How long have you used your power supply?

GiGaBiTe said:
From 2005-2008 Antec came out with newer PSU models like the Earthwatts, Truepower and Basiq. These power supplies used a mix of junk capacitors from brands like OST, Teapo, and United Chemi-Con. These capacitors had the same problem as Fuhjyyu and would at most last about a year before they blew their tops.
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I'm curious about if you are just talking about their mid-range and budget offerings, or does that include the higher-end models of the era? My Antec Truepower Quattro 1000w from ~2007, which IIRC shared the same overall Enhance OEM design as it's 850w counterpart, has been going strong to this day. It has not been babied either, having spent most of it's life powering power-hungry computers that used either Quad-Crossfire or Triple-SLI (which it still does currently) along with a highly overclocked CPU.
 
GotNoRice said:
I'm curious about if you are just talking about their mid-range and budget offerings, or does that include the higher-end models of the era? My Antec Truepower Quattro 1000w from ~2007, which IIRC shared the same overall Enhance OEM design as it's 850w counterpart, has been going strong to this day. It has not been babied either, having spent most of it's life powering power-hungry computers that used either Quad-Crossfire or Triple-SLI (which it still does currently) along with a highly overclocked CPU.
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Most of the PCs I deal with are in the budget or midrange, I work on very few higher end machines other than my own gear since most people who buy such machines generally know how to service them.

I've never recapped an Antec PSU from that vintage over 500W, but it doesn't mean they aren't out there. Most of the units I've repaired were in the 350-500W range. There were a few lower power in the 200-300W range, but they were specialty proprietary form factor PSUs like the Antec Aria. That was an extremely difficult repair since a bad UCC capacitor heavily loaded a nearby zener diode that burned a hole completely through the PCB, wasn't a fun rework. Thankfully it was a known fault at the time and someone else had taken pictures so that part of the board could be rebuilt dead-bug style.

If you're curious about what capacitors the supply uses, most ATX PSUs have four countersunk screws on the lid that are easily removed. Most of the important capacitors are on the secondary side of the supply where all of the power wires come out.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Antec PSUs were garbage up until around 2008 when they finally started turning around.

From the late 90s until 2004, Antec primarily used cheap trash capacitors from a company called Fuhjyyu in most of their PSUs. These capacitors had defective electrolyte which was intolerant to heat and would break down and cause the capacitor to explode/vent. Further exacerbating this problem is a design flaw present in almost all of their PSUs at the time, where they were designed to be quiet and therefore wouldn't run the fan until the internal temperature was as hot as the surface of the sun. I remember diagnosing PCs with Antec PSUs and putting your hand near the fan exhaust would feel like putting your hand into a smokin' hot oven. The case of the PSU would be too hot to touch.

These units can be recapped with quality capacitors, but you'll have to mount some capacitors in different locations on extended legs because Fuhjyyu capacitors were often non-standard sizes. One example is they had a 3300uF 16v capacitor in a 8x40mm can, but everyone else either used 10x30 or 12.5x25. But you'll also have to perform a mod on the fan controller daughterboard to alter the fan curve. I didn't bother doing this most of the time because the daughterboard had like 30 pins, and instead I'd just do a power re-route to the fan header so it always got 12v. The fan rework and a recap would make these units rock solid and I never got one back out of the dozens I repaired. These units were commonly sold under the "Smartpower" moniker.

From 2005-2008 Antec came out with newer PSU models like the Earthwatts, Truepower and Basiq. These power supplies used a mix of junk capacitors from brands like OST, Teapo, and United Chemi-Con. These capacitors had the same problem as Fuhjyyu and would at most last about a year before they blew their tops. Recapping these also made them solid units, and they didn't have the shitty fan control problem so they were easy fixes.

