Beware of Exploding Gigabyte PSU's being Dumped by Newegg in Forced Bundles

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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So,

Apparently many of the forced GPU bundles from Newegg come with one of two Gigabyte power supplies, and they are not just bad ridiculously so, with 50% failure rates and many failing spectacularly, exploding and taking hardware with them.

Written summary on Kotaku

And the original Gamers Nexus Video below:





I felt wrong for linking Kotaku on a GN story, but at least they had a good written summary. Who has time for a 30 minute YouTube video?
 
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Nothing new at all, 1-2 years old story and I still see these units in part lists:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/gigabyte-gp-p750gm-750-w/12.html

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They aren't exploding, an internal part (MOSFET usually) fails catastrophically. Usually with a flash and bang similar to a small squib. In a quiet office it definitely gets noticed. If it takes out other peripherals people aren't going to be having a fun day, that's for sure! Last time I had PSUs that did this was 2006. Enermax Liberty 620. Every damn one popped. Fortunately no damage to anything else.
 
aren't exploding, an internal part (MOSFET usually) fails catastrophically. Usually with a flash and bang similar to a small squib. In a quiet office it definitely gets noticed. If it takes out other peripherals people aren't going to be having a fun day, that's for sure! Last time I had PSUs that did this was 2006. Enermax Liberty 620. Every damn one popped. Fortunately no damage to anything else.

Wow, I usually think of Enermax as a trusted brand.

Lately it has been all Seasonic for me, but Enermax is still on my list of "trusted PSU brands". I've also heard SuperFlower are good, but I can't get over the ridiculous name.
 
I don't understand why a company like Gigabyte would risk damaging their reputation by slapping their name on such crap. They're my go-to motherboard manufacturer, but anything else is suspect.
 
I don't understand why a company like Gigabyte would risk damaging their reputation by slapping their name on such crap. They're my go-to motherboard manufacturer, but anything else is suspect.
They call up the factories in China, they tell them what's affordable and slap whatever manufacture name on them that placed an order.
Meanwhile, the factory is changing components during runs to keep the cost low. Giga has to custom design their stuff or they will continue to get bad lots of PSUs.
 
don't understand why a company like Gigabyte would risk damaging their brand image by slapping their name on such crap. They're my go-to motherboard manufacturer, but anything else is suspect.

My anecdotal experience is anecdotal, but I had an awful experience with my Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Master motherboard for my Threadripper.

It worked for less than a month and then stopped. My machine was a brick with it installed. I RMA'd it and they sent it back stating "no problem found".

I then RMA'd the CPU and the replacement again worked for less than a month before bricking.

Then I RMA'd the second CPU. At this point I thought the motherboard was killing CPU's. I had been troubleshooting and going without my desktop for almost a year and decided to just be done with it and went out and bought an Asus motherboard and haven't had a problem since.

...except this $500+ junk Gigabyte motherboard I can't do anything with. I'm tempted to try to RMA it again and make a stink to customer service and try to get them to refund me.

I'm essentially an applied statistician, and know better than to make decisions off of sample sizes of n=1, but I am pissed enough to never want to buy another Gigabyte product ever again at this point.

Edit:
Holy typos Batman!
 
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Honestly, this is why I get so much Corsair stuff. Their products are rarely the best and are even more rarely cheap - but they don't colossally fuck up. They also tend to stand by their stuff when things do go awry.
 
stly, this is why I get so much Corsair stuff. Their products are rarely the best and are even more rarely cheap - but they don't colossally fuck up. They also tend to stand by their stuff when things do go awry.

I think their PSU's are hit or miss, depending on who they are rebranding this week, but I do agree, they stand by their stuff and have excellent customer service.

I remember that thread on here a few years back with some guy who had a Corsair AIO water cooler leak all over his computer. They essentially replaced all of his parts in an unusually good show of customer service.

I don't forget stuff like that.
 
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Wow, I usually think of Enermax as a trusted brand.

