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Power Supply Failure (Help with new purchase)
Had a Corsair TX650M just die on me last Friday. Some specs on the system it was in;
i7 3770K
R9 280X
Corsair H80i
16GB DDR3 Mushkin 1333Mhz (could be 1600Mhz cant remember)
Gigabyte Z77X-D3H
6 120mm case fans, (mostly corsair fans)
all wireless peripherals.
This build was hooked up to an APC
This is the first time I've had a power supply die in a system I own. I've operated with some serious junk in the past too, not with good components but still. This is probably one of the better psu's I've gotten. Apparently, not ACTUALLY one of the better ones, only had it for a little over a year with average usage too.
I am going through the RMA process but, not enthusiastic about throwing another one of those in the machine. So.... I'm basically looking for a replacement, what are my best options assuming there is no max budget?
Comments
First, how do you know that it was the power supply that died and not something else? I'm not claiming that you're wrong, but merely want to know the exact symptoms.
Second, do you know if any of the other hardware in your system still works or not? When power supplies die, they don't always die alone.
If you've overclocked anything, I'd recommend reverting the overclocks when you can until you can verify that everything is working.
Everything breaks. Buying a good, name brand, warrantied item doesn't make it bulletproof - it just lowers that risk, and gives you some options if/when it does break (try getting an RMA from DiabloTek or Compucase or some other third-rate vendor). Corsair is one of the better PSU vendors out there.
The TX650M is a Channelwell design. You could jump over to a Seasonic design if you wanted. Staying around the 650W range the the Corsair 650HX , 650AX, and 650TXV2 are all Seasonic-based (and there's the option to just go with a Seasonic branded one in the first place and cut out Corsair all together).
That being said, pay particular attention to the rest of your computer. Power supplies rarely fail in a vacuum - RAM, motherboards, and video cards are all very susceptible to also failing when a power supply goes out.
Not saying the OP is clueless with regard to troubleshooting, but this is a valid point.
One time I had a computer that looked like a power supply fault. It would turn on for a second, fans would spin up, etc. and then turn off almost immediately.
At first I thought it was the PSU.
When I started to take it all apart, a stray screw was lodged up under the motherboard and shook loose. It was grounding out something on the motherboard to the case - that was the problem. Once the screw was out, it worked fine and happily ever after.
Another time, I had a capacitor explode and catch fire inside the PSU. It blew chunks of paper (it was a paper-filled cap) all over the place, it looked like a confetti bomb. And the magic smoke, of course, was out. That was very obviously a power supply. That also fried the RAM and a video card with it.
I troubleshot another computer, it would BSOD randomly, it would power off randomly, it would clod reboot randomly. It sure looked like a failing power supply issue. Turns out the guy didn't have his video card screwed in to the chassis, and it was just loose enough so that it was causing the problem. I've seen a lot of loose SATA or power cords in systems behave similarly.
PSU faults are notoriously tricky to pin down unless they do something very obvious, like catch on fire or flat out refuse to turn on at all.
I really should have mentioned this beforehand, I popped a 500w coolermaster in there and it came back to life. It's not a power supply that I'd want to keep in that machine though, I don't think it's even 80+ cert.
That said, there were no symptoms before the failure... Well, short ghost story? My dogs rubber led light flashing color ball was going haywire the day before the psu failed, turning itself off and on randomly, also I noticed the sky was an unusual color the past few mornings. But, no BSOD's or anything, I hadn't even had a chance to overclock any of the components. I also tried the psu in another machine with no luck, not even a flicker.
My girl swears its a ghost. I wonder why she doesn't think it's aliens... Anyway, absurdities aside, is something seasonic the best choice? Maybe something gold certified?
It's not the manufacturer, but the particular model that matters. A given manufacturer can and usually does make various models of different quality. Seasonic has a reputation to protect, so their lowest end consumer power supplies are still decent.
This one is a nice deal:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182073
That's actually made by Super Flower. It's a nice power supply, though. If you want something Seasonic, there's this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151137
Or you can get a modular version of the same thing for $5 more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151118
I wouldn't even link this for most people because the ones above are plenty nice, but if you want to go nuts with the best power supply you can get, there's this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151121
I don't know if that's still the best consumer power supply on the market, but it used to be. And it's still very, very nice. Though for my own use, I'd save a little money and get one of the first three I linked, as they're all still very good.