Sadly the saga of shitty capacitors continue to this day. While I don't recap nearly the number of things I did 10-15 years ago, there are still reputable brands using junk capacitors. Today I spent a couple of hours reworking a CWT SFX PSU because the "Jun Fu" caps on the controller board failed, causing the PSU to act erratically. It also had a couple of OST and Teapo caps that had also failed on the main board, all were either electrically leaky or had high ESR.
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I think you're a bit off here. For one, many of the first Earthwatts PSUs were rebadged Seasonic and I never once heard anything bad about them. If memory serves, they were actually reviewed quite well. I still have an Earthwatts 380 in current use and has been in use since I purchased it years ago when they first came out. I've never once had an issue with it. There should be at least one if not two more of them sitting around here which are from retired systems and they never once gave me an issue. I also put them in a few systems for other people and again had no trouble with them ever. The 380s were a great value at the time. Reliable, decent power and quality.

Another thing I think you're off about is the fan profile issues. At the time you're talking about practically no one had PSUs setup to turn the fan off or only turn it on when necessary outside of niche "silent" PSUs. I know for a fact that the TruePower 430 I had on my old Athlon Socket A system never had the fan turned off. It ran from the moment you turned it on until the moment you powered the system off.

I'm not going to argue that Antec had some bad PSUs and issues from time to time but it definitely wasn't a junk brand. Hell, the only Antec PSU I've ever owned that I had any trouble with whatsoever was the TruePower 430. My Neo HE650 is ancient and still running perfectly. A Neo HE500 is sitting here and simply not in use but still works perfectly as well as the aforementioned EarthWatts 380s. I've run a lot of Antec power supplies over the years simply because other than the one time I've never had any trouble with them and I'm not nice to my systems. Would I buy an Antec right now? No. I'd go with Seasonic instead just like the one I had my son purchase for his new system a few months back. The competition in the quality PSU market is much higher than it used to be and Antec doesn't compete nearly as well as it used to.
 
SmokeRngs said:
I think you're a bit off here. For one, many of the first Earthwatts PSUs were rebadged Seasonic and I never once heard anything bad about them. If memory serves, they were actually reviewed quite well.
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Not sure why you think I'm "off" about them because I repaired them, dozens of them. It's not something you forget. Re-branded products are not always the same as the originals.

SmokeRngs said:
Another thing I think you're off about is the fan profile issues. At the time you're talking about practically no one had PSUs setup to turn the fan off or only turn it on when necessary outside of niche "silent" PSUs. I know for a fact that the TruePower 430 I had on my old Athlon Socket A system never had the fan turned off. It ran from the moment you turned it on until the moment you powered the system off.
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I don't know why you think power supplies in the 2000s didn't have any sort of fan control, because there were several on the market that had both fan ramping (Antec) and user fan control (Vantec, Thermaltake.) These were not niche products. These are just the few I have experience with, but there were others.

Antec Smartpower with the bad fan curve: https://www.priceblaze.com/sl350-atx.html

The Smartpower series like this did have a variable speed fan. The exhaust fan out the back of the case was controlled by a fan control daughterboard via a thermistor thermal epoxied to the secondary side heatsink. The second fan inside the case usually ran at a fixed speed. Also, Antec problems: https://www.pjrc.com/about/rambling/antec.html The voltage regulation going out of spec is because the capacitors failed.

Thermaltake with potentiometer for user control: https://www.newegg.com/thermaltake-silent-purepower-w0014ru-480w/p/N82E16817153007

Vantec with switch for three fan speeds: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1228
 
My crappy Mad Dog 350 I still have (and works) in my Athlon XP rig has Auto, low and high fan speed options with a button on the back.
 
