How long do your PSU(s) last? Branded or cheap PSU(s)?

[xenogen84]

From my experience, all the PSU(s) I bought cost around USD 10-15 for the past 8-10 years.

My experience is that they have average life cycle of 1.5 years to 3.5 years life time until some part of them burned and I changed another one.

I usually on my computer 24/7.

Recently, I bought a new PSU which cost around 57USD (included shipping) , FSP Group (Fortron Source) AX450-PN (Tier 3 in the chart somewhere).
I could have use the money to buy 4 low cost PSU at USD 10-15.

Do you think they can last at least 10 years?

How about yours? What's your experience with the PSU? Does the tier 1-3 PSU last longer? How long?

I never bought a very expensive PSU before.

Just wondering did I make a good choice or not.

 

[oynaz]

I have never had a PSU fail on me.

 

[xenogen84]

What brand(s) do use? How much do they cost? They last more than 10 years? Just curious.

 

[Canai]

My last one was an Enermax, lasted 6 years till the mobo in that comp died.

Now I have a Rosewill, and I expect it to last until my next computer.

If you are paying $10 US for a PSU, it's no suprise it's dying on you

 

[imported_Gimli]

I'll never trust a cheap $10-$15 psu to power my computer components that I have spend some money on and I have yet to have a good quality psu fail on me.

 

[Conky]

The only PSU I've ever had die on me was one on a work system that was a generic 386 machine from top to bottom and that was over 10 years ago.

I think people worry way too much about PSU's considering they usually either work or they don't and when they do work they have no effect on performace. IE, an already working system that gets a brand new Thermaltake 1200watt PS is not going bench any higher in anything because of the new PSU.

 

[jackschmittusa]

I've replaced lots of psus in other peoples rigs, mostly Bestecs in several store bought brands.

Since the days when 250w psus were considered considered large capacity, I have used nothing but Antecs in our home machines (usually 3 at a time), and never had one fail, or not perform as advertised. I have sold or given away units as I have upgraded over the years, and I know that many have worked beyond 5 years (some still running grandkids machines).

You mention a 10 year life as desirable. I think you are silly to think that any psu today will have the power and the necessary connectors to operate a machine you might want to run a decade from now.

When you consider that the psu may be the least expensive component in a rig you might build today (even if you buy a good one), it makes little sense to try to save a little and possibly put 10 times or more the dollar amount of hardware at risk of failure.

 

[imported_AndyT]

You get what you pay for in reliabilty and customer service. I know a lady that wanted plastic surgery, so she shopped around and got the cheapest doc she could find. The results show (not to mention she nearly died......).

As far as the life of a PSU, just figure that when you upgrade your computer again in a few years that you will likely need a new PSU. Specs change, power requirements change and so do your needs over time.

 

[xenogen84]

My last PSU was Rosewill which come with case which cost me around 25 dollar from newegg.

Case plus PSU so I am thinking the rosewill PSU costi around 10-15 dollar.

Surprisingly it only last for 1.5 year, normally, the PSU I bought last for 2.5-4years+but after the rosewill die, I scale down the lifetime for a PSU to 1.5-3.5 years.

So, Did I make a bad choice for choosing FSP for 50+ bucks? Or I should have bought Power supply for 10-15 dollar since I might have to upgrade the whole computer 3 years later?

What do u think?

 

[imported_AndyT]

The FSP brand is very good quality and will give your system cleaner, safer power. You made a good choice choosing a name brand PSU.

As far as choosing the right size, we would need your system specifications and PSU specs. If it is running well, you probably made a fine choice.

 

[Aquila76]

Originally posted by: Conky
The only PSU I've ever had die on me was one on a work system that was a generic 386 machine from top to bottom and that was over 10 years ago.

I think people worry way too much about PSU's considering they usually either work or they don't and when they do work they have no effect on performace. IE, an already working system that gets a brand new Thermaltake 1200watt PS is not going bench any higher in anything because of the new PSU.

You don't buy a quality PSU (and ThermalTake is NOT a quality PSU, btw) for added benchmarks. You buy a quality PSU for stability and actually meeting listed power ratings. Sure, an el cheapo power supply may not make your PC explode (although it can damage the components in it with failure), but it can easily cause anomalies from random lock-ups to reboots to artifacts in gaming when everything is running full steam.

A quality PSU can actually enhance performance in that in many overclocks, the power supply is holding you back if you have proper cooling.

