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My nearly 10 yr old PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750

Oyeve

Oyeve

Lifer
I was a huge PC part guy many years ago. In 2006 at the age of 40, I just basically stopped cold turkey. My divorce took most of my spare time at that moment. Right up to that point I was in the middle of an awesome build (in 2007 terms) and purchased a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750. It was ths shizznit back then. Anyhow, that old (then new) build was an Core2Duo s775 system with 2 8800 cards. My Current system is an i7 4790k with 32gb ram and such but I am still using the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750. Even tho the PSU was used for only 2 of the tens years (basically the last 2 years) should I think about replacing it? Its runs fine but it is nearing 10 years.
 
The capacitors can go bad. Even though it wasn't used much, they still age.

Kind of like batteries (different, I know) that you put in a drawer and forget to use. The power slowly drains and they can start leaking after a while. Everything has a shelf-life.

If I was in your situation and had to make a choice, I would probably go ahead and replace it just to be safe. I'd hate to chance it blowing. You could pick up a really good unit for $70 - $100 and not have to worry about it.

I mean if you are adventurous, you could open it up and inspect the capacitors inside and see if any are bulging, leaking, or just don't look normal.
 
It's a quality PSU based on a Seasonic design and unless it fails I would not worry about it. I had one that lasted almost 7 years of mostly 24/7 use before it failed after a power outage.
 
I have a Similar unit not that much younger and it's running my Skylake system just fine. They were the best PSUs on the market back then for a reason. Use it and be proud.
 
I built a very nearly identical system in 2006. That power supply isn't "Haswell" ready meaning it doesn't support some of these ultra-low power stages like C6 / C7 that the newer chips support. That would be another reason to purchase a more modern power supply.
 
My 9 year old PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 is still running in a spare 930 at 4200.
For a few years it ran a 5970 with a 5870 without any problems.
I ran that ps during Core2Duo days with sli 8800gtx.
I have been using a newer 750 PC Power & Cooling Silencer 2 in a 3770k to be safe.
 
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my 9 year old PCP&C silencer red 750 is still going fine in a PC I use for messing about in the guitar appreciation room.

unless you need some special feature that it doesnt have roll with it.
 
My PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI (which I bought new in June 2006..) is still running perfectly in my backup Linux PC.
 
I'll chime in as well in regards with PCP&C track record.

I've got a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 that I've had for almost 8 years (purchased July 2008) that I am still using currently, and in total seen two system builds. Wont replace it until it decides to call it quits.
 
In Nov 2007 I bought LC power PSU, most people on the net sees them as low quality, unreliable etc, but it has been used every single day since then, no problems so far.
If that PSU does work, don't bother replacing it, not worth putting extra cash for nothing.
 
Even if the capacitors are not visibly distressed, it might still be a good idea to replace it. I read an article where they took a (high quality) Silverstone PSU that was 7 years old but still worked in day-to-day usage. When they attempted to test it approaching the rated wattage it outright failed.

I believe in the 7 year guideline, so I would replace it if it was to be put in a new system and it was 7 or more years old.

If you were leaving it in the original or older system, I don't think I would care since at that point its probably a 5-7 year old system.

Article :
http://m.hardocp.com/article/2015/0...1000w_power_supply_7_year_redux/#.V2VjHHNlDqA
 
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XabanakFanatik said:
Even if the capacitors are not visibly distressed, it might still be a good idea to replace it. I read an article where they took a (high quality) Silverstone PSU that was 7 years old but still worked in day-to-day usage. When they attempted to test it approaching the rated wattage it outright failed.

I believe in the 7 year guideline, so I would replace it if it was to be put in a new system and it was 7 or more years old.

If you were leaving it in the original or older system, I don't think I would care since at that point its probably a 5-7 year old system.

Article :
http://m.hardocp.com/article/2015/0...1000w_power_supply_7_year_redux/#.V2VjHHNlDqA
Click to expand...
It does not say anything more than PSU being less powerful by few percent, modern more efficient GPUs and CPUs which draw considerably less power are more than enough counterweight in this sense.
 
Sheep221 said:
It does not say anything more than PSU being less powerful by few percent, modern more efficient GPUs and CPUs which draw considerably less power are more than enough counterweight in this sense.
Click to expand...

loadtest.jpg


Couldn't even do the full load test either hotbox or at room temperature. It would have been nice if they actually went more in-depth and did 50 watt intervals from 750-1000 to see where it actually failed.

I can only assume as more time goes on, the maximum capacity of the PSU will continue to deteriorate until at some point it completely fails.
 
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AMD64Blondie said:
My PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI (which I bought new in June 2006..) is still running perfectly in my backup Linux PC.
Click to expand...

