Should I upgrade my 7 Year old PSU?

[Mattler]

Hi all,

 

I'm looking to upgrade my current system. I know I probably should upgrade my PSU as well. But I would like to keep mine if I can. Current build is in my signature. 

I want to upgrade to 8700k and still have my gtx 980. 

 

Thoughts? Suggestions? 

[2FA]

Personally I would since capacitors and whatnot start wearing after enough time.

[David66]

I used that one forever its a great card.I went with GTX550 TI works with my 50 Samsung tv and 28 mont. at same time and never a problem

[emosun]

if your power supply works find then I see no reason to change it. It's proven to be reliable so best not add inconsistency into the build.

[STRMfrmXMN]

The old TX isn't garbage so when it starts to fail I don't think your system will catch fire or anything of that nature.

 

I'd keep it until you upgrade your GPU or you start to notice your system behaving weirdly.

[ProjectBox153]

10 minutes ago, 2FA said:

Personally I would since capacitors and whatnot start wearing after enough time.

I don't see a reason to change a known good PSU after only that long. My 10 year old PSU still works wonderfully even though it's done about 80,000 hours of use. I only stopped using it temporarily because of a failing fan (it worked but was getting squeaky). 

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, Mattler said:

Hi all,

 

I'm looking to upgrade my current system. I know I probably should upgrade my PSU as well. But I would like to keep mine if I can. Current build is in my signature. 

I want to upgrade to 8700k and still have my gtx 980. 

 

Thoughts? Suggestions? 

I'd start saving money for a replacement...

55 minutes ago, emosun said:

if your power supply works find then I see no reason to change it. It's proven to be reliable so best not add inconsistency into the build.

So you say there wasn't a reason to replace that PSU a week before??

 

 

50 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

I don't see a reason to change a known good PSU after only that long. My 10 year old PSU still works wonderfully even though it's done about 80,000 hours of use. I only stopped using it temporarily because of a failing fan (it worked but was getting squeaky). 

Because you can't know if your PSU is still good or not, see pictures above.

The PSU can be almost dead and you don't even know it.

Well, aside that from time to time the Drives die...

 

And of course some other unexpected shit...

And that is the reason why its not the worst idea to replace an old PSU like this one.

[ProjectBox153]

5 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Because you can't know if your PSU is still good or not, see pictures above.

The PSU can be almost dead and you don't even know it.

Well, aside that from time to time the Drives die...

 

And of course some other unexpected shit...

And that is the reason why its not the worst idea to replace an old PSU like this one.

You can easily look in the PSU and see if there are bloated caps and such. It's not hard. 

[Stefan Payne]

1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

You can easily look in the PSU and see if there are bloated caps and such. It's not hard. 

That cap isn't bloated and clearly faulty.

It is totally false to assume that only bulged capacitors are faulty. That is not the case as you can see here.

Also seemingly good caps can be dead...

In this case its high leakage current.

 

[emosun]

22 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Because you can't know if your PSU is still good or not, see pictures above.

The PSU can be almost dead and you don't even know it.

Well, aside that from time to time the Drives die...

 

And of course some other unexpected shit...

And that is the reason why its not the worst idea to replace an old PSU like this one

I had to run it through google translate to understand

"I had a bad experience once therefor everyone else should do what i say because I'm paranoid"

[Stefan Payne]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

I had to run it through google translate to understand

"I had a bad experience once therefor everyone else should do what i say because I'm paranoid"

No its better to be cautios and waste a little bit of money on a new PSU from time to time than to not care and get a whole computer because the PSU killed everything.

With an old PSU that has worn components, its entirely possible that it might kill the components connected to it.

 

For example the voltages could go out of spec because some Resistor failed that sets the control chip or the Protection could fail (well, if they are present of course).

 

And the most likely: The Filterelements could have died or worn out and the Ripple & Noise is at 500mV or more. And thats something that really kills komponents...

[Kokano]

I usually change my psu every 3-5 years, each time I upgrade my rig. That way I get some money back from the 3-5 year old parts I sell to fund my upgrade, versus letting my pc parts reach a stage where it has no value.