EDIT: I've had my current Enermax since '03. My Antec TruPower I had for a good 5 years before that, and it still works OK, I just exceeded it's power capabilities.

 

[Bill Kunert]

I have an Antec Smartpower 400 Watt that I bought 9 months ago that just went back on RMA. It still provided power but wouldn't boot unless the power switch was turned off for a few seconds then back on. I've got a $15 supply from New Egg in till I get the Antec back.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: AndyT
The FSP brand is very good quality and will give your system cleaner, safer power. You made a good choice choosing a name brand PSU.

As far as choosing the right size, we would need your system specifications and PSU specs. If it is running well, you probably made a fine choice.

My two FSPs are still performing well after 6 months. They're pretty quiet too.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: xenogen84
I never bought a very expensive PSU before.

Just wondering did I make a good choice or not.

I think you made the right choice (and it's not that expensive).

PSU's seem to be the cause of a lot of problems.

A bad PSU can take out other more expensive components in your PSU, so the $30-40 is worth it IMHO.

Fern

 

[stevty2889]

I had a generic 400w psu, that blew and took my motherboard with it. Since then I have gotten name brand only. I just recently had an antec smartpower die on me, turns on it's one of the models they used lower quality capacitors in, so I stay away from those now as well. Never had a problem with my enermax or fortron PSU's.

 

[Zepper]

A PSU should last until the electrolytic caps start going dry (unless you get some really cheap caps). Consumer grade caps should last from 5 to 7 years and server grade should last you from 7 to 10 years. I can't recall ever having a PSU go bad on me either - but none sold for less than $30.00 new. I still have a Sparkle 250 watt unit that is over 5 years old and I use it for testing stuff all the time and as a loaner on older machines while I'm waiting for a new PSU to come in. I often buy top quality used units and I have a lot better power than I would otherwise spend for.

.bh.

 

[pkrush]

Really, it depends on the brand, but some cheap PSU's are worse than others. I've seen people use cheap PSU's for years perfectly fine, and I've seen ones that expired after 15 minutes of use. Still, from my experience, it seems like it's more about brand than price. I've had 2 Rosewill power supplies expire on me in the past year (one from capacitor failure, the other one just degraded to the point where it wouldn't run my system stably any more and the fan started failing). Both of them cost around 50 bucks and were just over a year old at the time.
In comparison, the 4-5 year old FSP 300 watt power supply in my Linux system is still working fine even though it only has 8 amps on the 12 volt rail. (I actually tried to power this system with the aforementioned Rosewill, and it was so bad that you could see the LED's dim whenever the hard drive was being read!) It's outlasted 2 systems so far, and it only cost me 40 bucks with a Foxconn case. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that cheap power supplies tend to be much less forgiving of bad power or wiring since they don't have any voltage or current protection at all, and they have a habit of taking out other hardware when they die. I know a guy who literally managed to melt the wiring off of a cheap power supply.
The decision to buy a cheap power supply is all yours to make, but you should remember that the power supply is the only part in your system that can kill all of the other parts in an instant, so if you value your hardware, get a decent supply from a decent brand. By decent brand, I do NOT mean Rosewill, Powmax, or Aspire. Seasonic, Enhance, FSP (but NOT the newer AX series, those tend to have dodgy capacitors and tend to fail after a year or so), and OCZ are all pretty decent, though, and I'd suggest getting one of these.

 

[IEC]

I've used my Antec True 430W for something like 6 years. It came with the Antec 1080AMG server case I still have... Besides opening it up and replacing stock fans when the bearings started going bad, it's been rock-solid and powered a XP-2700+/NF7-S v2/R9700P system, a Sempron 3300+/Jetway A200GDMS/X800 system, and a A64 3200+/eVGA NF4 SLi/X850XT system. We'll see if it's up to the task of powering the Pentium D 930, Gigabyte DS3, and 2x1GB of Super Talent RAM on the way

 

[xenogen84]

Seems like the death rate is about Luck.

I guess I will stick with the FSP I bought and experience it myself, If it only last 3 years(I would like to see it last for 5 years at least) then I will get rosewill brand,coolmax brand ($10-20) instead of $50 FSP since they never break my computer parts when they fail.

One of the reason why I have chose FSP is because I am planning to upgrade my PC to AMD X2 5200 and above plus a graphic card such as X1950pro which my previous rosewill(dead) won't able to support them. It is always good to plan ahead, I guess.

Thanks for sharing your experience with me.

Really appreciate.