# life of power supply

## jmcross3

What would you expect to be the life of a good Antec power supply?  I have an Antec 500W (do not remember the model) that I bought about 3 years ago.  I am looking at upgrading a lot of hardware, and I am trying to decide if I need to replace my power supply as well.  What do you think?

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## di1bert

I am a huge fan of the old saying "If it's not broke, don't fix it." Having said that, if the server

is giving weird problems, the power supply is usually one of the first culprits.

If you suspect this, rather rip and replace now while you can easily do it.

</0.02c>

-m

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## Nemesis

Depends on what hardware youre going to buy. Many new motherboards have power contacts that your Antec might not have, be sure to check compatability. Other than that its what di1bert wrote: "If it's not broke, don't fix it.".

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## PaulBredbury

 *jmcross3 wrote:*   

> What do you think?

 

Provide lots more detail, otherwise the question has no meaning.

What CPU, what video card, how *many* video cards.

During the upgrade, if you keep the old PSU, at least clean the fan - there'll be loads of ventilation-trapping hairballs inside it  :Wink: 

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## Cyker

I depends a lot on PSU quality and loading.

I have a 130W AT power supply which still worked last time I used it and it must be going on for 17-odd years (Last used it to power my 486 Linux server a good few years back  :Wink: ). Never had much load on it, esp. compared to my current PSsU.

Currently my other PSUs are a no-name steel jobbie and a Seasonic S12+ 550W, both of which are doing pretty well. The Seasonic is still quite young; a year or so, but the no-name came with my case and is about 4-5 years old I think.

I had a 400W Jeantec, but that blew up about about 2 years of use when I swapped my GF2MX for a GF Ti4200.

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## NeddySeagoon

jmcross3,

Life is reduced by operating load and operating temperature.

Load is not an easy parameter to quantify in a PC as its PSU has several voltage outputs with their own separate ratings as well as the overall PSU rating.

If you want to make an attempt, you can ignore the -5v and -12v and 5vSTBY as they are very low power anyway.

The operating temperature effect on life is that every 10 Deg C increase in temperature halves the expected life.

That applies to all electronic equipment, not just PSUs.

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## PaulBredbury

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> halves the expected life.

 

What's the expected life of a PSU?

It'll be obsolete in a couple of years anyway  :Smile: 

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## asturm

I think my watercooled PSU is in its fourth year now, it doesn't even have SATA power connectors. Still works with modern hardware though, all you need are adapters, massively.  :Laughing: 

I don't quite buy the 10°C-halve life theory though. It clearly doesn't apply to harddisks as Google recently showed. For most parts there's a borderline temperature and exceeding it has dramatic impacts on its life (e.g. electron migration in CPUs which starts at certain VCore and temperature levels), but below it's just irrelevant.

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## Cyker

Yeah; It's more temp change than actual temp that causes stuff to die faster I think...

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## AaronPPC

As long as it has the connectors you need, power supply that is 3 years old still has plenty of life left in it.

I would try to get as much dust and dirt out of it as I can though.  Check out the fans, too.

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## NeddySeagoon

genstorm,

The 10 deg C halving the life rule of thumb comes from MIL-HDBK-217, I forget which revision.

It applied to the random failure rate of electronic devices operated within their specified ratings.

Once outside those ratings, other factors come into play.

This leads onto the question of whats the design life of the parts used in the manufacture of a PSU?

That varies with the quality of the PSU, but its unlikely to be less than 10 years under worst case conditions.

That means you have a lot of 10 Deg Steps in a PC.

Industrial parts are rated to 80 Deg C. A PC PSU normally operates at less than 50. So the individual parts should have a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 80 years (operating). Now divide that by the number of parts.

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## eccerr0r

 *PaulBredbury wrote:*   

>  *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   halves the expected life. 
> 
> What's the expected life of a PSU?
> 
> It'll be obsolete in a couple of years anyway 

 

With all these low-power efforts maybe those ancient 200W PSUs may actually be useful once again!

