My PSU hath snuffed it

[vometia]

I have an ex-PSU. I've pretty much decided what to do with it, which is to wait until somebody I don't like rings the doorbell, at which point I'll lean out of the upstairs window and drop it on their head. So that's decided, then; no real problems there.

Where I do have a problem is that there's now a gap in my computer where the PSU used to reside, and no electricity flowing through its veins. So I guess I should get a new one, but I'm a bit behind as to what I should be looking at. OCZ? Coolermeister? Corsair? They're all reliable brands as far as I know; as long as I don't buy something from PC W*rld I should be okay.

I guess the first thing to figure out is how many watts I need. I'm guessing around 700 is a good figure to go for: my computer has an i7 920 CPU (not OCed, but I'd like the potential to go up to 3 GHz if the fancy takes me), 6 GBs worth of RAM, an ATI 4890 (might be looking to upgrade to whatever's cool and groovy later in the year, though), five HDDs, four of which are Velociraptors, so they may take some driving, a DVD player and the usual assortment of other sundry bits and pieces.

A couple of things I've looked at are this Coolermeister Silent Pro 700W, which is nice in that it's modular, and this Corsair 750W TX, which is nice in that it's slightly cheaper, has slightly more juice, but doesn't have detachable cables (though they are nice and long).

Any thoughts? I'd rather not spend more than I really have to, but I also know that it makes no sense to skimp on such an important piece of hardware either; and it has to be something sold by Amazon UK because nearly every other computer vendor has really terrible customer service.

[Brozly]

Last I knew Corsair was at the top, along with PC Power & Cooling witch has become OCZ's High End...

*The "Single Rail" suplies are Highly reccomended.

I have an OCZ "ModExtream?" and it's been fine for me, but I had a Faulty TT modle before that took out my Mainboard...

Edited January 3, 2011 by Brozly

[vometia]

Sounds like the Corsair might be a good bet, then: it has this single rail malarky, even if it doesn't have detachable cables (I looked at their other models but they seem to be significantly more expensive) and Amazon only have ~500W supplies by OCZ. Now I'm armed with a recommendation I may end up doing an impulse buy since I've hijacked my other half's computer while mine's broken...

[vometia]

Righty, impulse-buying it is, then! I figured I probably can't go wrong with the Corsair models especially with that all important single-rail thingy, but I went for the next one up with the detachable cables - looked like it offered more flexibility too. So this 750HX should hopefully be with me on Wednesday...

Thanks for the help.

[_echo]

With that setup you would be fine with a 600W.

Corsair is my bias recommendation. They believe in their customer service to the extent that they will replace the little rubber caps for their flash drives for free.

[Arion]

Corsair is my PS of choice here. Never cared for the modular ones as that's a break in the line (ie.. fewer connection joints from the main source to the end component) Though havign all those cables you don't use out of the way is a big plus.

[Arthmoor]

Odd man out here - the last two times I got a Corsair PSU the "single rail" gimmick turned out to be a bad idea, because it didn't carry enough power to handle the whole system on that one rail. I personally have much love for Thermaltake units myself. I would also have opted for something closer to the 800W range rather than undercut it at 600W with a setup like you have.

[Brozly]

Odd man out here - the last two times I got a Corsair PSU the "single rail" gimmick turned out to be a bad idea, because it didn't carry enough power to handle the whole system on that one rail. I personally have much love for Thermaltake units myself. I would also have opted for something closer to the 800W range rather than undercut it at 600W with a setup like you have.

I don't know if they've cleaned up their act, or maybe I just had a Lemon, but I had one of their "Pure Power" 650 units on my Neo 2 board, it read low in bios but software showed good voltages, but I had problems with that board for a couple years, before it Totally shut down, I'd checked the voltages with a DMM and they Were low, that's when I got this OCZ, I opened the TT and it was Nasty poor construction, the components were just Crammed into place, and the bottom side had literal Gobs of solder slopped on it...

I haven't had this OCZ open, but I can see through the cover that the components all Neat and uniform, it ran my Neo 2 board Flawlessly for a couple months, until the Voltage Modulator gave out.

