[SOLVED] Is my PSU too old to work properly?

[masoumi]

The Problem: my nvme SSDs randomly desappear and I read somewhere that psu might be failing to complete power cycless or something. sometimes restarting the pc works and I have to restart a feww times so that my ssds are recognized.

The Question : What should I replace, the motherboard or PSU?

I have a corsair tx 650m v2 modular PSU which I bought about 8-10 years ago
and I have been using my pc fairly a lot (5 days a week but 24/7 on time!)
I don't do overclocking except for auto settings on my cpu and ram. I mined coins for a total of 5 month.

extra info:
asus b550m_k main board
amd 5800x
hyperx predator 3200 ddr4 ram
asus 3060ti
3 hdds + 2 nvme ssds
corsair tx 650m v2 modular PSU

 

[Lutfij]

I have a corsair tx 650m v2 modular PSU which I bought about 8-10 years ago
That's a long time. PSU's can and will output less power than advertised, even more so when they age(and are stressed/taxed) much like a human being does when they come of age.

the problem: my nvme SSDs randomly desappear and I read somewhere that psu might be failing to complete power cycless or something.
the Question : What should I replace, the motherboard or PSU?
We could troubleshoot on other areas of your build, as opposed to pointing a finger and hoping that it's the culprit. Have you tried working with a donor PSU to rule out your unit being the issue?

You forgot to mention the make and model of your GPU, considering the motherboard doesn't have a GPU chip soldered onto it, nor does the processor have an iGPU.

BIOS version for your motherboard?

 

[masoumi]

Thanks for the reply

the problem is eventhough my psu is old this happens regardless of the power load I put on the pc.


I live in Iran and my freinds all have very old PCs so a psu donor is very hard to come by. my gpu is asus 3060 ti .And the bios info says
brand : american mega trends
version : 2007
date : 3/22/2021

 

[rolli59]

I have had issues similar in the past both with NVME and SATA drives and in all cases it was the storage drive itself that was the culprit. Fixed with RMA

 

[masoumi]

I have had issues similar in the past both with NVME and SATA drives and in all cases it was the storage drive itself that was the culprit. Fixed with RMA

That's what I thought but then I went on to buy something premium and perchased a new XPG s11 Pro thinking my crucial p2 and lexar nm610 must have been cheeply made, to find the XPG dissapearing as well.
I have a samsung on sata that has worked for many years and I have no issues with it

 

[Vic 40]

version : 2007
date : 3/22/2021

That is an old bios, do update it and see if it helps.

 

[rolli59]

That's what I thought but then I went on to buy something premium and perchased a new XPG s11 Pro thinking my crucial p2 and lexar nm610 must have been cheeply made, to find the XPG dissapearing as well.
I have a samsung on sata that has worked for many years and I have no issues with it

I would then suspect the motherboard before the PSU. BIOS update may fix that issue.

 

[digitalgriffin]

The Problem: my nvme SSDs randomly desappear and I read somewhere that psu might be failing to complete power cycless or something. sometimes restarting the pc works and I have to restart a feww times so that my ssds are recognized.

The Question : What should I replace, the motherboard or PSU?

I have a corsair tx 650m v2 modular PSU which I bought about 8-10 years ago
and I have been using my pc fairly a lot (5 days a week but 24/7 on time!)
I don't do overclocking except for auto settings on my cpu and ram. I mined coins for a total of 5 month.

extra info:
asus b550m_k main board
amd 5800x
hyperx predator 3200 ddr4 ram
asus 3060ti
3 hdds + 2 nvme ssds
corsair tx 650m v2 modular PSU

10 years old? You lost 20% capacity for sure. Your rails will be noisy, and you shouldn't run at >80% of what's left after degradation of capacity.

You have a ticking time bomb. It will appear as instability with a lot of sag and surge and ripple.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's not the psu. The TXM are very decent, just under the RMx, but at 10 years, you are beyond the warranty period by a good chunk, and that period is all that any manufacture has 'faith' in ability, performance, longetivity. As far as vendors are concerned, anything past the Warranty period is pure luck.