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## asturm

It's a pity they've quit producing high-quality < 300W parts...

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## jmcross3

Thanks for all the response......

The power supply is SLI capable.  It has all the connectors for SATA ....  I have run gentoo on it the entire time with all the compiling that goes along with it.  So it has had quite a bit of intense use.

I clean it out with compressed air every couple of months.

I plan on running a AMD 6400X2 black edition with a pair of SATA drives, a pair of CD/DVD drives, and one PCI express graphics card.

thanks.....

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## NeddySeagoon

jmcross3,

```
I clean it out with compressed air...
```

That can kill it stone dead - due to static damage.

Fast moving air generates a lot of static electricity and some of the parts inside are sensitive.

Take the cover off and clean it carefully with a stiff brush. Do take static precautions.

The use you describe is just normal use.

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## Carnildo

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> jmcross3,
> 
> ```
> I clean it out with compressed air...
> ```
> ...

 

Are you bloody insane?  Moving air might generate a little bit of static, but the best way to generate a static charge is to rub one insulator (the brush) on another (the fan, circuit board, capacitor casing, etc).

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## NeddySeagoon

Carnildo,

Air is a very good insulator and released compressed air is moving very fast past fixed insulators.

Its ideal static generation conditions.

You cannot brush fast enough in the confined space of a PSU to do any damage. 

Also most suitable brushes, e.g. paint brushes are made of natural fibers and hence have some poor conduction properties.

I do not advocate the use of nylon brushes.

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## eccerr0r

Honestly I think cleaning PSUs with compressed air is fine.  I've done it quite often, even disassembled many PSUs with no ESD equipment or precautions with no ill effects.

Though there may indeed static sensitive parts in PSUs, all of them are protected against static damage.  Most PSUs that use MOSFETs (if they use them at all), only use them as their main switch in the SMPS and sometimes as the synchronous rectifier; but in either case the gate is protected by its driver.  RP on ATX PSUs usually use bipolars.  Most cheap PSUs use an all-bipolar transistor design, which are virtually immune to typical household static discharge (lightning strikes are not typical  :Smile: ).

I will have to say to generate any sort of appreciable static charge with computer components with compressed air is quite hard.  Basic precautions have been taken in design to prevent damage from these (very) low levels of static discharge.

However the ones that can be felt, those are usually well past what protection is available and should be avoided.

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## padoor

electrolytic capacitors are the ones become lesser value with age.they have to be replaced.

as for integrated ckts they can work longer than you expect.except increase in ripple content and heatsink binding heat transfer rate falls.

if these things can be sorted your psu is good enough for a 75 % loading.

mechanical stability and fan should be chhecked and repaired if necesary.

i have older psus working for last 10 yrs without a hitch. then they were all 50% loaded for normal working.

these days compact units used at their max efficiency and capability and are manufactured just to meet the one yr warrwnty. if it works longer than that it is to be taken as bonus.

the services provided after sales is steadily dropping nowadays.  :Sad: 

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## eccerr0r

I think by far the worst offender in terms of parts is not much different than the rest of the computer - the moving part being the fan.  All in all, the fan will get clogged with dust first and fail.  When the fan fails, then a chain reaction occurs.

Of the rest of the failed PSUs I've seen with fairly similar occurrences:

- coils varnish melting and shorting from heat

- semiconductors failing from overload (usually, design marginality but due to heat generated)

- capacitors losing capacity or shorting due to drying out

- resistor burnout (actually somewhat rare, usually side effect of one of the above)

All of these are from heat (though some may be due to design marginality.)

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## Cyker

With the revised data, I'll vote for: Don't bother buying a new one until that one breaks.  :Wink: 

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## Monkeh

 *NeddySeagoon wrote:*   

> jmcross3,
> 
> ```
> I clean it out with compressed air...
> ```
> ...

 

If he used a so called 'air duster', it won't be a problem. They're not filled with air. They're filled with inert gasses which do not leave residue or generate static.

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