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If replacing the power supply made the computer work again, then yeah, I'd say that's a power supply failure. But the good news is that it didn't take the rest of your computer with it when it died.
As Ridelynn said, a higher quality power supply is less likely to die, but nothing is invincible. I'll add that a higher quality power supply is less likely to damage other hardware.
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Upon further review, your UPS might well be the problem. The model that you link is only rated as being able to deliver 200 W. That's fine for a low power office computer, but for a gaming rig, that's not very much.
http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE350G&total_watts=200
If it did something weird to the power that it fed to your power supply, that can cause problems for even a very good quality unit. Some UPSes will cut off power entirely if they detect too much power draw, but I wouldn't count on a $44 unit being able to do everything that a $150 UPS can do.
A lot of UPSes, especially cheap ones, don't feed very clean power to the power supply. Ideally, a power supply would want a perfect sine wave. Most UPSes give a step function, and enough steps to make a decent approximation to a sine wave won't be a problem--and certainly won't be as bad as the power weirdness coming from the wall that made a good UPS feel the need to cut it off and revert to battery. But some UPSes can give a simple square wave when drawing power from the battery, and power supplies sometimes aren't okay with that.
A better choice would be to plug it into a surge protector bar until I get a higher rated UPS? I didn't really think about the UPS potentially being the culprit either. We lose power around here often enough that I'm not comfortable plugging it straight into the wall so, that's one choice eliminated.
I guess my main concern was that the TX650M just up and quit. When I think about it, I've never actually seen them die like that before, like you said Ridelynn, they usually show some signs prior. Well, first time for everything. Thanks for the help gentlemen, off to pick between those very nice looking seasonics.
Is it odd that I have an irrational dislike for Rosewill?
A power supply shouldn't inherently care if the power coming in is a sine or square wave - there is enough filtering in there that the DC on the output should be the same and the big power circuitry on the line side just cares that it's alternating so they can rectify it. It matters greatly to things like motors - to rectifiers, not quite so much. That, and you only see the synthetic wave if/when it's actually running on battery power (or it's attempting to compensate for poor quality line voltage, which I doubt your model does - that baseline model is barely more than a surge protector and will only pick up if the power goes out completely, it won't protect against some brownouts, frequency sags, or other power quality issues that really kill electronics).
And UPSes usually go apeshit if you try to overload them -- either they beep like mad, shut down, or some combination of the two.
That being said, I wouldn't rule it out as a possible cause, and you could use one actually capable of running your system anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if your computer hardly ever actually hit 200W - I have everything on my desk, including a laser printer, plugged into my UPS and it only spikes around 500W when the printer comes up, and sits most of the time around 250W.
Something like this would probably be better suited, especially if you do have power problems. It has voltage correction and is rated up to 600W,
http://www.amazon.com/APC-BR1000G-Back-UPS-Uninterruptible-Supply/dp/B0038ZTZ3W/
The UPS has run the PC in the past, along with the monitor and a router for about 5-10 mins. After a quick peek I realized that I liked the wrong APC, it's actually This One the 550. I did have issues with the software in the beginning, 10 second intervals where the PC would freeze / hiccup. After uninstalling the APC software everything went back to normal. Even when it runs on battery there aren't any hiccups.
I am liking that other APC though, maybe I'll get that with the new PSU.
In essence, it's entirely possible that it's the UPS' fault and only because the PSU was decent that other components didn't die as well?
In the event you need a power strip to protect you, it is too late. Most power strips only provide a false sense of security.
Which is why good surge protection is expensive.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
Couple of things:
On a UPS - runtime is a function of how big the battery is. Power load is a function of how big/robust the inverter is. It's entirely possible to have a 330W UPS that lasts 5 minutes. It's also possible to have that same UPS run for 500 minutes, with just a bigger battery. But no matter how many batteries you put into it, that inverter will never be able to power more than 330W.
