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

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.
This is probably a return to counterfeit capacitors and whatnot.
 
No, the analogy here is the vehicle manufacture advertises a redline limiter, but the engine blows up before it gets there. If the PSU cannot safely shut down before a failure occurs, what's the point of over current protection?

OPP isn't designed to save the power supply, but rather your system components and prevent the whole start a fire thing.

The methodology presented in the video was that they first found where OPP kicked in by purposefully placing the power supply under a load that exceeded it's maximum designed capacity until it shut down. They did that repeatedly to dial in on exactly where OPP triggered the shutdown.

AFTER that is when they did the 60% load testing where the failure occurred. Gigabyte is saying in its statement that running the power supply beyond it's designed output can cause premature failure, which is what happened in half of their tests.

Why do we always need horrible car analogies on every single PC discussion? Is it so hard to understand that this PSU is basically shit?

If you want a more proper car analogy regarding this, here may be one. You get a brand name, nice looking car (like this PSU), but it burns oil to no end till the point the rods mess up and cylinders misfire then the engine catastrophically fails. That's what Gigabyte is basically offering you here.

I'm not saying that it's a stellar power supply by any means, I'm just pointing out that Gigabyte is in a fairly impossible situation to deal with from a PR perspective given how the units were tested along with a good bit of sensationalized questions/suppositions were made.

I'm not a car guy, so I make terrible analogies about them, but this is not the oil one you mention. It's a redline the thing a bit on race day and then wonder why you break down taking your kid to soccer practice.

Food for thought I suppose. It's probably more a waste of electrons because folks have already decided their opinion on the matter, but there's often two sides to the story (and I really only see one side of it being discussed).
 
Has anyone tried repairing these by replacing the blow mosfets with better quality ones? If I could pick these up for like $20 and spend $10 on mosfets then these could be good deals. I'm of course assuming the mosfets are the reason these PSU's are blowing up.
 
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've not had many Gigabyte motherboards that have survived the test of time. Even ASRock motherboards are still working today for me and I consider ASRock to be the worst motherboard maker.
 
Well... What they are saying is comparable to if you run a car's engine past the redline for a bit, it's not going to last nearly as long as one that has not been redlined. Is that an unreasonable response when that is how the research was conducted?
OPP isn't designed to save the power supply, but rather your system components and prevent the whole start a fire thing.

The methodology presented in the video was that they first found where OPP kicked in by purposefully placing the power supply under a load that exceeded it's maximum designed capacity until it shut down. They did that repeatedly to dial in on exactly where OPP triggered the shutdown.

AFTER that is when they did the 60% load testing where the failure occurred. Gigabyte is saying in its statement that running the power supply beyond it's designed output can cause premature failure, which is what happened in half of their tests.

End users have had these blow up on them...

Read the forum post they made. The overcurrent protection doesn't kick in on an 850W psu until its pulling up to 1300W?? Shit shit shit design. It should tolerate brief out of spec operation (maybe a few seconds worth), then the protection should kick in. If it allows the unit to operate far out of spec long enough to damage components, then you have a design failure. Fairly obvious one too. IF it is going to be allowed to run at 1300W, then you better have good enough components to avoid premature failure. Guess what, these PSU's do not. So yeah, shit psu.

They are exchanging the PSU's, so at least there is that. What about everyone who has had collateral damage and fried their mobo and/or GPU with one of these things... Has Gigabyte offered to replace those items? Nope. Hope you had warranty cause if not you're fucked.

Not a brand I will ever trust again.

I'm just pointing out that Gigabyte is in a fairly impossible situation to deal with from a PR perspective given how the units were tested along with a good bit of sensationalized questions/suppositions were made.
End users have had their systems fried. The PSU shouldn't allow that to happen. Has nothing to do with "how it was tested in a sensationalized youtube video.." Said testing only happened after repeated end user reports of failures and collateral damage.
 
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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.

Ouch. That sort of latent failure is a nightmare to troubleshoot.

Take a look at these threads -- the first one in particular. There was a VRM issue with TRX40 Aorus Master and Xtreme. It doesn't matter whether your problem was related. You can point to evidence of a known issue that necessitated the purchase of an alternative motherboard. Gigabyte should be obligated to compensate you in some form that does not involve sending you a replacement motherboard for which you no longer have use.

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/solved-3970x-prime95-stability/153206/34
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/amd...er-heavy-avx2-load-defective-by-design/153883
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22382946

Unfortunately, I don't think this sort of issue typically finds its way into the firmware changelog/release notes for obvious but inexcusable reasons.

...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.

At this point I think I'd be tempted to erase the memory from my mind and be done with it, but you shouldn't be left with a $500+ paperweight. I hope you can obtain some form of reimbursement. (Preferably not as payment in the form of power supplies either!)

Perhaps include a link to your build thread in the forum. It couldn't hurt.

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.

You're also human. One bad experience is all it takes, and yours was [H]orrific.
 
