I recently upgraded from a GTX 970 to an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra. The installation went smoothly, I double checked to make sure all the fans were spinning, and everything worked fine for about a half hour. Then, my power supply blew. It was a clean failure: No scorch marks, no visible damage to the mobo power connector or the GPU power connectors, no smell of smoke either. I poured over this with a pen light for an hour. It just went POP and everything shut down.
The PSU in question was a 1,000w Thermaltake Tough Power 80 Plus Gold. When I first built the rig I went all out on the PSU not knowing precisely what kind of hardware I’d want down the road. This PSU doesn’t have a switch on the back, either. It’s basically always charged if plugged in. I confirmed the power supply failure by unplugging the PSU, holding the power button to discharge the capacitors (there was an audio cue when this happened), and then plugging it back in to see if the mobo’s power light came on.
Nothing.
So it’s definitely the PSU. Now, my actual question:
Was this a defective PSU? It’s about 5 years old and it should’ve been more than capable of supporting my meager Core i7 4790k, peripherals, and that GPU. Or was it a cooling problem? I have a side intake fan, a rear exhaust fan, in addition to the PSU’s exhaust fan and the GPU’s fans that also exhaust. I got no temperature warnings prior to the failure. The case was hotter than usual, though, but then again the card is pulling more watts. Of course it’s going to be warmer.
So, what do I do? Try again with another PSU (any suggestions?) and risk another failure? Or also replace the chassis and aim for better cooling?
The PSU in question was a 1,000w Thermaltake Tough Power 80 Plus Gold. When I first built the rig I went all out on the PSU not knowing precisely what kind of hardware I’d want down the road. This PSU doesn’t have a switch on the back, either. It’s basically always charged if plugged in. I confirmed the power supply failure by unplugging the PSU, holding the power button to discharge the capacitors (there was an audio cue when this happened), and then plugging it back in to see if the mobo’s power light came on.
Nothing.
So it’s definitely the PSU. Now, my actual question:
Was this a defective PSU? It’s about 5 years old and it should’ve been more than capable of supporting my meager Core i7 4790k, peripherals, and that GPU. Or was it a cooling problem? I have a side intake fan, a rear exhaust fan, in addition to the PSU’s exhaust fan and the GPU’s fans that also exhaust. I got no temperature warnings prior to the failure. The case was hotter than usual, though, but then again the card is pulling more watts. Of course it’s going to be warmer.
So, what do I do? Try again with another PSU (any suggestions?) and risk another failure? Or also replace the chassis and aim for better cooling?