So, I recently purchased a new Corsair AX860 PSU to replace my ageing Akasa 500W PSU and a larger case (Corsair 760T) so that I could upgrade my graphics card later in the year. I have been building systems for the last 20 or so years and work in IT, so have plenty of experience, however, things didn't work out quite as I had intended.
I completed the migration of my current system (approx 2.5yrs old, ASUS HERO VI, Core I5 4670) into the new case and attached the new Corsair PSU and all worked fine for about 6 hours until I experienced a sudden system power failure the first time the system was given a decent load on the CPU and from that point on would not power up again.
I thought it seemed a bit unusual and my immediate thought was the new PSU had failed, however, I did a full investigation and by process of elimination I discovered that the issue was only occurring when the 8 pin CPU power plug was connected and was happening with both the new Corsair PSU and the old Akasa PSU. This has lead me to believe that the motherboard is at fault and likely something has gone wrong with the VRM module on the board.
To try and restore my confidence in the new Corsair PSU before spending out on a whole new system and having a repeat, I purchased a Thermaltake Power Doctor II and hooked it up to both the old Akasa PSU and new Corsair PSU and both were showing good voltages across all rails, particularly the new Corsair PSU, which was showing solid numbers for the 12v, 5v and 3.3v with no fluctuations. Whilst I do feel some reassurance that the numbers look good, my 2.5 year old motherboard only failed when it was under load and as it is not easy to replicate this I was hoping that someone might be able to advise whether or not the failure could have been due to a fault with the Corsair PSU as this was the only real hardware change, or if it was just probably just coincidence, perhaps due to the movement of the motherboard from one case to another...my knowledge of the inner workings of a PSU is quite limited so I don't know whether the readings from the PSU tester are a sufficient indication that the PSU is fine, or if I should be concerned? Any help gratefully received!!
I completed the migration of my current system (approx 2.5yrs old, ASUS HERO VI, Core I5 4670) into the new case and attached the new Corsair PSU and all worked fine for about 6 hours until I experienced a sudden system power failure the first time the system was given a decent load on the CPU and from that point on would not power up again.
I thought it seemed a bit unusual and my immediate thought was the new PSU had failed, however, I did a full investigation and by process of elimination I discovered that the issue was only occurring when the 8 pin CPU power plug was connected and was happening with both the new Corsair PSU and the old Akasa PSU. This has lead me to believe that the motherboard is at fault and likely something has gone wrong with the VRM module on the board.
To try and restore my confidence in the new Corsair PSU before spending out on a whole new system and having a repeat, I purchased a Thermaltake Power Doctor II and hooked it up to both the old Akasa PSU and new Corsair PSU and both were showing good voltages across all rails, particularly the new Corsair PSU, which was showing solid numbers for the 12v, 5v and 3.3v with no fluctuations. Whilst I do feel some reassurance that the numbers look good, my 2.5 year old motherboard only failed when it was under load and as it is not easy to replicate this I was hoping that someone might be able to advise whether or not the failure could have been due to a fault with the Corsair PSU as this was the only real hardware change, or if it was just probably just coincidence, perhaps due to the movement of the motherboard from one case to another...my knowledge of the inner workings of a PSU is quite limited so I don't know whether the readings from the PSU tester are a sufficient indication that the PSU is fine, or if I should be concerned? Any help gratefully received!!
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