My PSU Exploded. I've learned my lesson
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sakotius
July 14, 2011 12:11:57 AM
So my PSU exploded the other day. The brand was alpine and i had bought it from ebay. When i researched cheap PSU's, i saw warnings about them and decided to ignore them. Well it's been around half a year since i had the PSU and i decided to stress test my GFX card as i was getting info for a new case. All of a sudden BOOM-BOOM!! BOOM!! three bangs that sounded like gunshots accompanied by a blue flash for each bang. I thought "this is the end for my computer" upon further inspection, only the PSU had gone and the rest of the components worked fine (i know how lucky i am)
So now i know not to give my PC cheap tat from ebay and always go with premium brands. Here is my question though. The PSU i went with is the TX850 from Corsair. As this is a premium brand, does this mean this one won't explode?
Thanks guys
So now i know not to give my PC cheap tat from ebay and always go with premium brands. Here is my question though. The PSU i went with is the TX850 from Corsair. As this is a premium brand, does this mean this one won't explode?
Thanks guys
More about : psu exploded learned lesson
tokencode
July 14, 2011 12:28:42 AM
The explosions were probable capacitors, cheap PSUs=cheap components. Antec power supplies are my favorite, Corsair has a good reputation overall though so you will probably be better off that you were. Also make sure you buy a supply rated at LEAST the wattage you require. Some manufacturers (Antec) are conservative in their numbers while others are much more liberal in their power ratings.
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sakotius
July 14, 2011 2:15:12 PM
JordoR
July 14, 2011 2:54:47 PM
That 850TXV2 is a great PSU from Corsair. I have bought several recently for various builds.
Manufactured by Seasonic, 5 Year Warranty, 80+ Bronze Rated, can supply 840W, and has exceptionally high ratings from JonnyGuru and other major review sites.
I would be surprised if this one were to blow up on you
.
Manufactured by Seasonic, 5 Year Warranty, 80+ Bronze Rated, can supply 840W, and has exceptionally high ratings from JonnyGuru and other major review sites.
I would be surprised if this one were to blow up on you
.
gamerk316
July 14, 2011 3:39:25 PM
Own a thermaltake toughpower grand 750W PSU - before that a toughpower 600W psu - before that a thermaltake TR2 420W - before that a cheap Chinese PSU that had only 250~300W of juice to power a 400W rig. Like you i witnessed my psu go out with a nice blue flash. My two friends infront of me left my house to avoid the fingerpointing game
2 months in and i noticed everything was failing. The Cheap psu gave a surge of electricity that slowly poisoned my P4 rig to death. Now you know why I've steadily moved up with PSU's to avoid the same thing happening again.
2 months in and i noticed everything was failing. The Cheap psu gave a surge of electricity that slowly poisoned my P4 rig to death. Now you know why I've steadily moved up with PSU's to avoid the same thing happening again.
gamerk316
July 14, 2011 6:26:43 PM
tokencode
July 18, 2011 3:22:53 AM
gamerk316 said:
Quote:
Problem is if you buy a no name one then they just print 80+ Bronze on the box, the same as they print 800W on a 300W PSU. Thats why you check the 80+ website to validate the unit meets its claim.
Why should we have to? all this wrongly labeled PSU crap really pisses me off. Surely there is some consumer law that is not being enforced here..... Someone needs to take these liars down. Many people dont know that PSU's get mislabeled and that manufacturers blatently lie about specs.
tokencode
July 18, 2011 4:54:17 AM
gamerk316 said:
As a general rule: If its rated 80+ Bronze or better, it shouldn't blow up on you if you run it at its rated power. I don't even consider PSU's that aren't at least 80+ Bronze anymore...80+ tests units at 25c and i do believe no one pc case will ever be at that temp while stress testing
Just having purchased a power supply I did a lot of research on reputable brands, there are actually a lot of them. The problem is that most of them come with a premium price tag. You will see Antec, and Coursair a lot, because believe it or not they are the cheaper ones among the quality brands. There are even more brands that have inconsistencies among their products but do have some that are quality products.
Delta, Channel Well, Enermax, Coursair, Antec, Power PC & Cooling, Zippy, FSP, Seasonic, Silverstone, AcBel and Seventeam are some of the ones with better reputations. Not all of them are available to the consumer market in the US. AcBel for example is bigger in other countries, and Zippy is primarily a server PSU supplier.
