What is the oldest PSU that you own that is in a computer and working?

[JEDIYoda]

I have an 7yr old Okia 350 that is working day in day out. Not missing a beat.
Of course there is hardly a load on the PSU!!

 

[tcsenter]

I have an 7yr old Okia 350 that is working day in day out. Not missing a beat. Of course there is hardly a load on the PSU!!

You can take a mediocre 200W design, market it as a 300W unit and it should do great for years as long as its output never exceeds ~200W.

This is actually how I buy power supplies. I never buy premium models, only mid-grade and even the economy units. I just assume total output = 65% of advertised. e.g.

cheap 400W unit = 260W actual, then make sure its going into a system that will never do more than 260W.

I buy a lot of cheap or mid-grade PSUs (30+ per year), have had very very few failures or cases of PSU related instability. I've had more fans go out or start buzzing than actual PSU failures.

 

[Stefan Payne]

Some 200W or so Seasonics from the beginning of ATX.

Of course, I'm just talking about ATX PSUs and not AT...

 

[Jimmah]

I've got an old AT PSU from a 486 I use on my test bench, though I'm only using the 12v side.

 

[compman25]

Step-Thermodynamics, it's at least 11yrs old and still going. More than I can say about Step's business.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Several units that are 8-10 years old in OEM HPs and Dells. For every one that I have still running, there are at least 4-5 that are dead.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Step-Thermodynamics, it's at least 11yrs old and still going. More than I can say about Step's business.

I still got one of their slot a athlons somewhere with the transistor mod on it.

 

[HOOfan 1]

Got a couple of 10 year old Dell units still running...one of them gets used 5 or 6 hours a day...still got a Commodore 64 power brick that works

 

[Danube]

I've been using a 550w Seasonic everyday since Oct 2006

 

[deimos3428]

The PSU in my Pentium 4 which I bought in 2001 just started to get a bit wonky and shut down randomly this week. So I replaced it with the even older one from my Pentium III which I bought in 1998. So far, so good. (It's a 235W Hipro, model HP-235WATXA6.) I use this PC frequently.

I also have a working PSU in a Compaq portable circa 1982, but it only gets turned on once a year -- to make sure it still turns on.

 

[Henry Chinaski]

I have a 200W FRONTIER LT-20ATA which is handling an INTEL Pentium MMX 200Mhz, a LEADTEK "3DLabs Permedia 2" 8Mb, 3xDIMM SDRAM 66Mhz, 1xCD, 1xHD, an ISA sound card and a "i430TX" mobo from SOYO since 1997.
It can provide 11A in the 3,3V rail, 13A in the 5V rail and 8A in the +12V rail.
In the primary it presents two electrolytic capacitors from D.S. 470µF 200V labeled at 105ºC. In the secondary all the caps are from D.S. rated at 105ºC.

 

[kalrith]

I have a server at work that's been running 24/7 since 2000 with the original power supply.

 

[bryanl]

IBM brand XT PSUs from the early 1980s, made by Astec (not Antec), running 500 MHz AT motherboards that handle industrial equipment.

 

[MagickMan]

The PSU in my XT still works. That was around Summer of 1984.

 

[Mono44]

The cheap Sparkle power supplies have lasted me a long time, never had one die on me yet and I've been using them for over a decade.

 

[Scali]

Does my C64 count?
It's still using the original power supply that it came with, in 1985.

 

[shortylickens]

Longest I've ever had is two years straight. I believe it was an Enermax. Either because of overuse or perhaps gremlins, my supplies often die in less than two years. Or I get a new motherboard with new plug requirements.

 

[faxon]

oldest PSU i have that still works is a thermaltake TR-2 500w "shitpower", which i use for 12v only operation now because its 5v regulation is bad enough to show up on a $40 DMM as out of spec for ATX2.0, im pretty sure i lost a motherboard to it. got it in 2006, retired it to test bench only use in 2007, it's currently being used about 18 hours a day for a 60w 12v load powering a couple walls of fans im using for intake/exhaust in a room with 1.2kw of distributed computing draw, keeps it nice and cool in here

 

[Big Lar]

You guys have some oldies Oldest running I have is a 300 watt Emacs Redundant.

Larry

 

[uOpt]

Actually running right now are a couple 430W Seasonics from IIRC 2003.

 

[jaqie]

sparkle 1u 250w.

 

[OddJensen]

300W FSP made Aopen PSU in a Pentium II rig I assembled in mid-1998. The rig does work fine, but hasn't seen any use in a while.

If I hadn't dissected it, it would have been an old 230W AT PSU from 1996-ish that powered my old K6 rig.

 

[dualsmp]

A Sparkle 230w bought around 1997 is still kicking in an old P4 I have. I had to rig up a molex to 4-pin to the mobo and it works fine. Not sure of the quality of Sparkle today, but back then they must have been pretty good for the time.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Oldest currently running is an Antec Truepower 380W.

Of course, I recapped it ~2 years ago. The lack of fuhjyyu caps in it make it much better now.

 

[ModestGamer]

I got a unknown PSU in a apple 2e. Still works.