[SOLVED] PSU fried a few hours ago & I'm worried it will happen again ?

[Kirbyarm]

Hey experts and enthusiasts. Okay so, there's a bit of a story that needs to be told here to really understand the situation and concerns. Basically it goes like this, I got this new system with a 9900K and everything brand new except a GPU about 3 years ago. I continued using my 1080 Ti since it felt more than adequate for my needs and the sheer price increase in 20xx series cards just wasn't justifiable for me to purchase at the time.

After a week or so of use, I noticed the PSU (750W seasonic 80+ gold) was making a little bit of a clicking noise, likely each time it decided to power its own fan. It wasn't jarring, but it was inconvenient enough to be distracting and so I decided to swap it out with the previous system's PSU, which is a 650W seasonic 80+ gold certified unit. It worked fine for well over 2 years up until now.. but last week I decided to upgrade the GPU finally with the market finally normalizing a bit. I got a 3080 Ti. It took dual 8-pin connectors and my friends and online hardware power draw calculators were saying 650W was fine for the card so I figured it would be fine to just plug and play. I only played Minecraft and some unity steam game for a couple of days and they worked okay for the most part.

So today (or technically late last night since it's now the AM here), I decided to stop messing around in games I have currently been into and to test a variety of games that would actually demonstrate the strength of the new GPU. Valheim had some good results, then I installed Just Cause 3. I was flying around the biggest city and getting quite impressive performance, but needed to test some gunplay in a military base and started flying toward one 9km out via helicopter. During this flight my computer just completely shut off. The power button was unresponsive, yet the USB devices like the anker HUB and two external HDDs had their LED lights still on, and toggling the physical PSU power switch would cause some of the LED lights inside the system to blink sometimes.

Gutted the old system to retrieve the 750W PSU, which means I can no longer use it as a server or backup obviously. Gutted the new system, since I couldn't access the CPU connector without removing the CPU cooler block anyway, so I figured I'd just re-apply thermal paste and re-seat everything with the 750W PSU. Got it assembled, fired it up. It all worked and everything seems to be fine. Ran a 3DMark benchmark as per friend's instruction and the results seem to be in line with what a 3080 Ti should be getting with my 9900K, and it didn't shut down during the test or anything.

...But now I'm terrified to open any games or run any more torture tests. Do y'all think I have reason to be concerned here? Would you recommend I should do anything else?

 

[Karadjgne]

There's several revisions done by Corsair, so you'll see a 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022 models etc. Can also tell by the paint job.

Corsair had issues with 3rd party sellers, ppl buying an RMx online that was supposedly new, only to get an old version still in the box. Changing paint jobs makes identification very easy as to the revision and if you get a White letter with colored bubble numbers, when you ordered a version pictured with black/silver background, it's a dead giveaway you got scammed with a pre-2017 old unit.

The newer revisions have slightly different internals and/or fixes for things like transient load spikes or voltage regulation. Same platform, just updated.

Really smart move by Corsair overall. For many years, Seasonic was the cats meow in psus, the standard to beat, and most failed miserably. But over the last 7 years or so, it's Corsair who's leading the way. Even their SFX lines are basically untouchable, surpassing Silverstone easily when Silverstone was the only choice for a decent SFX.

 

[Aeacus]

Surprised Newegg still has record of it. I was at a loss of where I purchased it from. Luckily it was Newegg. Order Date: 5/22/2014, so 7 years was a young estimate haha.. Definitely didn't think it was a Focus as I recall learning of that naming scheme when I got the 750W. Didn't really look into it.

I don't think the 650W still has warranty coverage, but since I need an upgrade anyway, I'd rather not get it replaced. I'd say I got my money's worth out of this one, I'm happy with that.

Good and old G-series. It came with 5 years of warranty, but the fact that it lasted well over 8 years and only popped when you overloaded it, while not frying anything else, clearly shows the build quality of Seasonic G-series. 😀
Specs: https://seasonic.com/g-series

With other, "popular" PSUs, you won't be that lucky. E.g Corsair CX/CXm series. Those come with 5 years of warranty but i've seen dozens and dozens of people here, who have popped their CX/CXm series PSU on average with 2 years of usage, while PSU often takes MoBo and/or GPU with them as well.

Hang on, you're saying the RMX 1000W is a 7 year old unit? I skimmed down the amazon page and could swear I saw it was a 2021 model. You did say it was part of post #21's PSU's that would befit a 3080 Ti system, so I suppose the RMX is worth considering still. I've taken note of the other details for the other lineups, going to look into the Supernova now as well. Thanks a lot!

Edit: Also one of the images of the RMX unit on the above linked Amazon page seems to indicate it has a 10 year warranty from Corsair. And a couple more flavor images of the amazon page, because why not.

Corsair had issues with 3rd party sellers, ppl buying an RMx online that was supposedly new, only to get an old version still in the box. Changing paint jobs makes identification very easy as to the revision and if you get a White letter with colored bubble numbers, when you ordered a version pictured with black/silver background, it's a dead giveaway you got scammed with a pre-2017 old unit.

The newer revisions have slightly different internals and/or fixes for things like transient load spikes or voltage regulation. Same platform, just updated.

RM1000x does have 10 years of warranty. However, do note that on Amazon, "date first available" is the date the PSU listing was made in Amazon. It does not tell when PSU was manufactured.
You can see from the review i linked, that it was published in 2015, when RMx 1st launched.

The thing with Corsair is, that they make incognito changes to their PSUs, while keeping the same model name. This leads to the very prevalent issue of supposedly buying the latest revision but actually getting older revision. And while you can spot the difference on PSU's label, you won't be able to see the label prior. Only once you've purchased the PSU and then unbox it. But by that time, it's already too late and getting newer PSU via RMA may not work. Also, it adds unnecessary hassle, which consumer should never experience.

Worst offender is Corsair TX/TXm series. And due to these shady scheming Corsair is doing with their PSU revisions, i'm not even suggesting their TX/TXm lineup to anyone anymore.

Seasonic, in the other hand, changes model names with revisions, so it's easy to understand what you get.
For example: Seasonic flagship PSU, 650W, 80+ Titanium efficiency;

• In late 2016, first PRIME series came out. And i bought my main build's PSU: Seasonic PRIME 650 (80+ Titanium) [part number of: SSR-650TD].
• In 2018, Seasonic made 2nd revision of their PRIME series, while also changing the name. I bought the 2nd revision PSU for my missus'es PC: Seasonic PRIME Ultra 650 (80+ Titanium) [part number of: SSR-650TR].
• And in late 2019, early 2020, Seasonic made 3rd revision to their PRIME series (part of OneSeasonic initiative), where name again got changed. E.g.: PRIME TX-650 [part number of: PRIME-TX-650].

Simple and consumer friendly, right?