Well, it's actually 2 weeks past it's 2nd Birthday, but for such an expensive product I'm not happy. Also I find that they no longer do their own RMAs. I shan't be buying or recommending Enermax again.
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Well, it's actually 2 weeks past it's 2nd Birthday, but for such an expensive product I'm not happy. Also I find that they no longer do their own RMAs. I shan't be buying or recommending Enermax again.
Thanks for informing us about the RMA procedure. Very useful for all of us to know!!
i thought scan deal with there RMA's now ?
and i thought they had 3 year RMA's ?
i cant see the problem with scan doing the RMA's
who thinks BFG deal with Uk warranty's, its some welsh IT company who handle the UK side of things.
Not been impressed with my Enermax Modu82+ unit either.
PSU went boom five months into ownership. Direct RMA took nearly a month and the repaired unit has began to show the same ailments before it went boom last time, e.g. a spark sound when power socket turned on.
After a week of being fitted a white plastic card has fallen out of the fan hole. This is probably related to the spark sound now, so don't rate the repair.
I had a Galaxy go bang on me last summer - it was about 18 months old. It went to a third party company who replaced it with a brand new unit very quickly - fingers crossed it's been fine since.
It can happen with any PSU. I would still buy Enermax any day of the week. Superb units.
Well that's fine, and I hope I get the same result, but I shan't be putting the replacement back in my "A machine". I'll use the Corsair 520 I bought while I was in the US, for around a third of the price (well less than that seeing as it was $2 to the £ at the time).
IMO when I spend ~£135 on a PSU it should last longer than 2 years (a year of which I was in the US and it got much lighter use from the missus, so 18 months is probably what it wouild lasted with me too). I mean it gets constant use, but it's not like I'm giving it a pasting.
Disapointing to hear, always bought Enermax in the past (although never had to RMA), and I'll be buying a new PSU in the next 6 months. Might look into Corsair.
I bought an Enermax Noisetaker in 2005 and on arrival the rear fan did not turn. The retailer was a waste of time so I RMA'd it direct. I've only recently started using the replacement one. I probably would not buy another Enermax tbh.
That is very true - any make of PSU can have a random failure - but you are very assertive about how good they are. Is that based on tusage (you use a lot) or based on internal build quality, circuit design Do you use a lot, or have you stripped one down to determine build quality?
Was that a conclusion you had come to anyway, or based on your experience of the ohe unit that was DOA? (Which might have been caused by handling in transit, or jbe indicative of poor quality control)
Well a little while ago I had to return one of my Enermax Liberty PSUs, and whilst they have outsourced their RMA (I cant remember who too) the person who I dealt with was really good and the turn around on the RMA was very quick. I couldnt complain about it. Its my 3rd Enermax and the only one Ive ever had problems with, great PSUs.
Hawker
The first unit worked, Just the rear fan did not turn or turned occasionally. The direct RMA was fast but, I only used it for about 20hours when the replacement was sent on a low power system.
Recently I put it in my Current PC mainly because it has the 8 pin connection for the motherboard. After a couple of weeks, it was tripping either on short circuit protection or over current. Due to it being out of warranty I opened it up to find one of the heatsinks was bent and pressing hard against the enamel wire of an inductor (possibly a short circuit) and that the fan wiring was badlt routed and was being crush by the fan mounted on the removeable part of the case. I've straighten out the Heatsink, re-routed the fan cables and now have it back in use again but, Have read several reviews of which state that they won't start with a load of more than approx 450watts. Yes I know it's an old design unit now but, it was a high end unit when bought 4 years ago.
To sum it up really for me, I'm not bothered about metalic paintwork, Fans with LED's, Braided cables etc.
I just want a good, solid PSU that can provide very smooth power at the required rate without going 'pop' for at least 3years and at a sensible price. With this in mind I'd probably consider an OEM version of the FSP 700watt.
Agreed!! Any half decent PSU should last at least three years unless you get one that is already being pushed to its limits from day one. Things like aging of components also have to be taken into consideration as is the amount of hot air being passed though the PSU. Hence I have never been a big advocate of making the PSU act as a system fan unless you have low power consumption components in the first place.
