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Why do these PSU's poop flames?

M

marty9876

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - February 2006
Joined
Jun 11, 2003
Messages
4,906
Fix me up Spectre!

hec
HEC-300-AR-TF

Compucase Enterprise LTD

Running Intel 865/915 chipset motherboards. Celerons 2.4 > 2.66 HD/onboard video nothing crazy.

Seem to fail both under load (FAH folding @ 75%) and not under load, normal production environment (running local web app, nothing really loading the system).

Had about 10-15 fail across 150 or so units over 18 months or so.

Normal fail rate, high fail rate? Field techs reports seeing flames, smoke billowing etc. When they go, they go....

Thanks!
 
I believe this is the unit you are using http://www.directron.com/hec300arbtf.html correct?

But yeah that would be an alarmingly high failure rate. I know you said they are under warranty but if you could void one and let us see the inside we should be able to get a better idea of which side they are failing on.

Are these in your cabinets of death by chance? How is the case ventilation?

10% is really high failure rate even for really bad PSU's and HEC makes decent enough PSU's usually.....so I would almost think it has to be something causing it other than defective units.
 
Those only have 15A max on the 12V line. Are you anywhere near that?
 
I can get internal temps (speedfan) or what not, let me know what you need.

< 55 C on the CPU temps I know for sure.

Yes, cabniets of death... They stay very cool. Shhh don't tell anyone but @ 75% the computer case in not even warm to the touch. 100% the metel is warm.

Yea, I think that's the PSU. I meant to snap a pic, batterys dead in camera.

RE 15A on rail- not sure. 1x SATA or IDE HD, onboard NIC/LAN, 2x 120 MM case fans (set to auto in BIOS, never spin up much), FD, DVD-ROM and the Celeron CPU (2.4 to 2.66).

I've had about equal parts under 75% load die as under basically no load die.

I'll pop one open tomorrow, all in all don't matter honestly. To replace these would be totally unrealistic. It's a bear getting the box out of the box then swapping the PSU. Doable, just something the guys don't like doing. I'm close to doing a self imposed recall, flame + public access terminals = ohh shit.

case ventalation pretty good honestly.
 
sorry, cell pics.

The copper wind up deal is black, burnt mark on white glue stuff. Really smells too!







 
So the inductor blew.

Age + load, maybe?

They look pretty dust free.
 
marty9876 said:
Shhh don't tell anyone but @ 75% the computer case in not even warm to the touch. 100% the metel is warm.
Click to expand...
I'M TELLING!

Nah ;) Seasonic would be a good choice for replacing them with - the higher efficiency means they wouldn't produce as much waste heat as a less efficient power supply, and they're nice and reliable.

 
Yup. Looks like the main 5V/12V output filter inductor overheated.

What's more it looked like it had been hot for a considerable period of time - managing to scorch the circuit board, etc.

Either you had a serious ventilation failure or the PSU has been running close to its maximum capacity for a significant period.

In fact, if you consider that the CPU alone may need 7 or 8 A of 12 V, but the maximum capacity of that supply is 15 A - you can see that you're getting close.

Add 1-2 A for ancillary stuff (drives, video, motherboard, etc), and you get to about 9 A.

Once you derate for elevated temperatures + a safety margin - you're pretty close to the maximum safe capacity.

I think you need stronger PSUs. In particular, I'd look for ones which are a bit beefier on ther 12V line (or have 2 12V lines).

Edit - just noticed that you've said that some under just idle load have died.

Long term overload looks less likely, in that case - but that doesn't stop things from getting close to maximum load some of the time.

Personally, I'd be interested to know if all the PSUs died the same way - or if it's different faults in each one.

However, if I had 10 of them I certainly wouldn't be voiding my warranties, they'd be going back to the manufacturer.
 
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