Concerning issue with PSU?

[Turbof1]

Hello,

 

I am currently doing some maintenance on an older pc, including opening up the psu and getting the dust out.

 

 

Although the psu itself is also old, it still looks to be in decent shap. No bulging capacitors for instance.

 

However, one part looks fishy. I have no idea with the part is. Check picture

 

I could be wrong, but the upper edge looks a bit melt? I can be wrong.

 

[Bombastinator]

I’m not seeing any evidence of melting in the pic. Are you talking about aluminum heat sink fins?  Aluminum melts at crazy high temperatures.  Things around it would burn.  I’m not seeing any melting or discoloration on any of the wiring or even the scotch tape holding the label down on one component.

[Curious Pineapple]

Do you mean the 8TG00525 transformer? If so there's nothing wrong with it, that's just where some of the windings exit the transformer and have a resin applied to secure them in place

[Turbof1]

37 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Do you mean the 8TG00525 transformer? If so there's nothing wrong with it, that's just where some of the windings exit the transformer and have a resin applied to secure them in place

Yes that is the part I meant. Thanks for letting me know the psu is still in a good shape!

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, Turbof1 said:

Yes that is the part I meant. Thanks for letting me know the psu is still in a good shape!

Visually problem free anyway. “Good shape” is another question.

[Kilrah]

Isn't there some green corrosion at the bottom on the PCB? 

 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Isn't there some green corrosion at the bottom on the PCB? 

 

Possibly a good catch.

I can’t tell.  Not enough resolution.  There is some greying but it might be dust.  It’s an old PSU after all.  It’s a narrow space.

 

maybe a dusting and a closer pic of that area is in order.

[Turbof1]

As far as I could tell there was no corossion. The pic is not all too clear.

[Giffany]

may look fine but who knows how stable the ripple and stuff it does is though. i had a 10 year old psu been working fine but i had my system blow one day. to this day dont know if it was the psu or the board was going hah.

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, Giffany said:

may look fine but who knows how stable the ripple and stuff it does is though. i had a 10 year old psu been working fine but i had my system blow one day. to this day dont know if it was the psu or the board was going hah.

Yep.  Visuals can find some gross issues.  They’re not conclusive though.

[Turbof1]

I never had issues with it so far! Of course I'll replace once it is needed, but so far I am very pleased with it. Just that I noticeda lot of dust heaped up in it and so I wanted to clean it. Had to break the warranty seal too for it

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Turbof1 said:

I never had issues with it so far! 

Isn't that the way everything works?

 

You don't have any issues... until you do.

 

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Isn't that the way everything works?

 

You don't have any issues... until you do.

 

It does bring up an issue with PSUs in general. I kind of wish they didn’t have that whole “of it dies in the line of duty it may take every component you have with it” thing.  It would be nice if there were some sort of safety system.

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

It does bring up an issue with PSUs in general. I kind of wish they didn’t have that whole “of it dies in the line of duty it may take every component you have with it” thing.  It would be nice if there were some sort of safety system.

i mean, thats why you buy a good psu so you dont have to worry as much about a power surge or the thing catching on fire...

if you have an rmx or hi psu you shouldnt have to worry about anything unless you dont have proper airflow or your whole circuit surges (get a surge protector) 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

It does bring up an issue with PSUs in general. I kind of wish they didn’t have that whole “of it dies in the line of duty it may take every component you have with it” thing.  It would be nice if there were some sort of safety system.

There is.

 

If you don't buy garbage PSUs.

 

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

There is.

 

If you don't buy garbage PSUs.

 

Once upon a time all PSUs were garbage PSUs then.  It used to be you didn’t buy garbage PSUs because they were very unlikely to do that in 5 years and you replaced them every five years whether they needed it or not to avoid the problem.  This seems to no longer be the case.  I find this very interesting.

 

 @scuff gang mentioned some things called Rmx and hi that I need to look up

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Once upon a time all PSUs were garbage PSUs then.  It used to be you didn’t buy garbage PSUs because they were very unlikely to do that in 5 years and you replaced them every five years whether they needed it or not to avoid the problem.  This seems to no longer be the case.  I find this very interesting.

 

 @scuff gang mentioned some things called Rmx and hi that I need to look up

it will show up as corsair rm(whatever wattage)x 

for example i have a RM850x 

the 850 stands for 850 watts, hi is a the pinnacle of psu's and comes at a premium. RMx is good enough for most users 

[Turbof1]

11 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

Isn't that the way everything works?

 

You don't have any issues... until you do.

 

Not necessarily.

 

For one it is a Be Quiet psu with 80plus certification. It's not a cheap Ali Express one. So it will have safeties built to avoid taking the whole system with it.

 

Second, bulging caps usually are good indicators if your psu is up for replacement. Now this was the first time I opened it up, for a dust removal, and other than the resin stuff, which turned out to be perfectly fine and normal, all caps look good and nothing looked out of place.

 

No that does not omit all issues. It does however omit a large chunk of them. To the point the age thing can be considered a psychological fear.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Turbof1 said:

For one it is a Be Quiet psu with 80plus certification.