Yep, makes sense exactly. However many SFF PCs have this arrangement which I personally do not like. Some people like to have less fans in the system too so to cut down on noise. Sure many of the better PSUs have components that are rated for over 100C but I still rather prefer my PSU to run cooler even if it means a nosier system overall. Also many PSUs cannot reliably perform above 50c anyway(I could be wrong here though).
Luckily I modded my Shuttle P2 SFF PC so that very little hot air is routed though the PSU but though the graphics card itself. The card still idles at 40c and does not exceed 60c to 70c when in full use. This is certainly FAR better than the stock cooler. Win-win situation methinks!! :)
Thank you - good to know that the RMA process was good and that your experience has been good - they have had a good reputation (judging by comments on Hexus)
True - - cooling (particularly a high end machine) is more than just slapping a few fans in!
That sounds like poor assembly. A lot (most) PSUs are 'badge engineered' - outsourced to one of a few actual mfrs but built to a particular spec - so there is no gurantee that two PSUs of the same model number may be actually built by the same company - and the difficulty then is assuring quality control - which in your case sounds as if it was non-existant - and that reflects badly on Enermax (in this case)
Shame to hear about the failure. Then again, it does happen, even with expensive units. The last time I had to RMA an Enermax (about 2 years ago), the process went very smoothly. A phone call, mailed it, then got a brand new the unit the same week. By then I was using a much quieter Seasonic, but at least I managed to get a *profit* from selling off the Enermax on Ebay (didn't get that - but didn't complain).
I wouldn't mind trying another Enermax now that they make quiet units, but I'd like to know how well they handle returns now (I am willing tp write off the failure as just a poor draw).
I also had one of the Noisetakers, which I have to say I was also disappointed with - IMO it was fairly noisy and the cables were a bit short for a supposedly high end product. I also found that it struggled power-wise.
The Infiniti was a second chance - I was persuaded by the reviews. Later it became clear that there were some issues with it, which I was lucky not to suffer from. But after this Enermax is off my shopping list for good, regardless of how good the return turns out to be.
Yes I agree my PSU only cool it self
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I have bought a few over the years with no problems. Very stable and still going strong! This is why i say they are good and i would buy them again.
I have had:
485W Noisetaker
500W Liberty
625W MODU+82
All were good although i had one problem with the Noisetaker and the RMA took 5 days for replacement.
I am astonished you thought the Noisetaker was loud as it definitely wasn't for me.
The MODU i have at the moment was put in to replace a Corsair 500W as the Enermax was far superior in quality.
It is very easy to get put off when something goes wrong but does any seriously think that an OCZ/Corsair/Antec/Any other make that is highly regarded is less likely to die? Of course it isn't.
Maybe they are all as likely to die, but Enermax is a lot more expensive.
More expensive than what? The 750W Corsair is £20 cheaper (at Scan) than the Infiniti. The Seasonic is more expensive, but they are one brand I don't see any reported problems with.
You had a bad Infiniti....it happens.
Fact is, the Infiniti is a FAR better unit than the Corsair (even though you were unlucky).
Seasonic is actually a Corsair anyway, but even though you dont read about the issues, there are as many failures as any other top tier brand.
Components fail all the time, some even die in the first few weeks. Probably unlucky, I have an Enermax PSU in an old 478 pc and running smooth for several years at least! I will recommend enermax to many people, considering on average their PSU's are of very high quality, and very happy with their new Revolution 85+ range, I had one and tested their 1250W version at GOOC and worked flawlessly even when the system was pushed to the limits by another team on LN2.
Not bought new Enermax psu for years now as I had trouble with them in the past, I only buy them now when they're very cheap secondhand. Seasonic & FSP are may favorite brands. And Blitzen it's the other way round mate, some Corsairs are actually Seasonics, i.e. the good ones, as are some older OCZ psu's.
Well yes. But plenty of units do this. And maybe their old units ran fine - my Noisetaker ran, just not very well. The question is do they last? And do problems turn up (like they definitely did with the Infiniti - I've seen numerous threads about issues at places like Anandtech Forums).
Can't see I've ever seen any issues with Seasonic. Others can spend their money how they wish. I know where mine's going.
