Is it bad to flip the switch on the PSU every day?

[Zapthos_]

My PC is right next to my bed but my RM650x has a little bit of coil whine when the PC is turned off which is annoying. If I turn it off with the switch on the back it goes away, but is it bad if I do this every day?

[SupaKomputa]

No.

[seon123]

Yes. Doing so will over time damage the PSU due to the high inrush current, and there have been at least a few threads here where people killed their PSUs by doing that. 

 

If the coil whine really bothers you, contact Corsair and get an RMA. 

[Zapthos_]

4 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Yes. Doing so will over time damage the PSU due to the high inrush current, and there have been at least a few threads here where people killed their PSUs by doing that. 

 

If the coil whine really bothers you, contact Corsair and get an RMA. 

It doesn't bother me enough to RMA it, but if I could fix it in a simple way that would be great. Is it also bad to turn off the power strip my PC is plugged into (other devices in there are my monitor and 2nd wifi router)?

 

I'm not even sure if it's the PSU that's faulty. My PC has been doing this also when turned on under high load, coming from the motherboard VRM and GPU. I've already replaced the motherboard with a different model, GPU 3x with different models and PSU with a different model. This makes me think it's the power from the socket being the issue and not the PSU itself

[Ubuntu is love]

Nope should not matter, yes there are cases where the psu broke in that instance. Could be an coincidence? Maybe. It does give an high inrush current but with an PSU like RM650x it should not matter.

 

So yes there is an higher chance it will brake, but it's around the same chance than plugging in a vacuum cleaner on the same power group.

[Master Disaster]

36 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Yes. Doing so will over time damage the PSU due to the high inrush current, and there have been at least a few threads here where people killed their PSUs by doing that. 

 

If the coil whine really bothers you, contact Corsair and get an RMA. 

Yeah, no (at least not for any half decent PSU anyway). High inrush current is only a problem with cheapo nasty PSUs that say they're rated for X watts but in reality haven't been tested, any good PSU will have filtering and built in power surge protection plus the engineers will have taken initial power on load into consideration when designing the unit.

 

It wouldn't be a great look if the A tier PSUs couldn't even handle flipping the power switch off and on again.

 

44 minutes ago, Zapthos_ said:

My PC is right next to my bed but my RM650x has a little bit of coil whine when the PC is turned off which is annoying. If I turn it off with the switch on the back it goes away, but is it bad if I do this every day?

The only side affect is your battery will die much faster, when the PSU is on a trickle current is used to power the BIOS circuit, with it off the battery does it instead so by turning the PSU off you're forcing the board to use the battery constantly.

[Zapthos_]

6 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

The only side affect is your battery will die much faster, when the PSU is on a trickle current is used to power the BIOS circuit, with it off the battery does it instead so by turning the PSU off you're forcing the board to use the battery constantly.

That's not an issue, I have a lot of these batteries and they're dirt cheap (they are just CR2032 batteries right?)

[Ubuntu is love]

3 minutes ago, Zapthos_ said:

they are just CR2032 batteries right?

Yes sir!

[Mark Kaine]

yup, actually its super bad to turn electronics on and off often ,and especially PCs (and game consoles, tvs etc)

 

 

[--SID--]

2 hours ago, Zapthos_ said:

My PC is right next to my bed but my RM650x has a little bit of coil whine when the PC is turned off which is annoying. If I turn it off with the switch on the back it goes away, but is it bad if I do this every day?

Make sure all RGB shut down when you shut down the system.

Are there lot of USB devices connected?

[Zapthos_]

5 hours ago, --SID-- said:

Make sure all RGB shut down when you shut down the system.

Are there lot of USB devices connected?

No RGB is enabled when shut down.

The only device connected to my USB is my monitor's USB hub, which my mouse receiver, keyboard receiver, monitor RGB strip and TV stick are connected to. I don't think this is the issue as these ports have their own power from the monitor

[Master Disaster]

6 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

yup, actually its super bad to turn electronics on and off often ,and especially PCs (and game consoles, tvs etc)

If that were true then why do old electronics from back before soft off was even a thing still work perfectly? IBM PS2s, 286s, 386s, CRT TVs & Monitors, Games Consoles, Micro Computers etc etc all still work 20, 30 and even 40 years after they were first built yet they only have a hard power on/off switch.