80  PLUS certificaion is a badge of efficiency. Not quality.

 

7 hours ago, Turbof1 said:

Second, bulging caps usually are good indicators if your psu is up for replacement.

Too bad power supplies are so much more than a box of capacitors.

 

99% of the time, a failed PSU is not a failed PSU because a cap popped.

 

Also, old caps don't necessarily bulge.  What causes bulging caps is a chemical reaction that builds up pressure in the cap.  If the plug at the bottom dries out due to age, they'll leak at the bottom and not bulge at the top.  If the water in the electrolyte evaporates, you may not see signs of that until it's charged and pops.  Sometimes the oxide layer can break up, but there's no visual signs of this, though if you know if a capacitor is only suffering from lack of oxide layer, those capacitors can be "reformed" by slowly charging them to their specified capacity.

 

[Bombastinator]

12 hours ago, scuff gang said:

it will show up as corsair rm(whatever wattage)x 

for example i have a RM850x 

the 850 stands for 850 watts, hi is a the pinnacle of psu's and comes at a premium. RMx is good enough for most users 

So it’s a brand name reference not a technology?

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Once upon a time all PSUs were garbage PSUs then.  It used to be you didn’t buy garbage PSUs because they were very unlikely to do that in 5 years and you replaced them every five years whether they needed it or not to avoid the problem.  This seems to no longer be the case.  I find this very interesting.

Yes.  Once upon a time all PSUs were garbage.  For the same reasons a lot of SI's still use garbage PSUs today.

 

1.  There's no "bullet point" for PSU quality you can put on your spec sheet.  CPU is this fast, GPU is this fast, this much RAM, this much storage... .PSU?  Oh..... 500W something or another.

2. There used to be no requirement for safety for PSUs installed by end users.  Though now I feel we have too many (why do we need BSMI to sell into Taiwan when we already have CE to sell into Europe and CCC to sell into China and KCC to sell into Korea?)  Since the PSU was installed by an end user, the liability of failure is put on the end user doing something wrong rather than the PSU being garbage.

3.  PFC wasn't even required in the EU until the 2010 or so.

 

4. Warranties have gotten longer.  Used to be a PSU would only have a 1 year warranty.  Many only have a 2 year warranty because of local consumer laws.

5.  Competent PSU reviewers are few and far between.  I can tell you a CPU or GPU is fast by running benchmark software.  How did early reviewers tell you your PSU was Ok?  Oh yeah.... "The PC turned on."

I could go on....

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So it’s a brand name reference not a technology?

No.  What he's saying is if you get a PSU that is well reviewed, uses the latest technology to achieve the maximum performance, best efficiency for the price range, good warranty length AND terms, well known ODM, etc., you're likely to get a good PSU.

 

If you get a PSU where the box just says "it's a 550W", then all bets are off.... including the fact that the PSU is even actually a 550W.

Unfortunately, there's still no "governing body" that requires a computer power supply meets ANY criteria other than what's required for that region, which is typically efficiency or safety (can't shock you when you touch the housing) requirements.  Outside of that, I can take a 150W power supply, slap a 600W label on it and be completely legit (legally.... not morally.)

 

 

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

No.  What he's saying is if you get a PSU that is well reviewed, uses the latest technology to achieve the maximum performance, best efficiency for the price range, good warranty length AND terms, well known ODM, etc., you're likely to get a good PSU.

 

If you get a PSU where the box just says "it's a 550W", then all bets are off.... including the fact that the PSU is even actually a 550W.

Unfortunately, there's still no "governing body" that requires a computer power supply meets ANY criteria other than what's required for that region, which is typically efficiency or safety (can't shock you when you touch the housing) requirements.  Outside of that, I can take a 150W power supply, slap a 600W label on it and be completely legit (legally.... not morally.)

 

 

So no actual protection improvements then.  Same old same old.  Oh well.  I had hope  for a second.

[Spotty]

14 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

mentioned some things called Rmx and hi that I need to look up

 

16 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So it’s a brand name reference not a technology?

The RMx and HXi (I'm assuming they meant HXi not Hi) are the names of two models of power supplies made by Corsair.

 

Corsair power supply model names are VS, CX, CXm, TXm, RM, RMx, RMi, HX, HXi, AX, AXi.

 

It's not a technology or a protection. They were just offering suggestions of which models to buy.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So no actual protection improvements then.  Same old same old.  Oh well.  I had hope  for a second.

So you want there to be MORE protections available, but you don't care if they're actually implemented or not?

 

There are only so many protections you can have.  It's whether or not protections are implemented or not is the question.

 

Nothing actually REQUIRES a PSU to have OCP, OTP, OPP, UVP, OVP, etc.  You can buy a PSU today that has none of those... or has them implemented very poorly (i.e. UVP doesn't trip until +12V is down around 6V or OPP doesn't trip until the PSU is 200% overloaded).   A good PSU will have all of the necessary protections AND have them implemented correctly.

 

Do you know what you're talking about or maybe you're just trolling me....