discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

It is mainstream, nobody sane here buys HP / e-machines / dell etc crap because for the same money you can build much more silent and/or powerfull PC. Maybe offices where nobody cares about noise.

You can create very nice LN builts for less than 800 US bucks, that includes SSD and stuff.

High-end is somewhere else, there you talk about some 1500 bucks or more.

[stj]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

no, i'm talking about the average computer iliterate person who wants to twatter about jew-tube on their hatebook account.

they just go to pc-world and buy whatever the sales goblin recommends.

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

They just go pükworld and buy whatever they tell them is a notebook (so some atom shit) or tablet. These people don't buy desktops anymore - thats why desktop PC divisions of these corporations are all going towards bankruptcy.

Only exception is they want something better for gaming and stuff - than they go to somebody who can help them (or to some forums). Than they get what I said before.

[Stefan Payne]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Passive cooling psus are rubbish. Not only they get hot and die prematurely, but they also fail to maintain a decent case airflow which is necessary for motherboard, cpu, gpu, mb and hdd cooling.

I totally agree with you.

Especially since there is no need for that anymore...
Especially since you could also let the fan spin with about 200-500rpm which is a huge difference inside the PSU!
You must not underestimate the difference between no fan spinning and something rotating somewhere even if it is as low as 200rpm or so...

But where's the problem with letting the fan spin at very low rpm?

Well some modern PSUs seems like they are designed to save every last penny off of them. Especially that new Seasonic variant they don't use themselves but like EVGA uses...

Yes, this one...
No heatsinks (well aside from that small thing for the PFC), everything is soldered to the buttomside where there is little to no airflow...

[Wester547]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

I totally agree with you.

Especially since there is no need for that anymore...
Especially since you could also let the fan spin with about 200-500rpm which is a huge difference inside the PSU!
You must not underestimate the difference between no fan spinning and something rotating somewhere even if it is as low as 200rpm or so...
But where's the problem with letting the fan spin at very low rpm?

Not sure about that.

When graphics card fans slow down to that extent, or PSU fans for that matter, as well as CPU fans, both devices (and the CPU) are essentially cooked anyway (devices and processors that rely upon active cooling to stay within reasonable temperature parameters, that is). An 80mm rear fan can never move enough air at 200RPM-500RPM (a bottom mounted 120mm to 140mm fan could maybe do better, and possibly PSUs with a dual fan setup), and should be spinning at least as high as 1200RPM IMO. And not only that... think about how hot the VRM MOSFETs would get without any sort of airflow or heatsinking! And I really think that in this era of BGA RoHS solder, that chipset heatsinks could use active cooling too.

Such high internal PSU temperatures wouldn't be an issue as long as the internal components can handle those high temperatures in the long term. Frankly, though, I agree that PSU designs and topologies are getting to be too "sardine" and complex for their own good. For all the "good" it does, APFC PSUs seem to have a higher failure rate than non-APFC PSUs for the increased complexity of the primary side (more components, bigger window of failure). This is the one good thing about el cheapo PSUs - they are simple enough that usually when something goes wrong, it's a bad capacitor, bad solder joint, bad diode, bad transistor, conductive glue bridging things, etc, unlike the more well designed but complicated units that have hundreds of SMD components that could go bad at any moment's notice and cause a cascade failure that would take a long time to get to the bottom of.

For what it's worth, defective anything is possible when millions of units are being produced at a time. Oh, and the Pentium 4 came out in 2000, not 1999.

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

No heatsinks (well aside from that small thing for the PFC), everything is soldered to the buttomside where there is little to no airflow...

You noticed? Really? They use this system for third generation now. At least…haven't been watching all the platinum ones which have several generations too now.

Wester547: I guess that's the reason why even the cheapest at least half-decent cases (like Zalman ZM1, paper, but still good construction topology) have several positions for 12cm fans. Those 8cm fans are obsolete for a decade too. You still in past? Have any of you guys made some decent built according to todays trends in say last 5 years?

And they say my builts would be noisy…if I did it according to your 2 decades old ideas, everybody would kick my ass instead of paying me, and never ever buy even damned screw from me again. You should really do something about yourselves guys.

Yeap P4 came later but used that 90s thinking (tiny heatsinks with turbine fans) for many years. Thats why there was very limited choice of good coolers even for 478 and some interesting heatpipe ones came later with 775/939, as well as some decet cases etc.