Secondly - your "In essence" statement. No, afraid not. It's remotely possible that your UPS fried the Power supply. But only very remotely, because most ways a UPS would break a power supply, the UPS would be fried or dead as well. It's much more likely that your power supply just died on it's own, or that a power event on your utility occurred that your UPS could not protect you from and that fried the power supply. That doesn't necessarily mean your UPS is faulty, or that it would fry your next power supply.
And when a power supply dies - a good power supply (like the Corsair you had) will try to shut off or fail in such a manner that it won't blow up the rest of your computer - they aren't perfect, you can't predict or protect against every single possible way a power supply can fail, but they do better than most. So that's good - had it been one of the various cheapies you may have had in the past, good chance it would have blown out a whole lot more. But that really doesn't have a whole lot to do with your UPS at all.
If your power is bad (brownouts, lights flicker a lot, power goes out a lot) - it's much more likely that your UPS has done much more good than bad. It's extremely remote that your UPS blew up your power supply and din't blow up or fail itself - I won't say impossible, but very remote. Your almost certainly better off with the UPS you have than none. That said, a UPS with voltage correction (APC calls it AVR, or automatic voltage regulation) would be even better, because that's what your UPS is lacking, and a more possible cause of your power supply failure than the UPS you have actually breaking your power supply or doing more harm than good.
Edit**
Also, about the software - unless your running a server, forget it. I don't even plug non-servers into their UPS's, it doesn't do any good, and tends to cause headaches (like you've discovered). Just let the UPS do it's thing.
A 330 W UPS is a lot better for a gaming rig than a 200 W one. Whether it's enough for your rig depends on what you've got in it. Two GTX 480s in SLI would be trouble, for example, but it would be far more than you'd need for a Kaveri APU running integrated graphics.
It's likely just bad luck that your power supply died. Do send it back for warranty service with Corsair, though; even if you're buying a new one, it's nice to also have a decent backup that works for situations like you're in right now. And as Ridelynn said, good quality power supplies have more protections in place to try to avoid frying other hardware if they do fail. If something weird coming from the wall is what killed your power supply, then a poor quality power supply might have also died and taken other hardware with it in the process.
The UPS that I've used for the last 5 1/2 years is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102070
It's probably been through a few dozen power events and worked flawlessly every time. The one thing I dislike about it is that the light on the front is bright, so I covered it with a piece of cardboard.
I have a machine I built using mostly Rosewill parts (case, fans, PSU) and I haven't had a problem in almost 2 years. I think it's a good company for lower price parts. That being said, if you can afford it, there are better parts out there.
Rosewill is basically New Egg's house brand.
With power supplies, often one company will make a power supply and then sell it to other companies that put their own stickers and such on it and sell it as their own. For example, Seasonic's X-series, most of Corsair's AX line, and Antec's True Power Classic are all basically the same thing--and all really built by Seasonic.
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There are several different types of UPSes. The one you have now is a standby model. Basically, it acts like a simple surge protector until it sees that the power is out, at which point, it switches to battery. That usually works fine, but depending on various factors, the switching to battery could also crash the computer if it doesn't switch fast enough, can't deliver enough power from the battery, etc. And a standby UPS doesn't protect you against power weirdness coming from the wall if it isn't low enough to be detected as an outage or high enough to trigger the surge protection.
The one I have is a line-interactive model. It usually passes the power through from the wall, but monitors the voltage and power draw, and if it sees that something is wrong, it cuts off power from the wall and goes to battery. If it sees power draw over the rated power, it shuts off all power to the computer entirely. If the voltage coming from the wall is wrong (e.g., too low in a brownout), it can correct the voltage without having to touch the battery. The voltage isn't that precise; it can generally keep it around 115-125 V, but can't reliably hit 120 V as opposed to 118 V. It also monitors the power draw and will tell you how much power you're pulling from it in real-time (rounded to the nearest 1% of rated max), whether it's just passing through power from the wall or using the battery.
At the higher end, there are double-conversion models. Those basically deliver power from battery all the time, and recharge the battery from the wall as they go. But those are noisy and burn a lot of power. They're good for things where a brief power outage would be catastrophic (e.g., people die), but wildly inappropriate for most consumer use. And that's even if you ignore the price tag, which also puts things out of most consumer's range.
The different types of UPSes aren't a case of this brand does this and that brand does that. All the major UPS vendors offer models of all types.