Do PSUs have a life span

[Kaii_Kuro]

I've read so many articles now about life spans on power supplies and honestly I don't know what's right or wrong. 

 

So background... I have a corsair ax1200 which is coming up to almost 10 years old. I have used it in my last 3 builds and not had a bad moment with old faithful. My worry is that  based on sites info, my PSUs days are numbered. 

 

I'd like to hear others views on this.

 

 

 

 

[Skiiwee29]

General rule of thumb with PSUs is warranty. If the warranty is out or nearing expiration, its time to look at replacing. 

[AnonymousGuy]

The warranty is just how long the manufacturer wants to deal with it, it's not a commentary that the failure rate goes exponential once the warranty is reached. 

[8tg]

Depends on the power supply, a quality unit well maintained can last ages, I have several of them from the early 2000’s that are still going fine

Reason being is that they’re really nice power supplies, don’t see a lot of old Diabloteks still kicking though

 

[Middcore]

10 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

General rule of thumb with PSUs is warranty. If the warranty is out or nearing expiration, its time to look at replacing. 

This. 

 

If you ever watch retro builds videos on YouTube... talking PC's from the early 2000's or 90's here... you'll notice they use a (relatively) modern PSU whenever possible even if all the other parts are period-appropriate. It's just not worth the risk of using PSU's past a certain age.

[GuiltySpark_]

I'm going to push this 2009-era Corsair HX750 until it dies in a secondary system. For science, of course.

[mariushm]

There are some components in a power supply that will degrade at a very slow pace over time. Some degrade at a faster rate the higher the operating temperature is.

 

Fans can go bad over time. In high end power supplies like AX1200 they tend to use high quality fans, rated for 50k+ hours of operation, well lubricated, and so on.

In cheaper power supplies, depending on how they're cycled on and off, fans can lose lubrication, due to repeated heat/cold cycles the plastic of the fan blades could crack and break, blades could tear off.

 

Electrolytic capacitors use a liquid or semi-liquid substance called electrolyte, which can be affected by temperature, and can also be damaged by a tiny amount by various events (over voltage, sudden very high current spikes etc)... and they can repair themselves to some degree.

 

Modern power supplies use a mix of solid (polymer) capacitors which are much more resilient because they don't have electrolyte, and the electrolytic capacitors are used in a secondary role, so they're less "stressed" compared to how electrolytic capacitors were used in designs from years ago.

 

Usually electrolytic capacitors are rated for some amount of hours at 105c or even higher, in some high end power supplies you may see 125c rating.

So for example, let's say the electrolytic capacitor is rated for 10,000 hours at 105c 

The rule is that for every 10c reduction in ambient temperature (temperature the capacitor is subjected to), the lifetime rating of that capacitor is doubled.

So for an AX1200 power supply that may be around 60-70c (at very high load) around the area where such capacitors are installed, you can do the math :

10,000 at 105c , 20,000 hours at 95c , 40,000 hours at 85c , 80,000 hours at 75c and so on ...  there's around 9000 hours in a year, but you wouldn't be gaming or doing something super heavy so that your psu would average 75c all the time ...

 

Solid/polymer capacitors have a much higher life, which is determined with another formula, but basically the average 5000h@105c solid/polymer should last 20+ years at at 60-75c ambient temperature.

[Kaii_Kuro]

Amazing. Thanks for putting my mind at peace. I'm gonna push this ax1200 till it can't go no more. 

Fan is still fine and the psu is well maintained so I hope to keep it going.

[Kaii_Kuro]

28 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Depends on the power supply, a quality unit well maintained can last ages, I have several of them from the early 2000’s that are still going fine

Reason being is that they’re really nice power supplies, don’t see a lot of old Diabloteks still kicking though

 

Damn those are some sexy PSUs. 

[Elisis]

I think AX1200's warranty period is around 10 years, so by this point I would consider maybe replacing it.

[Guest]

Fans go first.

 

Then the next thing I see go is because the thermal compound between the MOSFETs and the bridge diodes dry up and those parts start to run hotter than they should.  They don't use "Arctic Silver" or "Grizzly" level stuff at the factory and it's not like people replace the TIM on their PSU components like they do on their CPUs and GPUs even though these parts are running upwards of 100°C.

 

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

Fans go first.

 

Then the next thing I see go is because the thermal compound between the MOSFETs and the bridge diodes dry up and those parts start to run hotter than they should.  They don't use "Arctic Silver" or "Grizzly" level stuff at the factory and it's not like people replace the TIM on their PSU components like they do on their CPUs and GPUs even though these parts are running upwards of 100°C.

 

Hmmm so I should tear down my PSU and re-paste it every 3/4 decade with some MX-4? No seriously, this is something I would do if I could do so safely and non destructively.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Bitter said:

Hmmm so I should tear down my PSU and re-paste it every 3/4 decade with some MX-4? No seriously, this is something I would do if I could do so safely and non destructively.