Ive got a seasonic m12 ss-700hm 700watt i bought on 2/14/2007 according to my newegg invoice. It was running a e6600 and slied 8800gtx at the time :) Its still running strong in a back up rig. Caps look fine and rails are still solid. It doesnt see much use these days tho and i definitely wouldnt run it in a daily driver.
Ive also got a seasonic x series 1050 that is roughly 7 or 8 years old still running strong in my test rig. My current psu is a evga 1300 g2 that i got filthy cheap 3 years ago for $99 shipped! I was looking for evgas 1000w g2 unit but it was oos and $100 more, so yeah didnt have a choice! Ive never heard the fan and its never given me any issues(knock on wood).
Then theres the seasonic s12 II 520, $20 and 2 m12 II 620, $30 units i bought them on sale from newegg for future builds(they all had rebates). I havent opened them up to test yet. And finally ive got a seasonic s12 II 620 in my retro 775 rig thats 4 or 5 years old.
I think im covered for a few years :D
 
Oldest computer power supply I have that works. DTK PIP-151 Full AT PSU -- definitely due for a recap after 30+ years, lol. (this is in my 8088 XT Turbo 10MHz build)

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im still using my 500w antec earthwatt from 2007...good stuff..almost always on..no complaint here
 
newls1 said:
hell of a PSU there.. my review is posted on that page! brings back memories
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Yeah I still have mine in use too, started with a core 2 duo rig, still in use in my 3770K rig. Best PSU I ever bought.

Oldest ones I have still in use is my 300W antec in my BP6 rig, and the 435W antec in my A7m266D rig.
 
Thanks for this thread, I have been using a used Corsair HX750 in my old X58 rig that I was thinking about replacing. But also thought newer hardware should be more power efficient than running an old 32nm overclocked 6-core, and an R9 390 haha....
 
Ultra-m-a-n said:
Thanks for this thread, I have been using a used Corsair HX750 in my old X58 rig that I was thinking about replacing. But also thought newer hardware should be more power efficient than running an old 32nm overclocked 6-core, and an R9 390 haha....
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Power efficiency goes both ways. More performance for the same power or same performance for less power.
 
w1retap said:
Oldest computer power supply I have that works. DTK PIP-151 Full AT PSU -- definitely due for a recap after 30+ years, lol. (this is in my 8088 XT Turbo 10MHz build)

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The RIFA caps (precursor to X2 caps) usually go first. They'll either go on fire or explode, making a mess and lots of smoke. The tantalum capacitors sprinkled all over everything else also tend to short out and explode.
 
Rockin' nothing but SeaSonics. I don't even know how old they go. I do know that I've never had a failure or problem, no matter what I've done with the rigs (multiple CD burners, 8 harddrives, 2 GPUs, all overclocked, etc.). I usually aim for the 750w range.

Other brands may be just as good. I'm a SeaSonic loyalist: they've never let me down, they're all still running, and they're silent. They just sit there and wait for me to call. ;)
 
I'm still using a 2011 Seasonic PSU 760x model.. Just curious too.. Whats up with the psu's on Amazon? why are no Seasonics in stock really? My only choice is too hit the local MC. Same goes for the Corsair units on the site.. nothing seems in stock.. seems odd.
 
pug71 said:
I'm still using a 2011 Seasonic PSU 760x model.. Just curious too.. Whats up with the psu's on Amazon? why are no Seasonics in stock really? My only choice is too hit the local MC. Same goes for the Corsair units on the site.. nothing seems in stock.. seems odd.
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Supply chain is currently disrupted due to COVID-19, global economic factors, tarriffs, and production runs.
 
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 610 purchased December of 2007. I think it originally powered an AMD Athlon X2 3800+ in a DFI Lanparty Nforce 4 Ultra motherboard. It's still powering a 2600k & P67 system I sold to a friend.
 
Used a Corsair AX850 from January 2012 till March 2020. It started causing random shut downs during intensive stuff like gaming in March 2020. I then got an EVGA 850 P2 to replace it which I have been using since March 26, 2020. The new power supply fixed the shut down issue and even made my PC "snappier" (i.e. quicker/faster) during usage.
 
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Sprkd1 said:
Used a Corsair AX850 from January 2012 till March 2020. It started causing random shut downs during intensive stuff like gaming in March 2020.
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My OG 1st-gen AX850 (the one with the gold lettering on the side) is still going strong in its third system. I bought it fall 2010 and since then have had zero issues. It's still cool and quiet in its current home, an NZXT H400. I hope it never dies.
 
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