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How long do PSU's last?

N

Nakamori

Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2005
Messages
530
I'm thinking of getting an antec 500, I was just wondering how long it will last me with a pretty modest setup (see sig).
 
Nakamori said:
I'm thinking of getting an antec 500, I was just wondering how long it will last me with a pretty modest setup (see sig).
Click to expand...
Antec's have 3yr warranties, beyond that you are on your own.

Things change so quickly in the computer world that 3yrs you will probably upgrade anyway.
For long term operations, I have PSU's that have lasted for over 5yrs & others have lasted even longer.

Dave
 
Nakamori said:
I'm thinking of getting an antec 500, I was just wondering how long it will last me with a pretty modest setup (see sig).
Click to expand...

I have PSU's that are fixing to turn 20years old :)
 
davidhammock200 said:
Antec's have 3yr warranties, beyond that you are on your own.
Click to expand...

I recently used a 11-12 year old Channel Well 235w in a build for my little sister - a K6-2 400 system. So far, no problems ;)

Of the six other CWT/Antec units I've had pass through my hands, none have died. A couple have bad caps, but are still working albeit with slightly higher rails than they once had.

The worst of the bad cap ones, an old 420w, had gone up to 5.2v on the 5v before I pulled it out of service. Once I stop being lazy and order 3 replacement caps, it'll be good for another couple years easy. It ran for a year before the fan quit and it overheated, and ran another year after fan replacement before I spotted the damage from the overheating. It was in my main rig - the FSP 530w I replaced it with has not improved overclocking... the CWT was very solid and stable.
 
My Antec 350-watter has been running strong since November 04. I've had no problems yet, but then again I've only had it for half a year.
 
hehe swear to god I have a Deer PSU that came in a Micron Millenia PC i bought back in 1998 that is still running strong with a biostar mb, athlon xp 2600 and geforce fx5200.

I couldnt believe my eyes last month when i really looked at the PSU and realized it was a crappy ass Deer. I guess I havent really put it through a beating though. Never OC'd the Millenia PC, and hasnt been bleeding edge since a few weeks after I bought it.
 
Component Reliability Tutorial PDF

higher load = more heat = faster electromigration = decreased MTBF

all mechanical and silicon devices are subject to the

the Arrhenius equation

roughly translating to this rule of thumb
Each 10°C (18°F) temperature rise reduces component life by 50%
Conversely, each 10°C (18°F) temperature reduction increases component life by 100%.

an overtaxed PSU is a prime candidate for premature\accelerated failure
and a poorly designed overtaxed PSU a prime candidate to take other components with it
 
going on 2 years with my pcp&c, as seen me nicely from a p4 1.6a through my 6800 ultra / 3500+ phase change system to my current which is 3700+/phase change/7800gtx/2gb mushkin xp4000

Only thing I did was have them swap out a circuit board to get native sli support for $50.

I plan on using it for as long as possible, hoping for 5 years plus in a high end machine.
 
Ive still got an Antec PP403X thats near on 5 years old
of course its never been seriously taxed or overheated
I bet it could go another 5 years of the same duty cycle

in short with care far past the components its likely been designed to power
 
I thihnk a more appropriate questino (and perhaps what the thread starter was intending, and what I'm wondering myself) is how long in terms of power capacity will these psu's last?

I'd say for certain at least 2-3 years with his 550, maybe more depending on what hardware he was running.

Ice, looking at power trends, do you think its reasonable to expect my 510sli to power a top of the line system for the next 5 years?
 
Ice Czar said:
Ive still got an Antec PP403X thats near on 5 years old
of course its never been seriously taxed or overheated
I bet it could go another 5 years of the same duty cycle
Click to expand...

Considering the pp403x is an older revision of the CWT 420w I mentioned in my post (CWT-420ATX12), I don't doubt that at all ;)
 
^ ;)


computerpro3 said:
Ice, looking at power trends, do you think its reasonable to expect my 510sli to power a top of the line system for the next 5 years?
Click to expand...

well....
it would certainly be outstripped by the historical trend (considering our "average" starting point today)
however the real question is the adoption of alternative technologies and marketing forces
the trend we are talking about is predicated on Moore's Law and photolithography
(GPU development is like Moore on speed at like triple what CPU developemnt is currently)

just like heat pipe technology is now widely employed to deal with thermal solutions whereas it was rare 5 years ago
we might have optical buses in 5 years, I dont think the historical trend in power consumption (and its corollary heat) can be maintained and new technologies will have to be adopted
 
Pert much most computer componants last well past the time they become obsolete unless something unfortunate happens to them.
 