Looks like Deer could be : (a)Still in business, and also, (b)somehow managed to get other OEMs to relabel their PSU units?

Joking, of course. But 300000000 [H]coins to anyone who notices/remembers the reference.
 
PSU Expert Aris Mpitziopoulos Responds to Gigabyte Statement on GP-P750/850 GM Design Flaws

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...tement-on-gp-p750-850-gm-design-flaws.285612/

Expert is a REALLY big stretch. Aris was happy to sell Gigabyte a Cybenetics "Certification" (note, Cybenetics has no industry, governmental, or standards group recognition to "sell" certifications it is all pay to play scheme) http://members.cybenetics.report:5050/d/cybenetics_Pfv_eu.pdf

For a few thousand dollars Aris will certify whatever you want.
Then, for a few thousand dollars, review the same unit he "certified" and give it a shit review from one of the websites he freelances for.
Then, for a few thousand dollars more, will do Op-ed pieces for one of the websites he freelenaces for.
Awesome scheme, you make your money three different ways.

https://web.archive.org/web/2017080...benetics_better_paidfor_badges_for_your_psu63
 
Considering Gigabyte's response to this whole debacle, they need to change their name to, "GigabyteMyShinyMetalAss".

Making a PSU is not particularly difficult. They've made decent ones in the past...Hopefully, they'll learn; Sadly, I don't hink it will be anytime soon.
 
...

I'm not saying that it's a stellar power supply by any means, I'm just pointing out that Gigabyte is in a fairly impossible situation to deal with from a PR perspective given how the units were tested along with a good bit of sensationalized questions/suppositions were made.

...

Media 101: simply take the blame, move quickly solve the issue effectively, and don't bother finding excuses as to why you think it is not as bad as reported.

Plenty of examples where companies get applauded for swiftly (even pre-emptively) removing and/or recalling problematic products from the market, even if the issue is more of a hype as opposed to this case, where there were months of reports of the psu's being defective and damaging other components.

A surprisingly large number of people understand that, sometimes, things go wrong in manufacturing. It's when the brand tries to weasel out of their responsibilities when the true damage to its reputation can occur.
 
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After watching that video all I can say is yikes.

I can't believe he gave them several months heads up only to have them blow him off and then act like they were blindsided by this, actually I can believe it but it's not a good look. It also seems to me like pissing off someone with that much influence in the industry probably isn't the smartest idea for Gigabyte.
 
I feel bad too. I just got a $1,000 Gigabyte monitor. It seems great, but if I had seen that video first I might have cancelled the order.

I mean, my personal experience with Gigabyte has been good, but as you say, not a good look. I'll still buy Gigabyte but I will do more research first.
 
Gigabyte has always been shit, and Newegg turned to shit about 15 years ago, so I'm not sure why anyone even bothered in the first place.
 
Gigabyte has always been shit, and Newegg turned to shit about 15 years ago, so I'm not sure why anyone even bothered in the first place.
Our opinions are largely based on our own experiences. It's not like no other PC parts manufacturer has had their own issues and controversies before.
 
Our opinions are largely based on our own experiences. It's not like no other PC parts manufacturer has had their own issues and controversies before.

Indeed. Every single manufacturer has been doing crap stuff from time to time since they have existed. From Asrock to MSI and all the way to Asus. There have been compains about every one of them, just as many as there are fans of all those brands.
 
At this point everyone should just boycott Gigabyte products all together. No massive recall means fuck you Gigabyte. Not only is the PSU shit but it's taking out computers as well. Lets not forget that exploding PSU's could be a fire hazard and could burn down homes and nearby buildings. Recall these shit PSU's and pay for any damages done to their computers. It's either this or become the next OCZ and we all know what happened to them.
 
Has anyone tried repairing these by replacing the blow mosfets with better quality ones? If I could pick these up for like $20 and spend $10 on mosfets then these could be good deals. I'm of course assuming the mosfets are the reason these PSU's are blowing up.

That'd be like putting a higher amp rated fuse in your breaker box and calling the problem fixed. It's dangerous and shouldn't be done.

To make the PSU not explode, you'd have to replace the parts that exploded and modify the protection circuitry to trip at a lower power rating.
 
That'd be like putting a higher amp rated fuse in your breaker box and calling the problem fixed. It's dangerous and shouldn't be done.

To make the PSU not explode, you'd have to replace the parts that exploded and modify the protection circuitry to trip at a lower power rating.
It is probably not that hard. If you changed the testing method to something the vendor specified on the type of protection you would probably not need to modify anything. Or, just not run it way out of it's specified range without a specification designing it and then make the surpised Pikachu face when unexpected things happen on unexpected tests. That said, it is not a good power supply even before that. This is just sensationalizing a not good product for views that are way beyond the relevant not goodness of the product.
 
That said, it is not a good power supply even before that. This is just sensationalizing a not good product for views that are way beyond the relevant not goodness of the product.