You know... I'm not kidding when I say I've asked the factory to use better TIM than the silicone stuff they use when they use grease.

 

And to give you an idea of how sensitive those components are:  When Corsair had to recall a bunch of SF and TX-M PSUs a couple years ago, it was because the thermal pad (they use the little pink pads on those particular models.  Like what you see pre-installed on some AIOs. Arctic sells it as "TP-1) was mishandled during that production run and tore.  The torn thermal pad decreased the thermal interface between the MOSFET and heatsink and after enough thermal cycles, they blew up.

[Bitter]

6 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

You know... I'm not kidding when I say I've asked the factory to use better TIM than the silicone stuff they use when they use grease.

 

And to give you an idea of how sensitive those components are:  When Corsair had to recall a bunch of SF and TX-M PSUs a couple years ago, it was because the thermal pad (they use the little pink pads on those particular models.  Like what you see pre-installed on some AIOs. Arctic sells it as "TP-1) was mishandled during that production run and tore.  The torn thermal pad decreased the thermal interface between the MOSFET and heatsink and after enough thermal cycles, they blew up.

I 100% believe that you'd push for better TIM because the cost per unit would be very low but the benefit in longevity and reducing waste would be very high, I'm sure I know what their response was in a nutshell 'why? this lasts through warranty'. Even some pretty basic stuff like what Intel uses for stock paste would do better and that stuff really does last pretty good vs that gritty white junk.

At first I liked that my RM1000x ran in passive mode basically all the time because my system doesn't draw much power basically all the time but now from a longevity stand point I'm not so sure I like this. I just set a fan on it to blow some air through all the time so it's not slowly cooking itself at low loads.

[Guest]

I didn't say I GOT the better TIM.  I said I pushed for it. 

 

 

[Bitter]

53 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

I didn't say I GOT the better TIM.  I said I pushed for it. 

 

 

Oh I know you didn't get the better TIM, that's not how it works. I also understand that making a production change like that might seem trivial but there's a whole bunch of supply chain and supply contracts that come into play with commodity level things like bulk TIM for a factory. They have it all set up, they know it works good enough, change costs money.

[Guest]

Believe it or not, one of the main reasons I wanted to change from silicon based to a carbon based grease, not only for the better performance, but because I see this complaint at least once a week:

 

[Bitter]

31 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Believe it or not, one of the main reasons I wanted to change from silicon based to a carbon based grease, not only for the better performance, but because I see this complaint at least once a week:

 

Gotta start telling people to RMA for that issue so it gets their attention.

[Kaii_Kuro]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

Gotta start telling people to RMA for that issue so it gets their attention.

Are we sure that's thermal grease? Could be an interesting rma discussion at corsair.

[Bitter]

5 minutes ago, Kaii_Kuro said:

Are we sure that's thermal grease? Could be an interesting rma discussion at corsair.

@jonnyGURU "tests" each PSU personally, sometimes he forgets to wipe it down when he's "done".

[AnonymousGuy]

2 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

Believe it or not, one of the main reasons I wanted to change from silicon based to a carbon based grease, not only for the better performance, but because I see this complaint at least once a week:

 

If you could sell it up the pole to make a JG Edition of a power supply with money-no-object on the components and assembly, I'd buy it on principle.  Coolermaster went after it with the 1200W MIJ for $1000 but I recall the performance ended up being not that great.

[8tg]

On 7/29/2022 at 5:11 PM, Kaii_Kuro said:

Damn those are some sexy PSUs. 

There’s a bunch of them that used to exist, the problem is finding any of them now.

Logisys PS550AC

Kingwin ABT

Aerocool Aeropower II

If you thought that water cooled power supplies were a new thing or were a meme from LTT about the FSP Hydro you were wrong, Koolance made a water cooled 1200w psu 15 years ago

I can only even find information on this one from enermax on murder booth but I think it’s actually an aftermarket shroud you could get for enermax power supplies

 

odd world of consumer trustworthyness over time, there was a time where a company was telling their consumers to take apart their power supply to install custom shrouds, sort of just expecting you to not be stupid and touch the danger bits, rightfully so 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, 8tg said:

If you thought that water cooled power supplies were a new thing or were a meme from LTT about the FSP Hydro you were wrong, Koolance made a water cooled 1200w psu 15 years ago

I had one of these.  Great conversation starter at LAN parties.

 

[8tg]

9 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

I had one of these.  Great conversation starter at LAN parties.

 

 

I am intensely jealous as a collector of cool old computer parts 

[Bitter]

Koolance used to be so crazy. I still have my gold plated pyramid bump water block in a working water cooled case, it's seen better days but it all still works.