Lately it has been all Seasonic for me, but Enermax is still on my list of "trusted PSU brands". I've also heard SuperFlower are good, but I can't get over the ridiculous name.
They are, that was just a bad model. The original Galaxy 1000W was a very good unit.
Superflower is outstanding. I have both Superflower based EVGA 1600T2 and Corsair AXi1600 and cannot fault either one. I like the Corsair better for its compact size. The only thing I'm mad at is I didn't buy more of them when I got them for $359 in November 2018!
 
They are, that was just a bad model. The original Galaxy 1000W was a very good unit.
Superflower is outstanding. I have both Superflower based EVGA 1600T2 and Corsair AXi1600 and cannot fault either one. I like the Corsair better for its compact size. The only thing I'm mad at is I didn't buy more of them when I got them for $359 in November 2018!

Nice. I've been using a 1200W Seasonic Prime Platinum for the last couple of years and it has been the best PSU I have ever owned.

Before it I had a Silverstone Strider 1200W Gold model, no idea who the manufacturer was on that one. It served me well, but I replaced it as a precaution after I had a cheap motherboard 12v power extension cable have a meltdown on me, and short, filling the room with smoke. I had used that PSU for 6-7 years at that point, and I figured both out of age, and out of precaution after that incident, it was safer to just replace it. I got my money's worth.
 
The 1600i is Flextronics, not Super Flower. Corsair doesn't use SF as their OEM and they don't have such digital units either to my knowledge.

As for the older Strider Gold 1200, that was an Enhance design. I still have one on my mother's.
 
The OEM for these units, MEIC, apparently disappeared off the internet when reports of these failing en masse started coming out at the end of last year. Igor's Lab has a good breakdown of the issue if you prefer to not watch a long video, published back in February.

https://www.igorslab.de/en/firework...0gm-power-supplies-affected-by-total-damages/

That's a much better read than sitting through a hairy mans video. Thank you!

It's too bad the H main page is no longer up and running. I feel like I would have seen this on the front page news, and not stumbled across a stupid hairy mans video 6 months later.
 
It is pretty amazing that Gigabyte would put their name on something like this, the profit margin must have been amazing for them. I guess we will find out if the money they made on these was worth it when they have to deal with the fallout of this bad product along with newegg.
 
It is pretty amazing that Gigabyte would put their name on something like this, the profit margin must have been amazing for them. I guess we will find out if the money they made on these was worth it when they have to deal with the fallout of this bad product along with newegg.

I'm guessing they saw a business opportunity to work with a new entrant to the market (MEIC) and someone at Gigabyte screwed up and didn't do their due diligence in properly vetting the vendors capabilities before going ahead.

This shit can happen, but what I am really disappointed in them for is that this has been known by Igorslab for at least 6 months, so Gigabyte themselves have probably known even longer, and they are still selling this junk. They should have recalled it, and refunded everyone their money as soon as they found out the scope of the problem.

I usually say that if you are in business long enough, eventually you will screw up. It is inevitable. How you tell the difference between the good and the bad vendors is by what they do when the shit hits the fan. Gigabyte has failed in that regard.
 
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Gigabyte has had their fair share of such stuff tbh. They had some of the most expensive mechanical keyboards back some 10 years ago, which were about as unreliable as the Razer boards of that time. Then you have the cold boot loop issues of the 2th gen Zen boards, and the awful BIOS'es (like the ones found on DS3H). Some of the older Windforce cards had crap rifle bearing fans as well on top of my head. I'm sure this list could go further but you get the point.
 
SeaSonic folks, nothing but SeaSonic will do and no, I don't work for them
I had a 620W Seasonic fail out of warranty (I think the warranty on the unit was only like 2-3 years) so it can happen to anything.
 
Gigabyte has had their fair share of such stuff tbh. They had some of the most expensive mechanical keyboards back some 10 years ago, which were about as unreliable as the Razer boards of that time. Then you have the cold boot loop issues of the 2th gen Zen boards, and the awful BIOS'es (like the ones found on DS3H). Some of the older Windforce cards had crap rifle bearing fans as well on top of my head. I'm sure this list could go further but you get the point.

