How long should you keep a power supply?

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Stoneburner

Diamond Member
May 29, 2003
3,491
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I'm in the middle of an incremental upgrade to my system, meaning I am replacing my case for my main rig. In 2007, on the recommendation of JonnyGuru, I bought a Ultra x3 1000watt, probably the last decent power supply Ultra ever made.

Just to be clear I HAVE NO EVIDENCE that there's anything wrong with the power supply. HOwever, it's getting long in the tooth and I have never kept a PSU this long. I actually love this thing, it was one of the first units with full modular cabling with fully sleeved flat cables.

Should I put it out to pasture just to be safe?
 
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jumpncrash

Senior member
Feb 11, 2010
555
1
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my vote is going to be no, because old stuff is better.

However, somebody else might come in with scientific data proving me wrong, so do what you want
 
gevorg

gevorg

Diamond Member
Nov 3, 2004
5,070
1
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a good PSU can easily last a decade

if you know what you're doing, open it up and check if the fan needs to be replaced, fan is the weakest link of a well built PSU
 
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cubby1223

Lifer
May 24, 2004
13,518
42
86
It's been a long time since I've seen a power supply blow out and damage components along with it.

Far more often I've seen power supplies die while leaving the components fully functional.

Moral of the story is, stick with the power supply and the odds are greatly in your favor that the rest of the computer will not suffer from the decision.
 
B

Blain

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
23,643
3
81
Load test it to see if it still adheres to the ATX specification it was originally designed for.
 
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UaVaj

Golden Member
Nov 16, 2012
1,546
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aside the fan as already mention.

like old radios. if you r concern. replace all the caps. those are the only thing that wear over time. everything else should be good like original.
 
_Rick_

_Rick_

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2012
3,948
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Only reason to get away from it would be, if it's lacking modern protection mechanism, and horribly inefficient at the loads you run (e.g. a single GPU on Ivy Bridge build would probably put that PSU at quite a disadvantage over a 400W 80+ Platinum certified one). Also, modern systems tend to have a very large bandwidth of power states, and high frequencies in changing between those, which some PSUs have trouble keeping up with. If you're only doing a minor upgrade, that shouldn't be much of a worry though.

But even if you were to replace it, I would keep it around as a known good power supply, as many issues in PCs can be traced back to dying or faulty PSU's.
 
bryanl

bryanl

Golden Member
Oct 15, 2006
1,157
8
81
I would not trust a power supply containing Teapo capacitors much beyond 5 years, unless I removed and either inspected each Teapo electrically or replaced them with something better.
 
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Compman55

Golden Member
Feb 14, 2010
1,241
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The fans and electrolytic caps are the weak links. If those items are good, keep it.
 
Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
Reasons to replace:
- Need more power output
- Need more or different connectors and don't want to use 20 pounds of adapters. :)
- Dead supply that's out of warranty.
- Discover that the supply I've got is lousy quality, and can afford a higher-quality one.

Fan: If it's using crappy sleeve bearings and the unit is out of warranty, I'll replace the fan myself. (There are some big capacitors in there though, which can pack quite a punch, so this can be risky if you don't know what you're doing.)


I think I've only returned a power supply once - I had a Seasonic supply that had an inductor that was chirping at around 14-15kHz, which was quite annoying.

Note that that wasn't my only power supply issue over the years; it was just the only one where I'd actually sprung for a power supply from a company that had a warranty department you could actually contact and had a supply fail. :$
Cheap power supplies can give you noisy and poorly-regulated voltage on the output, and they probably won't be able to meet their rated output. Or they can just die. I killed a "400W" Duro brand power supply by running Prime95 on a 1GHz@1.4GHz AMD Tbird. A power resistor (maybe a 1-2W rating) inside the supply popped.
I've since gone with Antec, Seasonic, and then Corsair. That one chirping Seasonic was the only issue I've encountered, besides the occasional bad fan bearing, which I usually considered to be little more than a minor inconvenience to remedy. (Or in other words, I don't remember how many fans I've replaced, because my mind didn't register it as an event worthy of remembering.)
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,046
4
81
Once you go through a few new, shiny, and dustless power supplies that end up having coil whine or annoying fan buzzing, you will appreciate that "old" power supply that you never even knew was there.