Find one that appeals to you, and then research it to death. Read as many reviews as you can on it. See if there is a review on Jonnyguru for the one you are getting.
Also learn what makes a good power supply. Some of them are single rail systems, and others are multi rail systems meaning that the 12v line is either one one rated fail safe or several. Some of the cheaper multi rail systems are really just a single rail system in disguise.
Watch out for PSU's that rate their 3.3 and 5 lines higher to inflate the watts to make it appear to be a better power supply than it is. You really want to look for a lot of watts for your 12v line since that runs most of your power hungry components (graphics cards), and the cpu. For 750watt PSUs single rail systems 12v amps in the 60+ range are good, where in the true multi rail psu's 25+ amps are good.
For my recent purchase I went with the Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W because it was the best PSU I could get for the least amount of money (It will cost me $60 assuming I get the rebate back).
~B
[edited to change 40 to 60]
Delta, Channel Well, Enermax, Coursair, Antec, Power PC & Cooling, Zippy, FSP, Seasonic, Silverstone, AcBel and Seventeam are some of the ones with better reputations. Not all of them are available to the consumer market in the US. AcBel for example is bigger in other countries, and Zippy is primarily a server PSU supplier.
Find one that appeals to you, and then research it to death. Read as many reviews as you can on it. See if there is a review on Jonnyguru for the one you are getting.
Also learn what makes a good power supply. Some of them are single rail systems, and others are multi rail systems meaning that the 12v line is either one one rated fail safe or several. Some of the cheaper multi rail systems are really just a single rail system in disguise.
Watch out for PSU's that rate their 3.3 and 5 lines higher to inflate the watts to make it appear to be a better power supply than it is. You really want to look for a lot of watts for your 12v line since that runs most of your power hungry components (graphics cards), and the cpu. For 750watt PSUs single rail systems 12v amps in the 60+ range are good, where in the true multi rail psu's 25+ amps are good.
For my recent purchase I went with the Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W because it was the best PSU I could get for the least amount of money (It will cost me $60 assuming I get the rebate back).
~B
[edited to change 40 to 60]
Lutfij said:
Own a thermaltake toughpower grand 750W PSU - before that a toughpower 600W psu - before that a thermaltake TR2 420W - before that a cheap Chinese PSU that had only 250~300W of juice to power a 400W rig. Like you i witnessed my psu go out with a nice blue flash. My two friends infront of me left my house to avoid the fingerpointing game
2 months in and i noticed everything was failing. The Cheap psu gave a surge of electricity that slowly poisoned my P4 rig to death. Now you know why I've steadily moved up with PSU's to avoid the same thing happening again.Thermaltake is one of the companies with variable quality products. As a general rule of thumb as the watts go up the quality goes up. I had the misfortune of getting one of their 430 watt psu's only to find out latter than the stock Delta 300 psu that I replaced was a better PSU.
totalknowledge said:
Just having purchased a power supply I did a lot of research on reputable brands, there are actually a lot of them. The problem is that most of them come with a premium price tag. You will see Antec, and Coursair a lot, because believe it or not they are the cheaper ones among the quality brands. There are even more brands that have inconsistencies among their products but do have some that are quality products.Delta, Channel Well, Enermax, Coursair, Antec, Power PC & Cooling, Zippy, FSP, Seasonic, Silverstone, AcBel and Seventeam are some of the ones with better reputations. Not all of them are available to the consumer market in the US. AcBel for example is bigger in other countries, and Zippy is primarily a server PSU supplier.
Find one that appeals to you, and then research it to death. Read as many reviews as you can on it. See if there is a review on Jonnyguru for the one you are getting.
Also learn what makes a good power supply. Some of them are single rail systems, and others are multi rail systems meaning that the 12v line is either one one rated fail safe or several. Some of the cheaper multi rail systems are really just a single rail system in disguise.
Watch out for PSU's that rate their 3.3 and 5 lines higher to inflate the watts to make it appear to be a better power supply than it is. You really want to look for a lot of watts for your 12v line since that runs most of your power hungry components (graphics cards), and the cpu. For 750watt PSUs single rail systems 12v amps in the 40+ range are good, where in the true multi rail psu's 25+ amps are good.
