I finally had a batch of those cheap power supplies from last year start to fail

Over the last two weeks, I've had three computers come in with the same issue: random shutdowns under load. All of them were built around the same time last fall, and all used the same off-brand 650W PSU I was buying in bulk for budget builds. The first one took me a while to pin down, but by the third, I knew the drill. I pulled the unit, did the paperclip test, and sure enough, the 12V rail was dropping to 10.5 under a simple load tester. I swapped in a known good unit from my bench stock and the problems vanished. It's a real pain because I have to eat the cost of the new supply and the extra labor to redo the cable management I was so proud of. Has anyone else seen a specific batch of generic power supplies fail right after the one-year mark?

3 comments

3 Comments

noah9142mo ago

Man that sucks, sorry you're dealing with it. Did you ever figure out who the actual maker was on those units?

the_pat2mo ago

I used to think that too, but now I'm not so sure.

michaeljones2mo ago

Honestly I doubt it's even a real issue, just some forum drama. The pat seems to agree it's overblown.