Most definitely not a good supply. I had a customer a couple of weeks ago with the 850W version of this supply and it came from the factory with a miswired SATA power pigtail that killed his SSD and one of his storage drives. If they can't be trusted to correctly wire up an all black pigtail, I wouldn't trust them on the rest of the supply.
 
That said, it is not a good power supply even before that. This is just sensationalizing a not good product for views that are way beyond the relevant not goodness of the product.
Yes and no. I agree no one doing 5 seconds of research would buy this PSU. It's clearly horrible and not worth it for free.

Except, with Newegg bundling it, they find unsuspecting buyers that are probably so happy just to get a video card they don't care what the bundled item is.

So that is dodgy. More so than there just being a bad product, there have always been, and will always be duds, that is why you do research first.
 
Yes and no. I agree no one doing 5 seconds of research would buy this PSU. It's clearly horrible and not worth it for free.

Except, with Newegg bundling it, they find unsuspecting buyers that are probably so happy just to get a video card they don't care what the bundled item is.

So that is dodgy. More so than there just being a bad product, there have always been, and will always be duds, that is why you do research first.

You're making a different point though - you both agree that it's not a good power supply. What no one else seems to see is that the test method used to cause the fireworks isn't a very good test method.
 
You're making a different point though - you both agree that it's not a good power supply. What no one else seems to see is that the test method used to cause the fireworks isn't a very good test method.
You might be right. I don't really understand the test methodology, I did watch the videos but I don't know enough about PSUs at that level to make a determination.

When I buy a PSU, I go with a brand that has done me solid before, I glance at reviews, I assume gold is better than bronze (but I really don't know more beyond that).
 
You're making a different point though - you both agree that it's not a good power supply. What no one else seems to see is that the test method used to cause the fireworks isn't a very good test method.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the testing methodology. They shouldn't be expected to reliably run at the wattage they were loading them to but they should be expected to reliably shutdown safely instead of popping in a way that frequently takes out parts and could cause a fire. They also had one of the test units die spectacularly in a fairly short time(few days) while running normally, I believe that was the one that took their 3080 out with it.

The biggest issue in this whole mess for me is that they were informed of this last fall and did jack shit until it blew up after GN finally called them on it publicly. The way they've handled this will definitely make me think twice about buying their products in the future and I say that while I'm using a gigabyte monitor that's connected to a gigabyte graphics card so it's not like I'm some hater that would never buy their stuff in the first place.
 
Yeah, I own a bunch of Gigabyte products, and I thought they were great, but it does make me doubt if I can trust them moving forward.

I don't even care that they made a crappy power supply. Mistakes happen. But their response was bad, they should have just done the right thing (a recall) and a public apology.

They did not, and makes me think they are not an honest company.
 
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I don't think there's anything wrong with the testing methodology. They shouldn't be expected to reliably run at the wattage they were loading them to but they should be expected to reliably shutdown safely instead of popping in a way that frequently takes out parts and could cause a fire. They also had one of the test units die spectacularly in a fairly short time(few days) while running normally, I believe that was the one that took their 3080 out with it.
If anything, they should have done the standard load tests prior to running it out of specification. It's really that simple - don't do something that will damage the unit before starting your review procedures.

The biggest issue in this whole mess for me is that they were informed of this last fall and did jack shit until it blew up after GN finally called them on it publicly.
What was there to do though? GN harped on OPP, but reducing OPP on these units does not make them a better or safer unit. I wouldn't be shocked (oh, now that's punny) if GN's test methodology was applied to the revised units and got the same results.

But their response was bad

They were also put in an impossible position due to the test methodology and boisterous presentation. Their response said that no one should be surprised that a PSU would fail after the manner of OPP testing and offered to lower the OPP of your unit in the event you were persuaded by GN that it was the root cause of the PSU not being all that great (even though it's not). There's literally no response that would satisfy the keyboard warriors other than them offering an exchange for 3 new Titanium Seasonic psus for every 750/850GM turned in.
 
They were also put in an impossible position due to the test methodology and boisterous presentation. Their response said that no one should be surprised that a PSU would fail after the manner of OPP testing and offered to lower the OPP of your unit in the event you were persuaded by GN that it was the root cause of the PSU not being all that great (even though it's not). There's literally no response that would satisfy the keyboard warriors other than them offering an exchange for 3 new Titanium Seasonic psus for every 750/850GM turned in.

This is only an impossible position if the company stubbornly persists in its own righteous we did nothing wrong stance. Even if one accepts your premise that the testing methodology is wrong (which I don't; for psu's it is within spec to safely deal with the tested out-of-spec situation, safely being the operative word here), it is much better to take the hit and just recall those psu's instead of what would essentially be feeding the alleged hype. That way they would have turned a "gigabyte is risking our equipment for their profits"-perception into a "wow, gigabyte make damn sure that they don't damage our equipment" one. Guess which one does the least harm to their reputation, regardless of the actual quality of the product in question.
 
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