Tagan 480W Supply goes pop!

[Nightia]

Just a quick note to inform everybody in the forum that my Tagan Silent running 480W PSU went pop last night. It appears the main fuse; viewable through the fan cut-out in the enclosure has blown with enough force to split the glass housing and leave it substantially blackened.

I purchased it from Scan last June; it hasn’t had much use until recently because I have been out of the country working.

It blew after I was repeatedly powered and un-powered the supply using the rubber covered switch on the back of the PSU in an attempt to clear a sticky soft start problem, with the video card and Asus motherboard.

I performed this action 4 times, waiting at least 5-10 seconds before powering on each time. 5th attempt erupted in a huge flash from the supply and an ear splitting pop.

Not sure of the damage to other components in the system as yet. Could be extremely costly if the video card has been damaged (Gainward, Water cooled Card)

Another observation, the PSU exhibited enough heat sometimes that the rear fan grill is to hot to touch, yet the fans are barely blowing any air out. There is a very strong smell of hot electronics coming from the PSU pack. I had to visual check, with a flash light that the fans are actually rotating (which they were) How hot does the supply have to get before there is substantial airflow through the PSU case to cool it down. It was running a solid 72 hours prior to this accident, performing some intense graphics rendering sequences.

I have informed Scan of the problem, hopefully I’ll get it swapped out under the 36 month warranty Tagan offer.

If anybody wants system details, I’ll gladly share them.

Thanks!

Aidan

[Lee H]

Aidan

Is there any chance you can post the specs of the system please.

Best Regards,

[Lee H]

After speaking with the other technical guys here at scan, the reason this occured is even though the PSU was switched off for 5 seconds, Tagans and most other high powered Active PFC Power Supplies tend to hold a charge in their capacitors for longer than this. As with any electrical item, the action of repeatively switching on and off causes the load inside to increase and decrease and this could be the very reason to why the PSU actually went "pop"

Best Regards,

[Nightia]

I haven't got my machine on hand at the moment, it is at home. But this is what I can remember. I built it in August last year.

ASUS Motherboard SK8V (Second Revision of BIOS)
AMD FX-53 @ 2.4 Ghz
Gainward CoolFX 6800 Ultra @ 464 MHz.
1 GB RAM (Single Slot, 4 slots total)
1 x 250GB Drive
2 x 110GB SATA Drives, SATA powered off the PSU.
1 x DVD/CD Burner (Pioneer)
1 x Floppy Drive
Network and Sound are used on the Motherboard.
No other peripherals on the PCI Bus.
USB Mouse and Keyboard.

The OS is Windows XP Professional

The system is water cooled, using the Corsair external water cooling system. The power for this is extracted from the PC itself. (Would the burden of a pump and fan kill the PSU?)

I do have (5) +12V fans running internally, I wonder if the inductive loads caused something bizarre to happen on power-up?

[Nightia]

Geez...

Would it be covered under Warranty? I guess there is a lesson learned there for everybody, be wary about repetitively switching it on and off.

Thanks very much for the help.

Aidan

[Lee H]

The system is water cooled, using the Corsair external water cooling system. The power for this is extracted from the PC itself. (Would the burden of a pump and fan kill the PSU?)

That shouldn't really be the cause - I too have the hydrocool EX2000 system and it doesn't really strain the PSU's at all.

If you have not already, I suggest you give our returns line a quick ring and see what they have to say.

Best Regards,