When do you retire a PSU?

MacLeod said:
I retire mine every 4 or 5 years but mainly just because I get the itch to buy something new. My TX750 is still running along fine but its 4+ years old and I'm aching to buy something new. I really want to play around with the new Corsair units and the Corsair Link software. I'm also tempted by those new Antec High Current units because I've always wanted to run a Delta built PSU and admit it would be cool to have a power supply from a line that OK Wolf gave a bunch of 10's to. ;)

So yeah, I replace them fairly often but its more just for fun than necessity.
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And the trend continues. Just pulled the trigger on a EVGA G2 750 at Amazon (via the commissioned buying link of course :D ) for $100 after taxes and Prime shipping. Like I said, I get the itch to buy something new PSU wise every 4 or 5 years and my TX750 is right around there. It wont technically be retired though. Ill drop it into the PC I built for my little boy to play games on and take the PC Power Silencer 500 out of it because the fan is starting to rattle.
 
My general poicy is that a new PC gets a new (or nearly new) PSU, so PSUs get retired either when they die or when the PC they are in gets retired.
 
I'm a bit of a pack rat. I love keeping all my old outdated crap around for future potential projects.
 
Your PSU is only 4 years old. That's a little more than half way in the life times of my PSUs. Unless you change your setup where you need more power keep using that PSU. Clean the fan often and it should last a few more years.
 
If it's only barely better than what I need (I estimate the system uses 500w and it's only a 600w or 650w supply) every 5 years. The components age so it's probably can only handle the baseline by that point. Otherwise until I start noticing problems.
 
i also do not "retire" a PSU, when a new build comes in the old PSU is relocated to a "lesser" machine, in which hopefully it will die without killing the rest of the old stuff.
on the good side, the old PSU usually ends up powering a less demanding system, which may in turn help to prolong the PSU life spam.
I believe at least one of my PSUs is 7+y old- an original HX520 that powers my brother's gaming machine.
on the bad side, big watts PSUs are utterly inefficient at lower watts demands, which was one reason why i picked an EVGA 1300w for my next project, since it is capable of high efficiency even below 10% usage.

Once a PSU shows any sign of malfunction it is as good as dead to me: repairing PSUs is not only dangerous for your life, but i wouldn't trust any PC hardware to a repaired PSU, even if it was "just" a leaked capacitor.
 
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When the PSU fails I generally retire it. Generally I keep my last three computer builds around. When I retire old rigs (generally 6 years old or more) I hack apart the power supply and modify it to provide DC voltage for electronics projects.
 
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