Does be quiet! reimburse the entire damage, if a PSU or water cooler explodes?

[yzflucina02]

Hello guys,

I want to buy a 600W PSU from either be quiet! or Corsair.

As most of us know, Corsair reimburse the entire damage, if a water cooler or PSU or water cooler explodes damaging the components.

So my question is, if be quiet! reimburse the damages made by their PSU or water cooler, if it malfunctioned and exploded.

 

[Gam3r01]

That is not actually a real policy by corsair.
There have been cases of them replacing damaged components, but its certainly not a written policy.
I've also never heard of them replacing for PSU damage, only AIO damage, and there have been far more cases of not replacing damaged components.

You can ask be quiet! directly, but I highly doubt it.

 

[Zerk2012]

Corsair does that on a case by case it is not their policy to replace any damaged parts from any of their products but sometimes they will.

 

[Aeacus]

I'd avoid Be Quiet! PSUs in general and as far as i know, no PSU brand/OEM takes responsibility nor will they cover the whole damage their PSU did to your PC when it blew up. Since you need to do the legwork and prove to the PSU's brand/OEM that their PSU was indeed in fault frying your whole system or part of it (e.g MoBo), IF the PSU brand/OEM is willing to compensate more than RMA of blown PSU.

Rather than cheaping out on PSU or getting a lower quality unit, instead, i'd go with Seasonic PSU. Since i have yet to see a build where Seasonic unit went sky high and fried everything it was connected to. Same can't be said to Be Quiet! and Corsair PSUs though. If (and there's a big IF) the Seasonic unit does go sky high, they are so well built that they contain the entire malfunction within PSU itself, with slim to no chance it spreading beyond PSU's casing and frying anything else. This reason (among others) is also why all my 3x PCs: Skylake, Haswell and AMD are powered by Seasonic PSUs, full specs with pics in my sig.

 

[yzflucina02]

Thanks for the posts!
I read here and there that Corsair "surely" reimburse damages made by PSU or water coolers, which exploded, so here I thought you are 1000% in a safe zone when you buy their products. But thanks for correcting me.

A friend of mine had a 600W PSU (80+ Silver) (or was it 500W? I don't remember...) from be quiet! and it exploded after two years. But thankfully it didn't damamge other pc components. Everything was okay, except the PSU, of course. Then he called customer service of be quiet! and the guy on the phone was really nice and asked, if other components were damaged. My friend sended his damaged PSU to be quiet! and they found out the PSU had a manufacturing defect causing it to explode. Instead replacing the old one, they gave him a new 700W PSU with 80+ Silver efficiency and thanked him for conctacting be quiet!.

So... if the PSU destroys like for example the motherboard and I still have my warranty, can I get a new one from the motherboard manufacturer?

 

[Aeacus]

So... if the PSU destroys like for example the motherboard and I still have my warranty, can I get a new one from the motherboard manufacturer?

I'd say no. Few examples as well:

MSI

Warranty Exclusions

The following circumstances excluded from warranty coverage
Product damage caused by catastrophes, thunder stroke, faulty electric power and environmental factors.

source: https://www.msi.com/page/warranty

When the low quality PSU blows up, it usually sends power surge to anything it's connected to. And it doesn't take much excess voltage to fry MoBo's voltage control unit/chip. E.g +12.6V is still safe but if PSU delivers more than that via +12V rail, e.g +14V, MoBo can't handle that.

Asus

The warranty will not apply to or be valid under conditions including but not limited to the following:

There is damage caused by natural disaster, intentional or unintentional misuse, abuse, neglect, acts of war, improper maintenance, or use under abnormal conditions;​
There is damage caused by accidental drops, spills, fire, or power surges.​
There is damage from improper installation, improper connection, or use of parts and/or components not manufactured or sold by ASUS;​
There is damage from use outside of the operation or storage parameters or environment detailed in the User's Manual or reasonably acceptable for similar product usage models deemed industry standard best practices;​

source: https://www.asus.com/us/support/article/678/

One of the abnormal conditions are the voltages outside of ATX PSU standard. And according to the ATX PSU standard, safe voltage ranges are:
+12V DC rail - tolerance ±5% ; +11.40V to +12.60V
+5V DC rail - tolerance ±5% ; +4.75V to +5.25V
+3.3V DC rail - tolerance ±5% ; +3.14V to +3.47V
-12V DC rail - tolerance ±10% ; -10.80V to -13.20V
+5V SB rail - tolerance ±5% ; +4.75V to +5.25V

Anything lower or higher than that aren't safe for PC components. Lower voltage can cause data corruption while higher voltage can fry components.

It's like when you put cheap, low quality fuel into your car and it ends up seizing your car engine. Is the car manufacturer responsible of your neglect? No, they are not.

You can cheap out on every other component inside the PC except PSU. Since PSU powers everything, it is the most important component inside the PC. Also, while the PSU warranty covers the PSU itself and you can RMA the blown PSU, the PSU warranty doesn't cover any other component the PSU fried.

Most people learn the hard way not to cheap out on a PSU when low quality PSU blows and takes part of the system or the whole system with it. Even entire houses have been burned down because of the fire low quality PSU caused when it blowed up.

Like it or not, if you want your PC to work for years to come without any risk of fire and/or damage to your components, you need to hand out some money for good quality PSU. I'm not talking that you need to go with the best 650W PSU available, e.g Seasonic PRIME 650 Titanium which costs $150+ (and which also powers my Skylake build). Seasonic G-650 (LINK) costs $79 and is more than enough for your PC, both wattage and build quality wise.

 

[yzflucina02]

Thank you! 🙂
I changed my mind! I made some further research about PSUs from Seasonic and I'm gonna buy one: the 650W Focus Plus (80+ Gold). It only costs 20 bucks more (currently 82 bucks), so it's not that bad.

The reason I buy a new one is, and you might not believe it, I got this gaming pc (it's old) as a present and a cheap unknown 750W PSU was build in. It didn't explode or damaged my pc at all, but it got louder and louder after some time creating to much heat. I even noticed it sucks to much electricity. So loud you can actually hear the PSU downstairs or in the garage. When I received the pc, I never thought about it till I learned you should never ever use a cheap PSU from an unknown brand. To lower the loud noise made by the PSU I had to wrap my pc case with a thick blanket.

 

[Aeacus]

You're welcome.

Seasonic Focus+ 650 (80+ Gold) is one of the newest PSU lines from Seasonic and it's also the successor of Seasonic G-series. Among other good things, it comes with 10 years of OEM warranty. Meaning that regardless where you live or what local warranty period laws you have on consumer electronics, Seasonic will grant you the longer warranty period.

Notes:

* Since Warranty Periods may vary depending upon geographic region and product type, it is the responsibility of the consumer to check the exact Warranty Period that is printed on the carton. If you are living in a country where the point of sales entity grants a shorter warranty period than what is stated in the Seasonic Worldwide Warranty Policy or what is printed on the packaging carton of your product, Seasonic will always grant you the longer period of time. According to the European Union Directive 1999/44/EC, resellers in Europe have to provide warranty for a minimum period of two years on the products they sell.

source: https://seasonic.com/support