I really hadn't done much research when I bought this one, but I knew they made good memories, and they'd just bought PC Power & Cooling.

I Truly am sorry to disagree with you on Any matter, but that was My experiance...

[Arthmoor]

No need to be sorry. I was just stating my experience as well. Burned twice, I'll never touch another Corsair PSU again. Thermaltake has given me nothing but good long lasting quality and I have no reason to buy something else. I'll probably have to upgrade if/when I bump up to a DX11 capable video card but until then it's served two systems well for the last 3 years I've had it.

[_echo]

Odd man out here - the last two times I got a Corsair PSU the "single rail" gimmick turned out to be a bad idea, because it didn't carry enough power to handle the whole system on that one rail. I personally have much love for Thermaltake units myself. I would also have opted for something closer to the 800W range rather than undercut it at 600W with a setup like you have.

Given his 2 most heavy hitters in is CPU and video card, totaling ~550 max usage, and those 5 hard drives will never be on at the same time. 2 at most for moving files, but when on the desktop, you are running in 2D mode, so the GPU isnt really doing any work, overall there is never going to be a time when the whole system is in use. 600 is low, yes, but its enough for the system to run. Though they want expansion and upgrade capabilities, so yeah, 750 or 800 would be good.

[vometia]

... those 5 hard drives will never be on at the same time...

Just to interject, the number of discs does sometimes worry me a bit as four of them are in fairly constant use: they're two RAID mirrors, one system and one data, so they're generally quite busy. That said, the power consumption is probably still trivial compared to what the CPU and graphics use so I need to retain a bit of perspective; the main potential for trouble being when they initially start up, but I think the RAID controller staggers their spin-up anyway.

Edit: looking at the figures again I'm now wondering if I should've stretched my budget to an 850 watt supply; but I'm probably just being paranoid now since I don't intend to experiment with Crossfire or anything like that, and 550 + odds and sods is still a long way from the maximum of 750 that I've settled on!

Edit 2: I also thought it would be interesting to look at the rating of the one that just died, which says 615 watts sustained usage. I was about to wonder if being too close to that is what killed it, though my PC was idle at the time it died. And it's not completely dead, just unable to maintain enough current on the 5V line (or something like that) for the computer to start, according to the diagnostics.

Edited January 4, 2011 by vometia

[Meo]

Choosing a PSU is always difficult. So in doubt check out some reviews, it will probably help.

Toms Hardware recently publish an article comparing 12 gaming PSUs, but the most interesting article I've seen is this one, it explains everything you need to know about the manufacturers and why some products are made better than others.

If i had to buy tomorrow, i would probably go with a Corsair HX850.

PS: Dont throw out your old PSU, theres a few salvageable fans in there that can come handy down the road.

[vometia]

Choosing a PSU is always difficult. So in doubt check out some reviews, it will probably help.

Toms Hardware recently publish an article comparing 12 gaming PSUs, but the most interesting article I've seen is this one, it explains everything you need to know about the manufacturers and why some products are made better than others.

If i had to buy tomorrow, i would probably go with a Corsair HX850.

Though I've already settled on the HX750 now (close enough! And lots of support for the Corsair - sorry Arthmoor!) that'll still make interesting reading.

PS: Dont throw out your old PSU, theres a few salvageable fans in there that can come handy down the road.

I never thought of that, and considering how often fans go bad that's a rather good idea. Thanks!

[vometia]

Actually another probably unrelated question just on the off-chance anybody has an idea: another system I've been trying to setup has a problem with spontaneous power-offs. But other than that symptom, I wouldn't even know where to start looking for clues.

Initially I assumed it was the PSU, which being a cheapo Akasa wasn't an unreasonable assumption, so I replaced it with a redundant Enermax from an old server which had always been reliable, but the problem persists. I'm fairly confident it's unlikely to be overheating (though I may be wrong) and the Asus motherboard should be more reliable than the MSI it replaced, so I'm not sure about that either. My suspicions fall on the Nvidia 8600 graphics card, though for no other reason than I've had trouble with Nvidia before, so as considered diagnostics go, it's a bit lame.