I never realized Gigabyte were that problem prone. I usually don't have much in the way of brand loyalty, and I buy a lot of stuff, but as the random luck of the draw has had it, I have only rarely purchased Gigabyte stuff. The TRX40 Aourus Master was a $500 disaster, costing me a year without my desktop and lots of troubleshooting and I am still out $500. Other than that - however - I've never had a bad experience with them.

My take is eventually every manufacturer of everything has an issue, and you shouldn't judge a company by a single incident as you may throw out the baby with the bathwater. MSI had those motherboards with bad caps a little over a decade ago, and lots of people swore them off permanently back then, but they seem to be doing OK today.

After hearing all of this, I don't know if I trust Gigabyte at all anymore. It is really starting to look like a trend, not an outlier.
 
The MSI stuff mostly revolved around the Piledriver platform boards and their VRMs actually. They had mid - high end boards with poor VRMs that the Bulldozer SKUs basically cooked. Which clearly instantly made people think like ALL MSI boards of that time (some even came with proper Volterra digital PWM regulator solutions), were either shit or insufficient VRM. Obviously wasn't true.
 
They are, that was just a bad model. The original Galaxy 1000W was a very good unit.
Superflower is outstanding. I have both Superflower based EVGA 1600T2 and Corsair AXi1600 and cannot fault either one. I like the Corsair better for its compact size. The only thing I'm mad at is I didn't buy more of them when I got them for $359 in November 2018!
The EVGA SuperFlower units are very good. JonnyGuru (RIP) reviewed quite a few of them. My only complaint has been the stiff cables caused by the capacitors added for ripple suppression, but I think that was/is (haven't bought a PSU recently) a fairly common practice.
 
JonnyGuru (RIP) reviewed quite a few of them.

I think this sentiment should be re-worded. JonnyGuru aka Jon Gerow to my knowledge is still alive IRL, just the site was shut down. As for the SF units, those later EVGA PSUs were reviewed by Oklahoma Wolf and not JGuru IIRC, who was Jon's sidekick.
 
I'm guessing they saw a business opportunity to work with a new entrant to the market (MEIC) and someone at Gigabyte screwed up and didn't do their due diligence in properly vetting the vendors capabilities before going ahead.

This shit can happen, but what I am really disappointed in them for is that this has been known by Igorslab for at least 6 months, so Gigabyte themselves have probably known even longer, and they are still selling this junk. They should have recalled it, and refunded everyone their money as soon as they found out the scope of the problem.

I usually say that if you are in business long enough, eventually you will screw up. It is inevitable. How you tell the difference between the good and the bad vendors is by what they do when the shit hits the fan. Gigabyte has failed in that regard.
MEIC isn't new. But, they have not made high end products before.
 
I think this sentiment should be re-worded. JonnyGuru aka Jon Gerow to my knowledge is still alive IRL, just the site was shut down. As for the SF units, those later EVGA PSUs were reviewed by Oklahoma Wolf and not JGuru IIRC, who was Jon's sidekick.
I was referring to the site when I wrote "JonnyGuru". I intentionally avoided linking to the domain due to its unknown future.
 
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The EVGA SuperFlower units are very good. JonnyGuru (RIP) reviewed quite a few of them. My only complaint has been the stiff cables caused by the capacitors added for ripple suppression, but I think that was/is (haven't bought a PSU recently) a fairly common practice.
The old Superflower built EVGA G2 units are rock solid, last I looked it's hard to find a PSU as good as those without bumping up to a high end Platinum unit. It's also hard to find as good of reviews on PSUs after OW moved on but I'm sure he's done some good at his new gig.

As far as Gigabyte goes They make some decent motherboards and graphics cards that are often a good value but have some quirks, outside of that I tend to ignore their products because they're often not that great.
 