For my recent purchase I went with the Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W because it was the best PSU I could get for the least amount of money (It will cost me $60 assuming I get the rebate back).
~B
You should slow down , trying to absorb to much knowledge all at once leads to mistakes.
All of the cheaper and even not so cheap "multi-rail" units are single rail unit's in disguise, it's the OCP circuits that split the 12v source (rail).
True multi rail units are typically in the 1000w range and it's the addition of a second 12v source ( not OCP circuits ) that makes them multi-rail.
High 3.3 and 5v ratings aren't there to make a psu seem more powerful than it is, just means the unit is based on an older design.
60+ amps for a good 750 watt power supply ( even crappy Coolmax 750w unit's are rated for 50a ) , doesn't matter much if it's single or multi-rail.
delluser1 said:
You should slow down , trying to absorb to much knowledge all at once leads to mistakes.All of the cheaper and even not so cheap "multi-rail" units are single rail unit's in disguise, it's the OCP circuits that split the 12v source (rail).
True multi rail units are typically in the 1000w range and it's the addition of a second 12v source ( not OCP circuits ) that makes them multi-rail.
High 3.3 and 5v ratings aren't there to make a psu seem more powerful than it is, just means the unit is based on an older design.
60+ amps for a good 750 watt power supply ( even crappy Coolmax 750w unit's are rated for 50a ) , doesn't matter much if it's single or multi-rail.
What did I say in error? The Antec that I bought I believe is a single rail system that is 40 amp... are you saying that it isn't a good psu?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
ETA: My apologies, the product description on Newegg is misleading. Even though I am pretty sure it is (underneath it all) a single rail unit, the actual total amperage it can handle according to this write up: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/296822-28-antec-high-... is 62.5 amps. Its also really a Delta unit being manufactured for Antec.
As for the other parts of my post that you highlighted, you go on to say the same thing. Coolmax for example is one of the makers that tends to have highly rated 3.3v and 5v lines but skimps on the 12v line(s).
leandrodafontoura
July 18, 2011 6:25:32 PM
Mine exploded once also, it was a cheap PSU that came with the case. the case was awsome, a RAIDMAX model from 2004, the PSU was 200W I believe. It was fine for booting into Windows, but then I decided to play Battlefield 2....4 miintues in the action, and the thing exploded, similary, along with the flashes.... In a strange way, I was alredy expecting that to happen, so I knew it was only the PSU, had it replaced with a Thermaltake 750W
WiredShock
October 13, 2011 5:37:04 PM
I had the same PSU from ebay branded as Alpine supposedly 750 watts it also blew but it gave off 2 bangs followed by a blue flash. It appeared to happen when i was playing a game that requires alot of graphics about 20 minutes in the failure took place. Luckily everything other than the PSU survived. i also re-plugged the psu with it no longer connected to my motherboard or any other components and to my suprise the fuse had not blown and it was sparking and popping. i have since purchased an FSP Group everest 85plus 800 for £80 just hoping that this one doesn't blow out when i start gaming.
RussK1
October 13, 2011 5:46:58 PM
sakotius said:
So my PSU exploded the other day. The brand was alpine and i had bought it from ebay. When i researched cheap PSU's, i saw warnings about them and decided to ignore them. Well it's been around half a year since i had the PSU and i decided to stress test my GFX card as i was getting info for a new case. All of a sudden BOOM-BOOM!! BOOM!! three bangs that sounded like gunshots accompanied by a blue flash for each bang. I thought "this is the end for my computer" upon further inspection, only the PSU had gone and the rest of the components worked fine (i know how lucky i am)So now i know not to give my PC cheap tat from ebay and always go with premium brands. Here is my question though. The PSU i went with is the TX850 from Corsair. As this is a premium brand, does this mean this one won't explode?
Thanks guys
The TX850 is great... the only problem I have with it is the fact it's non-modular. You won't go wrong either way if don't mind the non-modular design.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=...
Daniel Vekslender
December 8, 2013 10:09:40 AM
RussK1
December 8, 2013 12:15:58 PM
Calculatron
December 8, 2013 1:05:33 PM
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