I like that line of thinking Ice Czar. I'm currently using a Pentium M and the barebones its in has a cheap little 270W PSU (CPU consumes 21W@full load). I think low-power-consumption/low heat computing is the wave of the future as IBM is showing us with Blue Gene. 700Mhz=5.6Gflops@7W max power consumption. Two of those are equivalent to the fastest processors today and they use ~1/15 the power each.
 
Just on a semi offtopic note, the Micron Millenia PC i referred to above survived a house fire on april 1st of this year, in which it was powered on at the time, and hosed down with a fire department hose before they realized the house was still live and cut the electricity. The only faulty equipment on it (in terms of usability) was one dimm went bad, and most of the fans died. The PC itself was near ground zero where the fire broke out and im sure it endured temperatures several hundred degrees above ambient temps. Ironically we lost everything in the fire, including our house, except my 2 PC's and monitor, which all managed to survive, although they are pretty deformed and miscolored.

Moral of the story: PC's can take a lot more abuse than people give them credit for as long as they are properly maintained. Before I powered either of the PC's back on I tore them down to bare cases and scrubbed the shit out of everything with 91% rubbing alcohol to ensure there was no carbon residue on the components. The dimm that went bad was a kingston value brand from bestbuy. No heatsinks, which are what saved the corsair dual channel dimms im fairly certain (protection from the smoke and carbon residue).
 
ambient temperatures are a secondary factor
in that they reduce the ability to dump heat ftom the primary heat source
normally an IC chip. The computer couldnt have gotten all that hot or the caps would have burst.

This is how electromigration works
http://www.dwpg.com/content.php?contid=2&artid=68

more on ESD flash melting junctions, the Arrhenius equation and Black's equation can be found here > http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=761614

computers are far more fragile than most appreciate as evidenced by failed hardware seen every day in these boards

the above are the general mehanisims of failure ;)
 
I know of a pcp&c 510 sli that survived a fire that burned a house down forcing the owners to relocate for months while it was rebuilt. Ask jacuzz :)
 
again its the heat and current inside the circuit itself that accelerates electromigration

ambient temperature's role is largely limited to how well it allows you to dump that heat into the air the greater the temperature differential the better your able to dump the heat and the lower the circuits own temperature ;)
 
Knock on wood, my stock PSU that came w/ my Dell almost 7 years ago is still running strong. But I'm replacing this ancient computer very, very soon and hope that my new PSU (still deciding what to get) can last me that long.
 
I had an Antec that lasted 4 years under constant load till it was upgraded. The only PSU maker that I have had problems with was DEER, and I learned my lesson :( Hopefully my PCP&C will last till it is time to upgrade once again :fingerscrossed:
 
They can last a very long time if they are made with quality components...

My dad's machine has an Enermax 350w which is now 4 years old. It's been on 24/7 for that time and is still working perfectly.

I have a Pentium 100 that I had given to me and it's been running 24/7 for the last 6 months and on and off for a year before that when I first got it. Not sure how it was used before that time.

I also had a 386 given to me and the PSU still worked fine on that.

I have replaced powersupplies on machines less than 6 months old too though... it's all about the quality of the PSU and it's ability to cope this the load of the components attached I'd say. There is always the chance that there will be a defect of course which could cause it to die sooner than intended.


By the way i'm sorry to hear about the house fire but it is amazing that the PCs still worked after the fire. It is a good feeling to not have lost all of your data (if you didn't back up off site, most people don't).
 
well, i've had a dell optiplex gx1 that started out as a piii 400 that ran with it's stock power supply for what, 8 years strait, only being powered down to move and add hardware. it was roasted in the fire about 2 months ago.

my wife's machine had a 250w antec that was 4 years old at the time of the fire

my dad had a deer that was 6 years old, but it blew and took the motherboard and processor with it last month.

hell, at the school district that i work at, we have pentium 200s that are still running with original parts, we just blow them out with the air compressor yearly.
 
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