It's the NVMe driver, as far as I can tell. All your drives except the Samsung use the basic Microsoft Windows NVMe driver, which was last updated in 2006. My XPG Pro disappears if I do anything to the bios. If I just reset the bios via jumper, it'll reboot fine, if I enable xmp, change a voltage, disable pbo, change from auto open advanced to auto open simple, it won't boot after the next shutdown as the OS drive just up and disappeared.

I have as yet not found any fix. Not bios updates, not firmware updates (there aren't any for the SX, it uses the Microsoft driver) no reapplication of windows, nothing.

 

[masoumi]

another amazing thing is that I was doing fine for about 12 month... then out of nowhere this happens. 😓
I'll update the bios

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes. But in that 12 months, Windows has had several major updates, many games and apps have been updated or changed, firmware has been updated, there's multiple things that have seen updates that by themselves wouldn't change anything, but combined can mess with prior bios settings, ram tables, cpu tables, voltages etc.

Windows had 1 single update that totally messed up all existing nvidia and amd drivers and wrecked every 16bit driver currently in use in that 64bit OS. Took months to get it straight.

 

[masoumi]

I updated the bios but as Karadjgne pointed out
there was no gain at all so I guess I'll get a new mobo since there is no consensus on the PSU being the issue and I could use with a little more usb ports

 

[Vic 40]

It's not the psu. The TXM are very decent, just under the RMx, but at 10 years, you are beyond the warranty period by a good chunk, and that period is all that any manufacture has 'faith' in ability, performance, longetivity. As far as vendors are concerned, anything past the Warranty period is pure luck.

Think he uses a different psu than you might be thinking of namely this one,
https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Enthusiast-CP-9020039-NA650W-Certified-Performance/dp/B005E98I0G
by this time good to replace.

so I guess I'll get a new mobo since there is no consensus on the PSU being the issue and I could use with a little more usb ports

Would look at the psu first as well as others have suggested. Is a worthwhile upgrade anyway with such new parts.

 

[masoumi]

Would look at the psu first as well as others have suggested. Is a worthwhile upgrade anyway with such new parts.

Thanks for the response, so are you saying the PSU is the culprit?
but aren't PSUs very use dependant?
for example if the pc has been off in say 5 out of 10 years, wouldn't it still have a lot of life left to live?

 

[Vic 40]

For one that psu has a warranty period for 5 years so expecting ten is abit much, maybe it could do 10 in an older pc with not too taxing parts. There are these days also differences how parts tax a psu especially such a gpu as you have. In the end is it an old platform that has done it's job and in time has been replaced with something better. With new parts like yours you want that better option.

Is there any way you can test with another psu? Maybe a friend or local shop that can help out for a small fee.

Can i say for sure that it ios the psu, no that simple. With choosing between an old part that has done it's job which imo should be replaced anyway and a new part would i focus on the old first.

 

[masoumi]

For one that psu has a warranty period for 5 years so expecting ten is abit much, maybe it could do 10 in an older pc with not too taxing parts. There are these days also differences how parts tax a psu especially such a gpu as you have. In the end is it an old platform that has done it's job and in time has been replaced with something better. With new parts like yours you want that better option.

Is there any way you can test with another psu? Maybe a friend or local shop that can help out for a small fee.

Can i say for sure that it ios the psu, no that simple. With choosing between an old part that has done it's job which imo should be replaced anyway and a new part would i focus on the old first.

Thanks, after I read your comment something happened that made me go on and order a new tx650m, my pc froze and then I heard a loud fan noise then it unfroze. Then I froze, I remembered I have been hearing this sudden fan noise for a while now but I never thought it could be my psu failing for a few seconds then recovering. I thought it was cpu fan but my cpu fan is too small to make such a noise (it's the stock amd spire). I'll update this after I see what happens.

 

[Vic 40]

Good choice, hope it fixes things.

 

[masoumi]

Turns out my problem was the PSU so far I've had no issues and my old freezing and unfreezing problem is solved now.
Thanks all for the advices specially @Vic 40

 

[Vic 40]

Glad to hear the new psu seems to have fixed your problems. 👍

And you're welcome.