This used to be in my gaming PC in the mid 2000s as well. Still running strong in a 2U server case I made into a HTPC for upstairs.
 
nerp said:
I have a Similar unit not that much younger and it's running my Skylake system just fine. They were the best PSUs on the market back then for a reason. Use it and be proud.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. Age is only part of the equation, it also involves how much use it's gotten over the years and it sounds like not much. I've got a PC Power & Cooling 470 Silencer and I still run it in a system and it still runs 100% solid. The only reason I retired it from my primary system is because it didn't have the quantity of connectors (SATA, GPU, Mobo, etc) that I needed in more modern builds.

XabanakFanatik said:
loadtest.jpg


Couldn't even do the full load test either hotbox or at room temperature. It would have been nice if they actually went more in-depth and did 50 watt intervals from 750-1000 to see where it actually failed.

I can only assume as more time goes on, the maximum capacity of the PSU will continue to deteriorate until at some point it completely fails.
Click to expand...

That name...XabanakFanatik...I know you. Where do I know you from? WACC? Online? Essex? Star Trek TNG DVD's? I'm curious now...
 
I still have an ancient PC Power & Cooling PSU running in my HTPC. It's so old I can't remember when I bought it. It's probably 10 years old, at least. Good stuff!
 
I bought a Silencer 275 in 1998 which was the biggest you could get at the time. That power supply still works. I'm sure it's ripple is high now, but it endured loads that a 275 watt supply shouldn't have to. It was in near continuous use until retirement (just two years ago). The last application had it powering a P4 and 8 hard drives. I had to use a molex to EPS adapter, and a whole bunch of splitters and molex to SATA power adapters. The mess of cabling and the reliability of those adapters is why I took it out of service.

I know their supplies were made by Seasonic at the time, and is the reason why I only purchase higher powered PS from Seasonic. I do have a couple PicoPSUs powering very small router systems.
 
My corsair PSU lasted 7 years of constant usage before it failed, I think you will be fine.

If your PC fails to start then you probably know where to start looking
 
I would monitor the voltages, under full load with OCCT or something like that, and make sure they are within range.
If so, I would keep using it.
If you see spikes or other anomalies, I would stop using it. Might also be a good idea to not test this in the main system, just in case it takes everything out--yeah, this might be rare, but, I don't think I would gamble if I had some higher end GPUs or HD/SSDs in the system.
 
I have a Corsair HX520 sitting around that still works. I don't even remember when I got it, but it was a looooong time ago. Anyway I retired it out of concern that it might eventually go belly-up. If you aren't going to push that PSU to 80%+ of its rated load it might last awhile anyway. Just go easy on it okay?
 
I run them till they die. Most do not and end up being thrown out due to obsolete connectors. Most of them are sale/cheap units as I have usually been poor.
 
Oyeve said:
I was a huge PC part guy many years ago. In 2006 at the age of 40, I just basically stopped cold turkey. My divorce took most of my spare time at that moment. Right up to that point I was in the middle of an awesome build (in 2007 terms) and purchased a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750. It was ths shizznit back then. Anyhow, that old (then new) build was an Core2Duo s775 system with 2 8800 cards. My Current system is an i7 4790k with 32gb ram and such but I am still using the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750. Even tho the PSU was used for only 2 of the tens years (basically the last 2 years) should I think about replacing it? Its runs fine but it is nearing 10 years.
Click to expand...

Wa-a-I-I-T a minute! You're saying you've had the PSU for ten years, but it's only got 2 years of mileage?

I'd say the only concerns would be the cabling and plugs or whether they're compatible with your hardware, whether you can mod those that need to be accommodated to that hardware.

If you had to, you could do that with a soldering iron and scrap cables from a newer PSU. Or maybe a specialty warehouse offers the parts you'd need.

But otherwise -- that PSU has a lot of mileage left on it.

Even for great PSUs like the rebadged-Seasonic-Silencers and others, there are things that cause wear and tear. Particularly, letting the computer remain in sleep mode for days or weeks at a time. Set up your system to sleep after so many minutes or hours, then to hibernate so many minutes or hours after that.

As it was explained to me, sleep mode still requires the PSU to function, but it does so without any cooling. So the wear and tear on some components.
 
I have a PC P&C Silencer 610 that I bought new in 2010. It's in my HTPC now and works perfectly.

My main rig uses a Corsair TX 650 and so far it's been a great PSU.
 
I've bought a new PSU when I upgraded from a 8600GT to an HD 3850, that was... January 2008...
it still my main PSU, the only thing that happened was the fan died like 4 years ago, so I replaced the fan.
other than that I didn't notice any changes since 2008, my PC probably uses less power now anyway.
 
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