 

I have no idea where this myth started but its demonstrably false, low powered devices really don't care about startup current and high powered devices are manufactured in such a way as to compensate for it, for example in older electronics they would add caps and resistors in such a way as to add resistance to the line until the caps were charged and could filter the current properly since powering on from a hard off is essentially a short to ground until enough time passes that power is equal across the entire circuit, I'm sure these days its done electronically using logic gates.

 

The point still stands though, any halfway decent PSU will be designed to cope with sudden power spikes at first switch on since its a fundamental thing in electronic engineering.

[Mark Kaine]

30 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

CRT TVs & Monitors, Games Consoles, Micro Computers etc etc all still work 20, 30 and even 40 years

yeah sure. also tvs had standby 40 years ago........ 

 

30 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

demonstrably false,

ah ok.

 

30 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

have no idea where this myth started

its not a myth,  decades of experience and ironically 

 

30 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

electronic engineering.

say otherwise.  

 

i think its pointless to discuss this further, it feels youre just disagreeing for the sake of it. 

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Zapthos_ said:

No RGB is enabled when shut down.

The only device connected to my USB is my monitor's USB hub

I bet that's the problem.  And it's probably BECAUSE the hub has it's own power.

 

Why not just unplug it and see if the noise goes away.

 

My kid's PC has a powered USB hub.  When plugged in to AC power, it makes the PSU sing in standby.  Unplug the USB hub and the PC is dead silent.

 

Also love how nobody in this thread can agree. 

 

Any... even decent.... PSU can eventually fail from switching it on and off all the time.  Not only do the switches and relays themselves fail (they're mechanical parts.  Plastic that can snap and a spring that can jam), but the actual NTC thermistor parts that limit the inrush that prevent inrush can fail themselves.  Of course, not having these parts would just mean the PSU would fail sooner.   Heat cycles can cause any part to fail.  And keep in mind that a thermistor works on the premise of the inrush current heating up the thermistor until it's resistance drops to the point where it can allow the current to flow past it.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dogzilla07]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

decades of experience

@Master Disaster Same here, had a CRT button fail after I turned it off every night and on in the morning, after having it repaired that CRT is still working almost 20 years later, but the button wasn't, won't and never will work if used constantly for >4 years again.

 

Also, in the same time-frame, the button for a LC power LC6560GP3 broke after 5 or so years (a friend's also broke the same way).

 

I've also had the button on a Seasonic SS-750KM3 start to get a bit wonky after 5 years (of lighter usage), and when I sold it, felt borderline. As far as I know the switch has never been flipped since and it's still working fine 12 years now (with some coil whine).

 

So yeah, I'm not diddling buttons any more than absolute minimum necessary ever again xD

 

@Zapthos_ If unplugging the hub doesn't work, your best choice is just get a nice medium-decent quality extension cable with a buttom/switch from IKEA or a Cyberpower one and just flip it into oblivion. That way for ~$12 every fear years you don't play the odds, and it's irrelevant what's true xD

[Zapthos_]

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

I bet that's the problem.  And it's probably BECAUSE the hub has it's own power.

 

Why not just unplug it and see if the noise goes away.

 

My kid's PC has a powered USB hub.  When plugged in to AC power, it makes the PSU sing in standby.  Unplug the USB hub and the PC is dead silent.

 

Also love how nobody in this thread can agree. 

 

Any... even decent.... PSU can eventually fail from switching it on and off all the time.  Not only do the switches and relays themselves fail (they're mechanical parts.  Plastic that can snap and a spring that can jam), but the actual NTC thermistor parts that limit the inrush that prevent inrush can fail themselves.  Of course, not having these parts would just mean the PSU would fail sooner.   Heat cycles can cause any part to fail.  And keep in mind that a thermistor works on the premise of the inrush current heating up the thermistor until it's resistance drops to the point where it can allow the current to flow past it.