I really like my Gigabyte motherboard, never tried their PSUs.

I've been mostly getting EVGA for the last 3 times and no problems at all.

Previously I thought Corsair was good, but I had an incompatibility with the 2080 Ti (something about multi-rail, never figured it out but lots of people had problems). Also a cheaper HX750 worked, but had a horrible loud coil whine that was common on that model.

So 2 dodgy PSUs in a row, I won't use Corsair again. Also have a SeaSonic that has been running fine, I would buy them again, but EVGA just seems like the best.
 
It gose back further then that. Msi has a bad habit of being lacking in the vrm department.
I've got news for you, most companies have done good and bad in the VRM department at some point. Some don't do them badly necessarily, but are deceptive about what their boards are equipped with. Hell, just about all of them do that.
 
The 1600i is Flextronics, not Super Flower. Corsair doesn't use SF as their OEM and they don't have such digital units either to my knowledge.

As for the older Strider Gold 1200, that was an Enhance design. I still have one on my mother's.
Sorry I know my post looks like I meant Corsair was using SuperFlower, and yes you are correct it's a Flextronics unit (AX1600i).
Those CWT Thermaltake Toughpower 1200s were damn nice units too. Still have a few of those. And just one Ultra X3 1600W that to my knowledge works but its not very efficient by today's standards. (Upper 70s at full load so it's a real heater) Compared to the 1600T2 whose fan never comes on with the majority of hardware its hitched to!
 
Ive had great luck with gigabyte gpus. Surprisingly good luck with their cs even. Not so much with their mbs but I haven't bought one in 10+ years. Never even knew they sold psus until that tpu article came out. After reading about their reaction to that? And then following the x570 thread here about boards suddenly failing to boot. I decided id be avoiding their gear from here on out. Your only as good as the people you surround yourself with. If thats as good as it gets at gigabyte now, mmmnah. Ill pass. There are so many great choices available today, why take a chance?
 
Another thing to worry about with these PSUs is that the modular cables may have wiring faults.

Two weeks ago, I had a customer with the 850W version of this supply that had a faulty SATA power pigtail, one of the power rails was swapped with a ground. It took me a good while to debug the system because the last thing you expect is a faulty power wire. The faulty power wire killed his SSD and one of his mechanical drives. I told him to get a new PSU because this one wasn't trustworthy, and you can't really get replacement modular power cables easily since they're vendor and sometimes model specific.

But then this bombshell came out, I'm glad I had him replace his PSU. His system wasn't going to use anywhere near the 850W, so I had him step down to a EVGA 650, which is a far better build unit. For one, it didn't daisy chain high power plugs like the PCIe 8 pin or the CPU EPS connector, like the Gigabyte unit did. It had home run connections for everything.
 
So 2 dodgy PSUs in a row, I won't use Corsair again. Also have a SeaSonic that has been running fine, I would buy them again, but EVGA just seems like the best.

The thing is this.

All the "gamer" brands (Corsair, EVGA, Gigabyte, etc.) rebrand PSU's from a very small number of manufacturers.

There are some that are very good. I hear excellent thins about the EVGA Supernova G2's and G3's. i believe someone suggested these werw rebranded Superflowers, and Superflower (as well as Seasonic) make very high quality PSU's

The problem is that this is no guarantee. You could have a very good experience with one EVGA PSU that's a rebranded Superflower, but then the next one you buy could be a rebranded version of something completely different. Unless you stay on top of things and research which manufacturwr made each specific model, you have no way of being sure exactöy what you are getting.

If you buy Seasonic, Enermax or Superflower directly though, you know you are always buying the quality stuff.
 
SeaSonic folks, nothing but SeaSonic will do and no, I don't work for them
For me, this as well. I haven’t bought a non-Seasonic PSU in the better part of the decade. Not that there aren’t probably units that are just as good depending on the model, but I have never had one of these fail on me, and the oldest still running is 11 years old now.
 
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