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Thread: Power supply failure

  1. #1
    sugar n spikes floppybootstomp's Avatar
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    Post Power supply failure

    On Sunday evening one of my computers just shut off. After a few tests I figured it was the power supply, a 480W Tagan. My biggest worry was that the power supply blowing may have damaged other components.

    After a little shopping around I decided to order a Corsair 650W non-modular PSU from Scan. The PSU because I didn't need a modular one as there was no window in the case and ample room in the case to tuck leads I didn't need out of the way. The case is a Mk II Antec Sonata.

    And Scan because their price was competitive and as a member of the Hexus forums I get free postage at Scan. I ordered the PSU late Sunday evening. I also ordered a KVM switch for the two machines in my bedroom.

    Monday morning 10am, Scan acknowledged my order. There followed four more e-mails during the day from Scan, detailing each stage of the order, culminating at 4.30pm saying the goods had been despatched. I was able to track the order at City Link's website.

    At 11.18am today (Tuesday) the goods arrived and I set to installing the new PSU.

    As you can see from the pix I had to remove my Noctua cooler to swap PSU's, which is a bit of a pain. In some cases you have a removable back plate for the PSU but not with the Antec Sonata.

    Here's my machine minus the PSU and CPU cooler:





    My Heatsink fitted with two Noctua fans in a push-pull combo, it comes with one fan as standard and I added another. It works well.



    Here's my shiny new PSU (well, actually, it ain't shiny at all :



    And here's the PSU fitted:



    Never mind the 'one dollop and twist' technique, I prefer to spread it all over. Arctic silver applied to CPU. It looks thicker in this pic than it actually is.



    And the cooler refitted:





    Connected everything up, switched on, held my breath and.......

    .....yay! Everything's alright

    Phew.

    The Corsair is quieter than the Tagan, I notice. The Tagan that died was three and a half years old and was one I reviewed favourably at another forum at that time. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

    I mentioned Scan's order in detail as I was quite impressed with their service, they've improved. They also give a phone number which is reassuring.

    As for Power supplies, I'm sold on Corsairs now, I think they're great. I've had two or three Antec PSU's die on me (can't remember if it was 2 or 3 but at least 2) and one Jeantech Arctic Modular, which I managed to repair myself and is still in use (I had to bypass the fan regulation which had died and hardwired the fan to the 12V rail).

    In my media machine I have a hardy little no frills 350W Jeantech PSU purchased from PC World around five years ago.

    C'est La Vie say the old folk it goes to show you never can tell....


    Brief system spec:

    Asus M2N-sli Deluxe Motherboard
    AMD Black Edition 6400+ Dual core CPU 3.2Ghz
    2Gb Corsair Dominator 8500 C5 memory
    BFG 8800GTS 640Mb Graphics
    2 x PATA Optical drives
    4 x SATA HDD's, 2 in RAID 0
    A Floppy drive

  2. #2
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    Re: Power supply failure

    I had a Tagan 480-watt (I think......) which I had been using 24/7 for about 4 years, which died a few months ago. If you open it up, take a look at the second-biggest capacitor(s) and see whether any of the legs have disintegrated into a small clump of oxidised brown stuff. One of those caps on mine had a leg completely gone, and all the other caps were bulging quite badly.

    Check your hard drives are OK with Speedfan and the web analysis feature of it - I reckon my Tagan with its very low voltages killed one of my drives (but I had a backup, so all was rosy after a few hours).

  3. #3
    sugar n spikes floppybootstomp's Avatar
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    Re: Power supply failure

    Quote Originally Posted by smargh View Post
    I had a Tagan 480-watt (I think......) which I had been using 24/7 for about 4 years, which died a few months ago. If you open it up, take a look at the second-biggest capacitor(s) and see whether any of the legs have disintegrated into a small clump of oxidised brown stuff. One of those caps on mine had a leg completely gone, and all the other caps were bulging quite badly.

    Check your hard drives are OK with Speedfan and the web analysis feature of it - I reckon my Tagan with its very low voltages killed one of my drives (but I had a backup, so all was rosy after a few hours).
    Thanks for that.

    I haven't opened the Tagan yet but I do intend to have a look round inside.

    If it's straightforward capacitor replacement, no probs, but if it gets deeper than that, or the voltage regulators, I ain't going any deeper.

    The hard drives all appear to be ok, I've opened folders on all of them. I have the Ultimate Boot CD 4 so may just check all drives using the disk diagnosis software.

    Funnily enough I was just about to make an image of C drive when it failed and had just had a thorough pruning of the two storage drives, found all my mp3 doubles and deleted and organised everything into folders. Must have deleted a few Gigabyte all in all.

    Was feeling quite chuffed with myself when pffffft - el deado

    Thanks again for the pointer.