[Stefan Payne]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

You noticed? Really? They use this system for third generation now. At least…haven't been watching all the platinum ones which have several generations too now.

ORLY?!

Than you know other ones than I do...

Look here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/S...ent-750/4.html

They moved those SMD Parts to a doughter PCB and put a big Heatsink on it...

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

RLY. I said I have not been watching the platinum ones - those have slightly different system. There is still shitload of units using SMD rectifiers for the full power.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...ly-Review/1073
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...ly-Review/1634 or http://hardwareinsights.com/wp/seaso...-350gt-review/
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...-Review/1683/1
http://www.hardwareinsights.com/wp/s.../#Introduction

[Stefan Payne]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Those are all units that came before the KM3/XP2 series...
But don't you think that Seasonic already did prove my point because they switched to a doughterboard with a bigass heatsink...
And don't forget that the G-Series tend to get rather loud (=louder than a standard graphics card)

Also the more silent Corsair PSUs also don't use back mounted SMD as don't the Super Flower made ones wich are also pretty silent...

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Yeah or the first fanless X untis, those are even more silent! See if you put some silicone gum there you can use the whole casing as a heatsink.

[ben7]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Hm, I have a friend that had his Seasonic PSU stop powering on.
The symptoms were as if it had a bad cap, but he returned it and got it replaced ...

I wonder, it might not even have to be a capacitor failing.
Perhaps something else drifts slightly out of tolerance?
Or there is a particular solder joint that is weak, and the thermal cycling stress causes it to crack?

-Ben

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

No idea…I personally think the whining they got problems with was from stand-by supply. They started covering those SMD components with green lacquer, they say its moisture protection but who knows. These platforms are filled with problems, no wonder they are coming with new ones.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Not sure if the problem is overloading, they often have problem in PFC section (clicking and other noises) or just die completelly.

Another guy killed two golden TFX units within year and a half each time as he draws so little the unit stays passive all the time, but the case is not cooled by any fan. So it is 100% passive and always dies in such time.

Starting to sound like SmartPower all over again.....

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

im gonna take another wild guess at the problem of the seasonic x and say that it could be the overvoltage protection tripping and shutting down the psu even on the standby rail. that explains why it wont power on (totally no response as if the psu were dead). also explains why the kung fu trick with the psu switch works in turning the unit back on. flipping the psu switch is usually used for resetting the protection trips by the protection ic.

as for why its tripping, could be like what momaka said. malfunction in the apfc side causing the 5vsb rail to overshoot and causing the protection ic to trip the psu. so due to this strange malfunction in the 5vsb or apfc, the psu cant run with only the 5vsb line active for long. it must be quickly turned on into mobo-on mode when power is applied with all rails running. quickly turning the unit on when mains power is applied somehow masks the problem that is causing the psu to malfunction or trip in mobo-off mode.

but now why is the apfc failing? since this site is called badcaps, i wanna blame the hitachi primary. yes i know its a japcap but i havent heard much about hitachi primary caps. hitachis arent in the bad cap list but i dont see hitachis being in the trusted "big five" (nichicon, chemicon, panny, rubycon, sanyo/suncon) japcap manufacturer's list either. i still hear toshin kogoyo (TK) still being unable to make it as a "good" japcap brand. also why doesnt seasonic use chemicon kmr/kmq etc. series for the primary cap instead, like superflower and fsp do for their japcap units? why hitachi?! got part of a smoking gun there...

pity i picked a bad time to post this topic. cuz this psu series has a 7 year warranty which is quite long. ppl would prefer to rma it since its under warranty. no one wants to tear one open to find out whats wrong and void the 7 yr warranty. not to mention the seasonic x series aint cheap! its quite a costly psu! so what's in this thread is speculation for the most part.

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Hitachi now only makes big-can caps. Never seen or heard about any bad and Seasonic uses them a lot.

These things are not bad caps related, deal with it - there will be less and less bad caps problems in modern stuff. Most of the better stuff has japanese caps and even the rest I've seen mostly dies because of something else. I am not saying its good to use chinese crap…

[Stefan Payne]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Still there were some photos someone postet from his Seasonic X-Series, first generation, wich had bloated primary caps (NCC ones)...

And that series was replaced rather quickly (6-10 months the second generation X-Series came), if I remember correctly...

[Behemot]

Re: discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

Dafuk