Tried unplugging it but it made no difference. Also unplugged the monitor from the GPU and my headphones leaving only the power cable. I'm pretty sure it's related to the power in my house somehow being dirty, a lot of other devices make coil whine sounds and when under load the PC whines from the GPU and motherboard even after replacing all parts that could cause this.

 

25 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

@Zapthos_ If unplugging the hub doesn't work, your best choice is just get a nice medium-decent quality extension cable with a buttom/switch from IKEA or a Cyberpower one and just flip it into oblivion. That way for ~$12 every fear years you don't play the odds, and it's irrelevant what's true xD

If you're talking about the one in the image that's what I already have everything plugged into. But when turning that on and off it should be fine for devices connected to it, right (PC, monitor, 2nd Wifi router and some lights)?

[Dogzilla07]

@Zapthos_Not ideally, if u have the capability run another extension from the socket, or a different socket just for the PSU.

[Master Disaster]

14 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah sure. also tvs had standby 40 years ago........ 

Cool, so a small percentage of one of the multiple things I mentioned had standby, great job totally ignoring everything else

14 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

its not a myth,  decades of experience and ironically 

 

say otherwise. 

This is the same as you saying "X is true because I say so", experience is great and all but it doesn't change the 2 actual facts I stated to counter your argument

 

1) Decades old devices that only have a hard off button still work fine

2) Electrical engineering has methods of dealing with sudden power spikes, its called overcurrent protection and current filtering.

 

14 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

 think its pointless to discuss this further, it feels youre just disagreeing for the sake of it.

Not at all, I'm disagreeing because I disagree.

 

11 hours ago, Dogzilla07 said:

@Master Disaster Same here, had a CRT button fail after I turned it off every night and on in the morning, after having it repaired that CRT is still working almost 20 years later, but the button wasn't, won't and never will work if used constantly for >4 years again.

Not the topic we're discussing. Physical switches will always fail eventually since they're physical and move but a switch dying is not the same thing as a power surge from flipping the switch causing damage to your device.

[Elisis]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

2) Electrical engineering has methods of dealing with sudden power spikes, its called overcurrent protection and current filtering.

That's not what OCP is intended for. And yes, there are mitigations to prevent huge inrush currents, but these are for the house's sake. These methods for avoiding such problems are still themselves subject to issues as a result of prolonged power (and thus current inrush) cycles. Without power cycling, there's no issue. dV/dt isn't huge when your capacitors aren't empty.

[Master Disaster]

31 minutes ago, Elisis said:

That's not what OCP is intended for. And yes, there are mitigations to prevent huge inrush currents, but these are for the house's sake. These methods for avoiding such problems are still themselves subject to issues as a result of prolonged power (and thus current inrush) cycles. Without power cycling, there's no issue. dV/dt isn't huge when your capacitors aren't empty.

OK, I'm just gonna put this to bed right now. I found a nice PDF from Texas Instruments which outlines exactly what current inrush is and what dangers it poses.

 

https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slva670a/slva670a.pdf

 

Quote

There are two key concerns associated with inrush current. The first is exceeding the absolute maximum
current ratings of the traces and components on a PCB. All connectors and terminal blocks have a specific
current rating which, if exceeded, could cause damage to these parts. Likewise, all PCB traces are
designed with a certain current carrying capability in mind and are also at risk to damage. When designing
the PCB traces and selecting connectors, not taking the inrush current peak into account can damage the
power path and lead to system failure; however, appropriately designing for a large inrush current peak
will lead to thicker PCB traces and more durable connectors which can increase the size and cost of the
overall design.

The second problem occurs when a capacitive load switches onto an already stable voltage rail. If the
power supply cannot handle the amount of inrush current needed to charge that capacitor, then the
voltage on that rail will be pulled down. Figure 4 is an example of a 100 μF capacitance being applied to a
voltage supply without any slew rate control. The capacitance generates 6.88 A of inrush current and
forces the voltage rail to drop from 3.3 V down to 960 mV.

 

If other modules are connected to this power rail and the voltage drops, then these modules may reset
themselves and put the rest of the system into an undesired state. If the voltage regulator is unable to
supply enough current at turn-on, the voltage rail could collapse completely leading to system failure.

