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How long do power supplies last?

D

DGath

Senior member
My choices are an antec 350 or a 480. 350 will be plenty for now, but the 480 would be great for the future. The new system I'm building will last me 2, maybe 3, years. Then my next system will last me 2-3 years after that. Is the quality of a PSU still that good maybe 5-6 years later? I can't decide if I want this PSU to be for just this system, or my next system as well. Obviously cause it's Antec it'll last a lot longer than others, but how long is long?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm a complete noob to power supplies.
 
I used an Antec 300W supply for about 3 years before putting it in a system for my sister. She's been using it for almost a year now. Still going strong...

Some of our pc's at work are very old...I'm talking 90MHz pentiums, 32MB of RAM, some with Windows 3.11. They have their original power supplies in them. Most of these old pc's sit in a corner and do trivial, but necessary things...print server, run automation scripts, basic stuff. They're getting close to 10 years old now.
 
Even cheapo units last a ridiculously long time. But by the time a system comes along that NEEDS 480W the ATX 12V spec will likely be obsolete, so just get the 350.
 
Heck just buy the 480w it comes in blue anyway 😛!

I'd rather pay up a little more than play "magical PSU's" trying to find one that will work and end up paying for like 2-3PSU's if they don't supply enough power/don't keep rails very good.
 
Theoretically any electronics with solid state and electrolytic capacitors can last up to 10 years or so if kept clean. As that's about when electrolytic caps dry out and begin to fail.
Of course you will have changed out the cheap fans that they put in most of the PSUs several times by then.
.bh.
:sun:
 
I have 3 Inwin full tower cases that I bought in 1995, 1996. They all had 300W power supplies that worked without a problem for years. I upgraded the computers with these cases over the past year to some AMD XP based systems and changed out the power supplies to some Antec TruPower 430 watt puppies. The stock OEM Inwin power supplies worked without a hiccup for years, and I am wondering now whether I should have replaced them at all. If you buy a high quality power supply, it should last for years.
 
stranger, I think I have the same case, Q500? Its 300w PSU is still kicking even loaded up with an oc'd tbird, 3 hds and 3 optical drives. It's not even AMD approved. I replaced the fan in it with an L1a, but other than that it has been untouched. I was shocked at how much dust it had accumulated over the years when I put the fan in. :Q
 
I must have some really bad luck or I've just been buying really crappy PSUs because I've managed to "fry" 3 250watt power supplies. Not only that, but in one of the computers im building right now, the case has a faulty 420watt.
 
A 400W PSU should be enough for every system around with no extremes like quad-HDD or heavily OCed processors at 4-5GHz.
The brand counts, however. Noname PSUs have often less protection against short-circuiting and such.
 
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