I had an Antec Truepower which was clearly audible and the Noisetake managed to be even louder. Definitely the loudest PSU I've used so far (Noisemaker?). The Liberty was a lot than the aforementioned two, yet still audible when the system was primary idling. The Seasonic that replaced it was completely inaudible even on idle (admittedly not the quietest system around - hence I dare not say it's 'silent'). Ironically, the Seasonic I bought was also cheaper than Enermax at the time, hence I profited from the swap.
I am going to build a system with low noise as a my top priority either tonight or tomorrow and fitting a Corsair (Seasonic made) to it. If it fails during it's useful lifespan, then I may look at another Enermax; but right now, I have no good reason for picking Seasonic over Enermax.
I have to agree with that, The Noisetaker I have has only been used for a short while (probably 200 hours now) but is far louder than the Antec neopower which has been in constant use since 2004. This is comparing them both out of a system without load.
I bought the Enermax as it was a highly respected brand.
Talking of PSU's my nephew has a Q-tec 550w and its still going strong, It must be 6+ years old.
Ditto. Back in 2004-ish, Antec and Enermax seemed to be the brand I heard the most whenever I looked up PSU. PC Power & Cooling got serious mentions too, but typically in US centric forums, and as far as I know, they could not be easily found here at the time.
I only started coming across the Seasonic brand a year or two later when I started paying attention to system noise. Oddly, Seasonic is *much* older (probably older most forum members here) than Enermax. But its only around that time I started hearing it mentioned more.
Q-Tech eh? Isn't that the infamous cheapy PSU from Ebuyer? 600W at £25 when a reputable 400W PSU would cost north of £80? I am pretty sure it got quite a few mentions here on Hexus, known as the PSU that would most likely blow up and take the rest of the system with it :lol:
As far as the Infiniti goes (and the Galaxy), they did seem to have high failure rates.
For some reason, these two models were a bit of a white elephant.
With the MODU+ and Revolution series though, it has planted Enermax right back at the top of the best PSUs around.
Toonice:
PC P&C PSUs were great machines.
Unfortunately OCZ got their hands on them and they havent made a top class PSU since the Powerstreams a few years ago.
Exactly! And yet his one is still going strong after all these years.
Blitzen, The Enermax Coolergiants also had high failure rates IIRC. I'm not saying that every PSU made by Enermax is Rubbish or likely to fail but, It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.
I agree. It may well put me off aswell.Quote:
It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.
I cetainly believe 100% though that the MODU+ and the new Revolution series are a cut above anything else on offer at the moment.
I know when I built my 939 system a few years back I used a Hiper Power 580w Type R Modular. I know that got a few bad reviews and apparently was prone to failing.
The one I bought is still going happily in my friends business and it's switched on pretty much 24/7 and has been for the last four (ish) years.
You win some you lose some eh. Power supplies aren't as cheap as I remember them! Seems you have to spend >£100 these days.
But you don't know who actually makes the PSU (I doubt Enermax do - but I am willing to be corrected) so it depends on te spec Enermax gave the OEM, and whether the OEM built them (and tested them) to Enermax's specifuication.
The problem is that while a cheap PSU may be poor quality (because there is the drive to keep down the price) there is no gurantee that an expensive one is high quality - it could be cheap and nasty priced up.
Basically (unless you have your own testing facilities) you have to go by brand and reputation, becayuse the better the brand reputation, the more the brand owner will want to protect it. A reputation hard one is easily lost, and hard to replace. Reputable brands will do more to ensure that quality standards are maintained.
Ok let me Re-phrase that -I'm not saying that every PSU with an Enermax badge, box and price tag is Rubbish or likely to fail but, It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.
It's commonly known that computer parts are manufactured and badged for different market prices.
It could well be that Enermax gave the high level spec to the manufacturer and they produced something of a lesser standard or it is possible that Enermax themselves were trying to shave a few pennies off the cost of production. Which ever way - the end result is not good for the consumer.
AFAIK, Enermax, do make their own PSU. Unless various online sources are wrong, which is plausible of course, but I would have expected at least one source to have stated otherwise then.
The way I see it, unless the failures are almost epidemic (IBM Deathstar being a prime example), a good brand is not going to be damaged that easily by the odd failure because those can always be brushed off as the odd one out (which may, or may not be the case).