The software is unlikely to be the cause: I'd wondered if it was the OS as it was an experimental Linux workstation, but replacing it with a different type of Linux and then FreeBSD didn't avert the problem. The only slightly unusual thing they have in common is that I rather ambitiously tried to configure it as a discless workstation, so maybe it's something to do with hammering the network; I guess maybe I could put that to the test because in spite of my best efforts the performance was lousy anyway, so I should really forget that idea.

Anybody seen this sort of thing before and found the cause?

[HeyYou]

Spontaneous shutdowns are generally occur because of a failing PSU, failing MOBO, Overheating, or, "dirty" power from the source. (where you have the machine plugged in at.) Given that you have been thru a couple operating systems, I really doubt it is a software issue. I am somewhat confused though, did this problem persist over a motherboard change as well?

[Meo]

Id put my money on a overheating cpu. Similar shutdowns happened to me once, i couldn't figure it out until i opened the case disassemble the cpu fan/heatsink, it was all clogged and wasn't dissipating the heat but keeping it in. Everything was ok after cleaning.

[vometia]

So that's two votes for overheating - maybe I'll treat the CPU to a new cooler and perhaps a fresh lick of thermal paste! (Yeah, I know: I do this every time anyway. I even have some heatsink cleaner lying around somewhere). I don't think the last motherboard was involved in its problems, though it had enough problems of its own; and it's probably not the wall outlet since it's shared between a bunch of other computers and various bits of equipment (which together are well under its 3KW limit, so it should be okay) but I keep being tempted to invest in a UPS, at least until I see the price they sell for.

[Brozly]

Try HWMonitor it shows your temps as well as voltages...

[DsoS]

the random shutdowns could also be your RAM. I'm currently having that issue and I've tracked it down to my RAM... Upon research, I've found that many other users have had this issue too, including a friend of mine.

[vometia]

Hmm, I hadn't thought of RAM. I'd forgotten one very key point (it's been over a year...) which is that it was more likely to barf under high CPU loads like compilations, which I think does tend to point towards either overheating or bad memory. I'm not sure how I'd capture the results of testing though. Actually I probably do have something if I do it under a Unix of some sort, which is that I still have an old green-screen terminal that I "borrowed" from work many years ago, which will retain on-screen results even if the computer dies.

Now to see if I can find a cable for it. That sounds like the sort of entertainment that... actually makes me feel instantly depressed just thinking about it!

[HeyYou]

If you have more than one stick of RAM in it, yank one. Do something rude that generally causes it to die. See if it does. If it does, swap with the other stick, and repeat.

[Qwaxalot]

A couple of comments.

Thermaltake, Corsair, OCZ; all, generally good stuff...check reviews.

Memtest86: http://www.memtest.org// Will help rule out failing memory.

Back to PSU's.

Single 12 volt rails are nice, but in the very high power range, they are problematical.

With multiple 12 volt rails, you, obviously, have to ensure that the load is properly balanced.

One other thing; you stated an issue with the 5 volt line. Using lots of USB devices?

If so, consider getting an externally powered USB port (Belkin makes a nice one). The 5 volt line is very often overlooked, and very often the source of otherwise inexplicable shutdowns.

Good luck

[Arthmoor]

+1 for overheating as well. Also +1 for Memtest86 to rule out bad RAM.

[vometia]

Sigh, proving the point about my bad memory I nearly retyped a post I made yesterday.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions all! Hopefully my PSU will turn up a bit later, and once that's been fitted (hopefully without incident...) I can then take a look at my other system and find out if it's badly cooled or has duff memory in it... I'm not really a Windows person, so after more than a year of using it as my desktop I'm looking forward to getting my old day-to-day system up and running agin.

[vometia]

Well it's arrived! And installed, finally, though the nice neat cabling I was once so proud of is now less neat: I just couldn't face wrestling with it all over again, and just the CPU's extra power lead took about 10-15 minutes to wrestle into place since it was slightly too short (yeah I know, I could've used one of the others; though I'm not convinced they're any longer and they're less well protected, so beware any potential buyers who have motherboards with inconveniently located power connectors).

So far it all seems to be working correctly, though Part II, the part where the computer is wrestled back under my desk and connected up again, will have to wait. I hate replacing PSUs and need a while to recover!