'm currently using a 4 year old PSU with no problems, I've got another PC which must be knocking on for almost a decade old now (AMD K6 333mhz based) and that still works flawlessly when I switch it on. Just to give you a couple of examples where systems are carrying on.

 

[WarBird]

well think about the warranty on some of the psu,eg. corsair is 5years isn't it? they are obviously expecting the majority of their psus to last that length of time or else they could find themselves losing a lot of money.

 

[mattyfez]

Yeh, thats part of the reason I got the corsair....

I was just a bit bemused, after reading some posts that PSUs had lasted 2 years and they seem happy with that! I wouldn't be unless I was pushing the limits on it.

Unless its refering to an upgrade replacement rather than replacing a failed unit.

 

[mdjmcnally]

I've only bothered buying new PSU's when needed to for a connector change.

ie 24pin + 8pin ATX connectors or PCI-E connectors. Never had one fail on me yet in 10 years of building PC's.

I really should replace my ST60F as useless for overclocking but I can't be bothered to recable the PC.

 

[EffBee]

Don't know if it is true or not but I've seen it said in tech forums that PSUs age. That is to say as they get older year on year the max wattage they supply across all their voltage lines drops.

If true I can see that this might lead to instability and look like a failure when a borderline PSU can't quite supply the power across all lines due to ageing.

 

[Nullvoid]

Thoughts?

I'd say a large proportion of all failures occur because people don't have cases that are well enough ventilated and when you stick a power supply in that is already of quite poor quality (max rated wattage only reachable at 25degC or capacitors rated for a max of 40degC), it's a recipe for trouble.

Ideally to get around it:

1. Buy a unit that is rated at 50degC.
2. Only buy units with at least 3 or 5 year warranties.
3. Read some reviews about them and verify they use capacitors that can cope with high temperatures.
4. Make sure your case is well ventilated and won't rely on the PSU as your main exhaust of hot air.

 

[mattyfez]

Don't know if it is true or not but I've seen it said in tech forums that PSUs age. That is to say as they get older year on year the max wattage they supply across all their voltage lines drops.

If true I can see that this might lead to instability and look like a failure when a borderline PSU can't quite supply the power across all lines due to ageing.

Yeh capacitors do degrade, not sure wether thats age related or usage related though....I would suspect the latter, the harder and longer they are actually used, the quicker they degrade.