I keep them until they blow up. If I outgrow them, they get moved to secondary systems and continue to live on.
 
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Stoneburner

Diamond Member
May 29, 2003
3,491
0
76
Decided to replace it with an x750 seasonic. No regrets, the x750 is a quiet beast. Since my computer is on quite a bit (this is my main PC) i wanted greater efficiency.

Now, I need to figure out what do do with the x3. 1000 watts of power just sitting around.
 
Z

Z15CAM

Platinum Member
Nov 20, 2010
2,184
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91
www.flickr.com
10 years with a StarTech 450 W running a 1.8 Barton at 2300mhz, presently Win7 [32] with 2g's of OCZ 400 DDR, GA-7N400 Pro2 (rev2), ATi Radeon HD 2600XT and countless HDD's without a Hic-Up.

Long on the tooth by today's STD's but what a Sweet Heart that runs 24/7.
 
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Rhezuss

Rhezuss

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2006
4,118
34
91
I have the same questionning with my 7 years old Corsair TX750 (version 1) 80+ bronze. My PC runs 24/7 most of the time with the rig in sig and nothing to complain. Great unit that i'm still considering replacing since it's getting old...but does not show any signs of imminent failing.

Like others said: Old stuff last longer so I might keep it a couple more years or replace it when I see a great unit on a special.

The Seasonic X750 is an awesome PSU and one I consider among XFX Pro and Corsair HX750.
 
2

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
131
106
i have a 550watt enermax that i purchased for my Athlon XP/9800 Pro machine that's still being used today in another system.
 
WhoBeDaPlaya

WhoBeDaPlaya

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2000
7,414
402
126
Rhezuss said:
I have the same questionning with my 7 years old Corsair TX750 (version 1) 80+ bronze. My PC runs 24/7 most of the time with the rig in sig and nothing to complain. Great unit that i'm still considering replacing since it's getting old...but does not show any signs of imminent failing.
Click to expand...
I have two powering my twin fileservers 24/7/365 for the past couple of years.
Also wouldn't give up my BFG EX1000s. Well built, look good and got 'em for a song (~$55).
 
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AMD64Blondie

Golden Member
Apr 20, 2013
1,661
140
106
My current PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI,which is currently in my backup Ubuntu Linux PC..is 7 years old and still working fine.
(Bought the power supply in June of 2006.)
 
W

Wall Street

Senior member
Mar 28, 2012
691
44
91
UaVaj said:
like old radios. if you r concern. replace all the caps.
Click to expand...

I don't know if I would give this advice so nonchalantly on anything other than an electrical engineering website. People have been killed by power supply caps.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,202
126
Wall Street said:
I don't know if I would give this advice so nonchalantly on anything other than an electrical engineering website. People have been killed by power supply caps.
Click to expand...

Can't you just drain them, by unplugging the PC, and then hitting the power button to attempt to turn it on, and drain the last little bit of power out of the PSU caps?
 
crashtech

crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
10,660
2,263
146
It's not rocket science to discharge a capacitor. That said, for most of us, we could go work at our chosen vocation for amount of time it takes to properly rebuild a power supply, and be money ahead to use the income thus generated to buy a new PSU.

Maybe we should be installing Hobbs meters on our high end stuff. My guess is the OPs PSU is just fine, but without any idea of the hours, it's a crap shoot.
 
JEDIYoda

JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
33,986
3,320
126
AMD64Blondie said:
My current PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI,which is currently in my backup Ubuntu Linux PC..is 7 years old and still working fine.
(Bought the power supply in June of 2006.)
Click to expand...
I have that same exact power supply.....back in 2005....
 
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