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    Re: Power supply failure

    The caps in the Tagan are b*stards to take out and access - the heatsinks are soldered on to the PCB and screwed on to VRs which you have to get other stuff off to unscrew etc. After you've had a nosey around, just bin it.

    You need to use SMART software (Speedfan) to look at those stats - look at reallocated sectors. If you have any, replace it.
    Last edited by smargh; 07-10-2008 at 08:18 PM.

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    Re: Power supply failure

    Lol, this was like reading a story. I was waiting for the bit where it all went wrong and then it ends.

  6. #6
    sugar n spikes floppybootstomp's Avatar
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      • Memory:
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      • Storage:
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      • Graphics card(s):
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      • PSU:
      • Corsair Modular 620W
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      • Antech 900 Gamers Case
      • Operating System:
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      • Internet:
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    Re: Power supply failure

    Quote Originally Posted by moogle View Post
    Lol, this was like reading a story. I was waiting for the bit where it all went wrong and then it ends.
    Oh, you cynic you

    Nope, this one had a happy ending.

    Part of the reason I posted this was to demonstrate my neutrality towards Scan after my contribution in this thread:

    http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...vice-scan.html

    I was going to post a link to this thread in that one but Scan have locked it.

    I still think Scan were wrong in that instance and so I said so. I notice now they've silenced the guy who drew all that negative attention to them by letting him keep a more expensive card they mistakenly sent him.

    I said from the start they could limit damage by sorting the guy out but no, procedures, rules, which in the end were broken anyway.

    And I'm still smarting over my 4 week rma with Scan.

    But.

    Credit where credit's due, the sequence of events in my first post speak for themselves really. I ordered from Scan on purpose to see how they would handle a typical order. They handled it well.

    I shall probably use Scan in the future but with my guard up knowing they're not perfect.

    Now to make that backup using Acronis

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    Re: Power supply failure

    Quote Originally Posted by floppybootstomp View Post
    Oh, you cynic you


    Glad to see it went all okay.

    Yeah I know Scan aren't perfect, I myself had to leave a bad rating on the HEXUS.trust section until I got my problem resolved (I gave up and they contacted me after that rating, and we resolved the problem which was nice).

    You should try eBuyer out too they're brilliant for me and a few others recommend them too, although they don't have as much enthusiast products as Scan do they'll have all you need to build a PC or fix it.

  8. #8
    Senior Amoeba iranu's Avatar
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    Re: Power supply failure

    Glad to see everything went ok.

    I had a Tagan 480W die on me last week, however, I still think they are great PSUs and the 480W model was a classic. My Tagan lasted 4+ years in a heavily used overclocked rig and supplied rock solid voltage all the time. It died with a soft pfft and no smoke rather than the huge bang I had with a new one a bout 5 years ago . Both died when switching them on and off again a few times. I still have another rig running a Tagan 480W that has lasted almost 6 years. I've now got a 620W Corsair Modular and I'm thinking of getting the 520W model for my Bro or a Coolermaster 520W modular. Was surprised at how light (and small) the Corsair is compared with the Tagan.

    Opening up the Tagan - I can't see what has blown, it'll be something small and inaccessible so I'll nick the fans off it and it'll go to the tip where it can be properly disposed of.

    All PSUs die, the important thing is they don't take anything with them. All the Tagans I have seen die (mine, friends, web forums) do exactly that so I do trust em I just want modular now due to my sausage fingers and impatience.
    "Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.

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    Re: Power supply failure

    Quote Originally Posted by iranu View Post
    Glad to see everything went ok.

    I had a Tagan 480W die on me last week, however, I still think they are great PSUs and the 480W model was a classic. My Tagan lasted 4+ years in a heavily used overclocked rig and supplied rock solid voltage all the time. It died with a soft pfft and no smoke rather than the huge bang I had with a new one a bout 5 years ago . Both died when switching them on and off again a few times. I still have another rig running a Tagan 480W that has lasted almost 6 years. I've now got a 620W Corsair Modular and I'm thinking of getting the 520W model for my Bro or a Coolermaster 520W modular. Was surprised at how light (and small) the Corsair is compared with the Tagan.

    Opening up the Tagan - I can't see what has blown, it'll be something small and inaccessible so I'll nick the fans off it and it'll go to the tip where it can be properly disposed of.

    All PSUs die, the important thing is they don't take anything with them. All the Tagans I have seen die (mine, friends, web forums) do exactly that so I do trust em I just want modular now due to my sausage fingers and impatience.
    My Antec Neo Power (480w) went pretty much the same way as yours, I have had to borrow one of my old Tt Butterfly psu's to test and make sure nothing else got taken with it. All seems ok with that TT Butterfly. I have just placed an order for some new goodies with Scan, including a Hiper 530w psu.
    Expected delivery Friday 8th May!
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