News Gigabyte Releases Statement On Exploding PSUs

Exploding PSU

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Jul 17, 2018
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Now this is my kind of news.

I got myself a Gigabyte PSU (a P550B) to power a fairly standard Ryzen 3 2200G system. Office use, nothing fancy, no power-hungry parts. It died within a week after I first powered it up. I still don't know how and why it died powering such a low-stress system.

Luckily the RMA process was very quick, so the PC's back up and running in a short time. I've got my own share of running cheap PSUs, but this is the first time a PSU died in less than a week of use, even those generic "dongfeng" no-label, bare aluminium PSUs none of them died this quickly. And this is big name brand.
 
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leorick

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Now this is my kind of news.

I got myself a Gigabyte PSU (a P550B) to power a fairly standard Ryzen 3 2200G system. Office use, nothing fancy, no power-hungry parts. It died within a week after I first powered it up. I still don't know how and why it died powering such a low-stress system.

Luckily the RMA process was very quick, so the PC's back up and running in a short time. I've got my own share of running cheap PSUs, but this is the first time a PSU died in less than a week of use, even those generic "dongfeng" no-label, bare aluminium PSUs none of them died this quickly. And this is big name brand.

Oh that is disappointing. I was kinda hoping it wouldn't be the case with their entry level PSU's. I have deployed several of these to my customers and one to my nephew on entry level systems as well. Gigabyte had always served me well in the past. With the exception of the Odin series (700w), I've had like 2 out of 3 of them popped up like the ones in Gamer's Nexus videos.
 

watzupken

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Mar 16, 2020
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In a nutshell, if you have one of these exploding time bomb PSUs, return it. Let Gigabyte deal with the mess they started. It’s a fire hazard and not worth risking killing your system or burning down your place. It’s not dramatic because the spark from the blown PSU may ignite a fire depending on what is nearby.
 

DSzymborski

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This isn't really a new development; they've sold a lot of cheap costed-down PSUs for quite a while now. They're only getting attention now because so many people have been stuck with them.

I was quite fortunate. I got a 7:30 PM Newegg bundle drop back in January that had a Gigabyte PSU, but it was a big drop night and Newegg ran short of Gigabyte PSUs and it was automatically removed from my cart on checkout with the price taken out. I was quite pleased at the time and still am!
 

TechLurker

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I'd be more willing to trust Gigabyte if they were willing to bite the bullet and offer up their AORUS PSUs as a replacement; at least those are more likely to have been better vetted given it's their flagship PSU line. But just replacing the defective PSUs with variants with an adjusted limiter is like trading in a defective Note 7 for another Note 7 claimed to have had the problem fixed. Only to find out later when it goes out more spectacularly that the problem is still there.
 

Phaaze88

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Of course Gigabyte's going to take the cheaper route. What company wouldn't try the less financially damaging methods first?
It's up to us to hit 'em where it hurts... not sure if we as a whole will pull through.
-gpu prices
-aggressive macrotransactions in certain games, as well as the move away from owning physical copies to digital support
There's obviously more, but it starts delving too deep into political territory.
That crap is 'our' fault.
 

zodiacfml

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Gigabyte is on a decline. I remember the poor reviews of their Vega 56 cards on Newegg then selling them significantly cheaper. I have 1 of 5 Gigabyte RX 570 Gaming card that is having artifacts on first boot. none of my 20 other Polaris cards of the same age and load has failed yet.
 

NightLight

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Every piece of gigabyte hardware I have ever had, and every friend of mine has aver had, has somehow exploded, or even melted molex connectors. I guess I just had bad luck with gigabyte? That's why I only buy asus & corsair, low failure rates on both.
 
Gigabyte reaffirms that "the potential issues that were reported, only seemed to occur after very long time periods of extreme load testing via DC Electronic load equipment and would not be typical of any real world usage."

Steve from GN heard this (via him learning hwo they responded on the wan show stream) and said it happened in around first 2min of beign tested and will comment on their response on monday.

I am waiting eagerly for how he burns em.
 
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lock1nout

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I had one of the 750GM's that came with a prebuilt. Did some reading and noticed the unfavorable reviews. Once my prebuilt arrived I decided to closely monitor it until my EVGA 850 GT arrived. Terrible coil whine in this thing. Strange whine/rubbing noise when I moved my mouse cursor on screen. (I thought it was my GPU but ruled that out). After a couple days I started hearing strange noises I've never heard from a PSU before and then the very faint smell of burnt electronics. I yanked this piece of crud out as fast I could. I could smell the charring inside this thing. No fire, no smoke thankfully. RMA'ed it and opted for a refund rather than replacement because I wont be buying anything gigabyte. The laughable part is, my serial number doesn't fall in with the 'eligible' ones listed.

If you have one of these, yank it out right now.
 

hiphipphippo

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Agree with escksu.. get a PSU from a PSU manufacturer with a good reputation. A decent PSU isn't that expensive.. why take chances with the rest of your gear?
Even if it doesn't blow up/catch fire.. the voltage rails provided may not meet specification i.e. not regulated to within required voltage limits, rails have large voltage spikes and surges. Out of spec power rails can damage other hardware.
Whole saga stinks to me.. makes you wonder what corners Gigabyte/Aorus cut with their other stuff.
Off my list of trusted manufacturers for now..
 
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Aug 15, 2021
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Wow, Gigabyte, what are folks doing?! Prior to this whole episode, I had no opinions regarding Gigabyte or it’s products. I sure have an opinion now, after watching Steve’s samples explode, and reading this statement. Gigabyte: exploding power supplies are the kind of thing that tarnishes a brand. Not immediately recalling PSU’s with this kind of problem (thats increasingly well documented) is the kind of behavior that permanently destroys a reputation. Every company makes mistakes, but compounding that mistake by shirking responsibility is unacceptable.

As a point of contrast, when Corsair recently became aware of a non-destructive potential power-on good-signal/voltage fault in the HX1200, they performed a recall on effected units, sending me a brand-new retail in-box replacement (the only time I’ve ever had to send anything back to Corsair in 13 years of buying their PSUs and other parts). Result? I have a lot of confidence that Corsair stands behind their product.

5 years ago, when one of my EVGA PSU’s developed loud coil-whine, they RMA’d it, no questions asked (cross-shipped), also sending me a brand new, retail boxed replacement. So, again, I’m very inclined to keep buying their products.

Gigabyte? Yeah, I don’t care if they dip their boards, PSU’s, whatever, in solid gold, after their response, I’ll never touch or recommend anything with their logo on it. Their second chance, from a brand reputation standpoint, was how they responded, and, speaking for myself, they’ve totally blown it.
 

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