My PSU is ten years old, do i I need to replace it? And is there a significant risk of it frying components if it fails due to age?

[shift8]

This is my PSU, which I aquired in 2012:

 

https://www.newegg.com/cooler-master-silent-pro-gold-series-rsc00-80gad3-us-1200w/p/N82E16817171055?Item=N82E16817171055

 

It is a 1200 cooler master 80 plus gold. I bought this many years ago when I didnt know as much aboue power supplies and decided to overbuild to be safe. As it turns out, this might be the reason it has lasted so long since it has never been close to the 1200 watt rated load. 

 

My hardware over the last decade has changed thusly, including my most recent upgrades which are what made me even notice this. Otherwise I would have not ever realized it was a decade old:

 

2500k + 680.......>4670k+295x2.......>4670k+1080........>8600k+3080.......>12600k+3080. I have had 1-4 SSD/HDD at any given time. I never overclock. 32gb of ram. 

 

The two big questions are:

 

How high is the risk of random failure?

 

How high is the risk of PC damage if it fails?

 

 

[lopj245]

For sure replace it, 10 years is asking a lot out of the poor guy; I bet he's all tuckered out. Would you rather pay for a psu or a whole new system, every time i've had a PSU fail the whole rig has been toasted.

[An0maly_76]

It's not guaranteed to happen, but I've seen a PSU failure nuke an entire system. It wasn't pretty and I lost irreplaceable files.

[manikyath]

assuming it's a quality unit (it's 10 years old, so i assume so..) it's obviously not an "immediate" danger.

 

what i usually suggest is for the next upgrade you do, calculate in a power supply as well.

[RollyShed]

It is only 10 years old and a powerful PSU. If you don't want I'd definitely take it.

As for PSUs "nuking an entire system", I've never seen that happen in the past 40 years and hundreds of computers.  Yes, I've had to service maybe a hundred PSUs 20 years ago and a few since but always a relatively simple job, capacitor replacement.

[NobleGamer]

Using an old PSU is like playing a game of Press Your Luck: You can play it for a long time and save some money, but you never know when you'll hit a Whammy and lose it all.

 

I had an Antec 750W PSU that was 7+ years where I only used 300-400W (3570K & GTX 680 then GTX 1060). I shelved it for 2 years, successfully booted it a few times, then on boot it popped, a little smoke came out, and it died.

 

I don't know whether it fried any of my parts because I don't have a spare PSU to connect it to. Consider it a warning.

[MysticLTT]

5 hours ago, shift8 said:

 

2500k + 680.......>4670k+295x2.......>4670k+1080........>8600k+3080.......>12600k+3080. I have had 1-4 SSD/HDD at any given time. I never overclock. 32gb of ram. 

 

Man you are old

[shift8]

55 minutes ago, MysticLTT said:

Man you are old

I don't follow

[Just that Mario]

People here acting as if the PSU is randomly going to decide to blow up after X years. A well kept and not pushed hard PSU will last far longer than 10 years.

[RollyShed]

On 10/18/2022 at 9:03 AM, Just that Mario said:

People here acting as if the PSU is randomly going to decide to blow up after X years. A well kept and not pushed hard PSU will last far longer than 10 years.

Exactly.

It gives the impression that some have more money than sense and certainly a lack of experience.