PSUs go Bang!

[Kyorisu]

http://corsair.com/cinema/movie.aspx?id=622747

 

[Asus]

I doubt the video was fake. Although they could have put all the load on one rail (not cord) to stress the PSU. But that isn't unlike some setups when buying a cheap PSU and it doesn't have enough +12V power for these video cards.

 

[Kyorisu]

But who uses 375W for 2 minutes anyway and a total of 375W over what voltages?

 

[No Limit]

Without providing detailed specifications of how they hooked this up I wouldn't pay too much attention to it. As Asus said they should have overloaded one of the rails and then said look, we're only using 375 watts and the whole things is blowing. When in reality they are exceeding the actual power supply specifications. For example, why didn't they show any of their power supplies with the exact same set up?

 

[Barney Fife]

One of these did it to me once on my LanParty Ultra NF3, No fire, just smoke and bad smell. Then few months later it did it one of my friends who I setup an A8N32SLI DELUXE. His actually caught on fire momentarily.
Luckily nothing happened to neither of us, no component kick the bucket. We were just lucky so we ordered 700w GameXtreme which still powers my LanParty which I gave to my little girl.

You really don't want to overlook or consider PSU as unimportant. Those Xions weren't even cheap and they still left us hanging.

 

[Kyorisu]

The unit was rated at +3.3V@28A,+5V@34A,+12V@21A

We tested it with the 12V at 18A, the 3.3V at 20A, and the 5V at 10A on our load testers.

From the horses mouth the units were tested well within standard operating specs.

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=697010

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Absolutely not, Redbeard was simply dodging a piece of a burning transistor. And, just to be clear, these are NOT Coolermaster PSUs. That box is from one of their cases we used for a Computex show system. Nice case too.

At the end of the day cheap switch mode PSUs for PCs explode because they are cheap.

 

[VirusType2]

So leaving my computer on while I sleep and not home is a fire hazard if I don't have one of their PSU's?

I have an Antec PSU that I bought out of convenience about 2 years ago, and starting about 3 months ago, it very occasionally hard resets for no reason. Like once every 2 or 3 weeks. Which I understand as meaning that the power supply is dying?


PS, I need a power supply that can remain on all day every day, if you have any recommendations as to brand or model

 

[Kyorisu]

Decent brand names should be fine. Cooler Master, Thermalcrap (sorry I have to and I have one of their PSUs =p), Corsair, Antec, Gigabyte, Silverstone. Get any of these brands 500watters and you should be sitting pretty. My system runs off a budget Thermaltake 500ish watter job, not the best solution but it works. Given the opportunity I'd grab a Silverstone or corsair instead.

I would buy the best PSU that you can afford, for instance if you have a $150 budget go for an antec or similar inside that range.

 

[Asus]

Even though they were under the max for each rail you would have to know how the rails work together to see if you were actually hitting any kind of limit with different loads across all rails. The PSU will have a different limit for +12v depending on the load put on the +5v and +3.3v rails and vice-versa.

The number they give you in that simple spec line on the sticker (3.3v = ?amps, 5+v=? amps, 12+v =? amps) is just a theoretical max in the best case scenario. Like if the PSU says it's +12v max is 30amps, it may only be able to hit that if +5 and +3.3v rails are at no more than 50% of their max. But they put 30amps as max on the label.