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I think my PSU may be dying.

Ulz

OK, here's the context: 

I don't know how old the PSU is, I predict that it is almost 8 years old as the GPU's that came with this system were 770s.

Since then I've undergone multiple upgrades. I upgraded my CPU to a ryzen 5 5600x, 8gb DDR4 Memory, ASRock B450 Steel Legend and an RX 580. That graphics card died less than a year after the upgrade (I bought it in June 2020 while the prices were good). I RMA'd the card and went back to my 770, no big deal. Recently (less than a month ago) I upgraded to an EVGA GTX 970 described as refurbished off an eBay seller. That card died in every way possible. It functions yeah but it's just barely hanging on (see picture). I just sent the card back to the seller and he swapped me for an EVGA GTX 970 FTW. It has arrived and I'm scared to put it in as I don't want to kill another card. This PSU has probably been in a lot of stress since I got it: I play ALOT of heavy games such as Cold War, Warzone, Far Cry 5 and other games that you could consider to be pretty power hungry. Before I played those, I was a streamer. I had 1 770 for playing and the other for nvenc. That could also contribute to a high power draw. Anyway, what do you think? Is my PSU dying? Is it safe to put this new card in? Have I provided enough information or do I need to give more for a verdict? 

IMG20210418104952.jpg

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Just now, Ulz said:

OK, here's the context: 

I don't know how old the PSU is, I predict that it is almost 8 years old as the GPU's that came with this system were 770s.

Since then I've undergone multiple upgrades. I upgraded my CPU to a ryzen 5 5600x, 8gb DDR4 Memory, ASRock B450 Steel Legend and an RX 580. That graphics card died less than a year after the upgrade (I bought it in June 2020 while the prices were good). I RMA'd the card and went back to my 770, no big deal. Recently (less than a month ago) I upgraded to an EVGA GTX 970 described as refurbished off an eBay seller. That card died in every way possible. It functions yeah but it's just barely hanging on (see picture). I just sent the card back to the seller and he swapped me for an EVGA GTX 970 FTW. It has arrived and I'm scared to put it in as I don't want to kill another card. This PSU has probably been in a lot of stress since I got it: I play ALOT of heavy games such as Cold War, Warzone, Far Cry 5 and other games that you could consider to be pretty power hungry. Before I played those, I was a streamer. I had 1 770 for playing and the other for nvenc. That could also contribute to a high power draw. Anyway, what do you think? Is my PSU dying? Is it safe to put this new card in? Have I provided enough information or do I need to give more for a verdict? 

IMG20210418104952.jpg

Do you not know what wattage, efficiency, or company it is?

Big nerd. 

 

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you didnt even say what power supply the system is using

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Just now, davemc said:

Do you not know what wattage, efficiency, or company it is?

It is a 650w XFX Pro Series, non modular, 80+ Bronze 

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17 minutes ago, Ulz said:

IMG20210418104952.jpg

Being 8 years old and seeing as it had a 5 year warranty, I'd just assume it has and replace it.  Better safe than sorry.  Because there's not really any way to conclusively test it without expensive equipment, cheap testers only check the voltages are in-spec, not that it delivers them stably under heavy load.

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5 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Being 8 years old and seeing as it had a 5 year warranty, I'd just assume it has and replace it.  Better safe than sorry.  Because there's not really any way to conclusively test it without expensive equipment, cheap testers only check the voltages are in-spec, not that it delivers them stably under heavy load.

OK, thanks for your help. I was just wondering, how come my GTX 770s can survive perfectly well but my 970 and 580 can't? I'm assuming it has something to do with the gtx 770 having a higher tdp but I really don't know.

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If the capacitors are failing on the PSU then the higher the load, the more unstable the supply will become.

There's probably a cut-off point where the load is high enough to cause spikes which stress the VRMs/capacitors on the GPU, so they are having to do more work than they should and thus start to fail.  Or even the 770s could have better power circuitry in general so cope better.

 

You also have to bear in mind GPU load can be very bursty in nature, so again its putting more stress on the PSU than just the higher load on its own.

Router:  Intel N100 (pfSense) WiFi6: Zyxel NWA210AX (1.7Gbit peak at 160Mhz)
WiFi5: Ubiquiti NanoHD OpenWRT (~500Mbit at 80Mhz) Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, MS510TXPP, GS110EMX
ISPs: Zen Full Fibre 900 (~930Mbit down, 115Mbit up) + Three 5G (~800Mbit down, 115Mbit up)
Upgrading Laptop/Desktop CNVIo WiFi 5 cards to PCIe WiFi6e/7

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3 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

If the capacitors are failing on the PSU then the higher the load, the more unstable the supply will become.

There's probably a cut-off point where the load is high enough to cause spikes which stress the VRMs/capacitors on the GPU, so they are having to do more work than they should and thus start to fail.  Or even the 770s could have better power circuitry in general so cope better.

 

You also have to bear in mind GPU load can be very bursty in nature, so again its putting more stress on the PSU than just the higher load on its own.

OK, that makes sense. It's an old PSU so it was time to upgrade anyway, that's just the final nail in the coffin for it I guess, given that you could assume it's killed 2 GPUs at this point.

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