Welp the Enermax gave up

[McCarthy]

Funny thing, last night I voted in the poll as to how many power supplies had died, and read a post where someone mentioned the 5v rail on their Enermax dropping until it was unusable. Today mine did the same.

When it was brand new it used to run 4.6v according to the bios on my KK266-R. The Enlight 235 I replaced it with ran 4.8, but since I'd bought this Enermax Whisper 365 (350w) when going to an Athlon I thought I might as well use it. And the system was stable, though it always bugged me a little.

Over time it's drifted down to 4.3. Still stable, thought Medal Of Honor locks up now and then and the system reboots when I play video fullscreen, but I figured that's a video driver problem and ignored it. Other than that, nothing repeatable. But it still bugged me.

Today I clicked windows to restart and left the room, expecting to come back to my desktop. Came back to W2K's disk check on bootup. Seemed odd it'd be checking, and even if it did, odder still it'd be checking after 20 minutes. Get to the desktop, bam, it reboots. Weird I thought. Let it boot up again, made it skip diskcheck that time, got to the desktop, vsmon.exe is complaining about a file being corrupt and won't quit. Restart, let diskcheck go, fixes the entry and back to the desktop. Go to run something, bam it reboots. Hit DEL, go into bios....




4.08v

Go grab my Enlight 250w spare PS, throw it in. 4.75v. No PS has ever read a full 5 on this motherboard so I've always suspected it reads a little low. Still do, doubt the Enermax would have been stable at a TRUE 4.3v as it's been showing the past couple months. Not that it matters, if it's really at a true 4.3 now instead of the shown 4.08 it's still failed.

Guess I'll go look and see if I can warranty this thing.

Upside is my computer is quieter now. *sigh*

--Mc

 

[Adul]

=\ sucks

 

[McCarthy]

Update:

Put the PS back in to document the voltages for warranty purposes. As I was unplugging the ATX power cable it struck me how warm it felt, especially after only being in use for a minute or two.

The plastic around pins 19 and 20 (+5Vdc) are burnt. Not melted, but definately browned. The red wire coating itself is discolored within a half inch of the connectors as well.

Pins 4 and 6 (+5Vdc) are also very slightly discolored, but nothing like 19 and 20.

All pins are secure and undamaged. There's no reason they shouldn't have been making good physical contact in other words. The Enlight is back in now and is exhibiting none of the heat buildup in the plug I observed with the Enermax.

Wish I had somewhere to host pics, I'd show ya.

Should have made it clear in the initial post, I'm not so much asking for help as documenting. People have been suggesting Enermax for the past couple years and in the past six months or so a few, including myself, have started questioning this recommendation. I'd already decided to suggest people go with Antec, Enlight, etc other than Enermax before this incident and am only more set in my thinking now. Hopefully a forum search for "Enermax" will turn up this post and others like it when the next person is researching his PS purchase.

At the same time I recognize this is a single failure I have and not necessarily reflective of the entire product line or the entire run of this particular model. The low 5v is common pattern though. I'll write Enermax and to be fair I'll update again with their reply if I receive one.

--Mc

 

[neuralfx]

is your board ok ?
-neural

 

[McCarthy]

Yeah, board's fine. All up and stable again with the Enlight 300w. Email's been sent to Enermax, hopefully we'll hear back soon. There's a lot to like about Enermax's design, nicely layed out inside from what you can see through the expansive air inlets, really nice sinks, lots of airflow, lots of connectors on long wires (though this is a double edged sword for case neatness of course), variable speed fans, ongoing options. But they really need to figure out this 5v rail problem. I've seen enough reports of low 5v rail to say yes, it is a problem, not a fluke with mine and someone else's. Guess I'm mostly surprised it kept falling over time and this hot plug is a worry, something others should check for the next time they're in their case I'd suggest.

--Mc

 

[McCarthy]

Got the reply.

Dear Sir.

How are you doing? We thank you for your supporting toward
Enermax's products .

Some components of the PSU are faulty. Please have the PSU RMA
to the store you bought it from. Regarding to the RMA problem, due
to our company policy, we deem our sales channel as the service
channel for each of our customers. For your utmost convenience and
promptest service, we suggest end users contact the dealer first for
the NG product. If you have further questions or need more service
please feel free to contact our branch office or agent in your area.
The info of our branch offices or agent can be acquired in Enermax
Globe Locations.

Finally, shall you have any further question, please feel free to
let us know. Thank you and have a good day.

Now if I could remember where I bought the thing from. It wasn't a store I'd used before or since, but one that had the Enermax for a good price at the time. Think I'll contact the branch office he mentioned if I can figure out who they are.

--Mc