So tell me again how inrush current protection is only a thing for whole house circuits please. Engineers will design circuits to handle inrush current from the outset since ya know, its kind of important that a power supply unit can handle being turned on and off.

 

And solutions...

Quote

"Soft-start” or Voltage Regulators
Voltage regulators, DC/DC converters, and LDOs may have an integrated soft-start functionality. With this
feature, the rise time can be increased, thereby reducing the inrush current. With a properly selected
DC/DC converter or LDO, the inrush can be effectively managed to ensure system stability.
 

Discrete Implementation
Power switching with a controlled rise time can be accomplished by using discrete circuitry and can be
done in several ways. An example circuit of one solution is shown in Figure 5. This particular solution
requires a minimum of 4 components (2 MOSFETS, 2 resistors) and the slew rate of VOUT can be
controlled by using the resistor RSR. However, RSR needs to be very large (in the range of MΩ) to have an
effect on the rise time of VOUT. To be able to reduce the value of RSR, an additional capacitor would need
to be added.

 

Integrated Load Switches
Integrated load switches can be used in place of the discrete solution discussed in Section 3.2. All Texas
Instruments load switches (TPS229xx products) feature a controlled output slew rate to mitigate inrush
current. Figure 6 below shows the typical application circuit for a load switch.

So according to one of the worlds biggest IC designers, there are plenty of ways to deal with it, soft power being one but hardware solutions do exist and have done for a very long time.

 

Now TBC I'm not saying that inrush current has never or could never damage a PSU, far from it. What I am saying is that good PSUs have it taken into consideration from the offset and have every possible mitigation in place to prevent it. Just because there's a minuscule chance that something might go wrong doesn't mean something will go wrong otherwise where does it stop? There's a chance your PSU could dump the full hot input onto the cold output rail and fry everything in your system, should you also never use the PSU then? There's a chance you might crash your car and die, should you never drive?

 

Inrush current IS a problem for power supplies, luckily its also a problem we fixed many years ago at this point.

 

Edit - Should clarify, not just PSU but any high power or switching mode device.

[Elisis]

14 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

So tell me again how inrush current protection is only a thing for whole house circuits please.

For ATX PSUs, where you don't have to deal with hundreds of amps running through the traces on the input, it is mainly for the sake of upstream circuitry, yes. Either way, a technicality and not exactly relevant.

14 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

So according to one of the worlds biggest IC designers, there are plenty of ways to deal with it,

And who is saying otherwise, exactly?

 

[Master Disaster]

3 minutes ago, Elisis said:

For ATX PSUs, where you don't have to deal with hundreds of amps running through the traces on the input, it is mainly for the sake of upstream circuitry, yes. Either way, a technicality and not exactly relevant.

 

So then why did you bring it up at all...

41 minutes ago, Elisis said:

And yes, there are mitigations to prevent huge inrush currents, but these are for the house's sake.

 

[MarkCaplan]

how about capacitors? Are they better with continuous full charge or charge-drain cycles? Assuming 25/75 power up and power down ratio.

[Guest]

Yaw need to stop arguing because the Internet is watching and rolling their damn eyes right now.

 

1 hour ago, MarkCaplan said:

how about capacitors? Are they better with continuous full charge or charge-drain cycles? Assuming 25/75 power up and power down ratio.

Believe it or not, using a cap to store energy shortens the life more than power cycles because storing increases the cap's temperatures.  But you're talking extreme corner cases since the voltage is relatively low and the caps are rated at very high temperatures.  

 

That said, sustained transient current spikes can damage a capacitor.  When an Ampere card spikes a PSU, it can be with a load 2.5 or 3x more than what the PSU is designed for for 100ms at a time.  It's the charge in the secondary capacitors that can keep the PSU up without tripping OPP.  So... it makes me think what the long term impacts of using an Ampere card... or even worse, what's coming next year... on your PSU.    

Just thinking out loud....

 

[mariushm]

Besides all the stuff mentioned above, keeping the PC powered while turned off  prevents your motherboard's battery from being used and discharged. The CR2032 is only used when the pc is fully unplugged, when power supply is still giving stand-by power the motherboard uses power from there instead of depleting the battery.