discuss: trend of seasonic x series not powering up

[ChaosLegionnaire]

while surfing around the web today, i came across this trend of seasonic psus circa 2013-2014 being unable to power on and requiring some kind of funky kung fu with the psu power switch to get them to turn on. here are some of the links i was able to find around the web:

PSU not working, SOME TIMES

a link from a local forum in my country (i apologise for the use of singlish in that local forum. i can translate if the broken english is too hard to understand):
Recurring seasonic psu problems
Problem with cold boot on seasonic x

link to a youtube video of the problem in action.

another quote around a local forum of the seasonic x psu problem.

Hi , yesterday I bought a seasonic psu 850w gold X-series from sls shp, last night installed it along with a gtx 980 Ti golden edition into my desktop but my desktop failed to power on. nothing runs , all fans dead silent and no post beep.

I replaced the psu with my old 620 watts , tooked out the gfx card , and with one dvd-rom , one hdd , rams attached power on the pc and the pc booted up with all fans running and the relevent post long beep.

Again I re-installed my new seasonic with the above configuration and pressed the power on button, this time the cpu fan spinned for 10 sec and then stopped. nothing else ran .

The cpu fan will run up for few seconds and stopped, and this only happenes when I off the switch in the wall mains and on it and pressed the pc power button

do I have a faulthy PSu so sad

catastrophic failure of a seasonic x psu when the ocp/ovp is supposed to prevent that!:

Bros, after reading and considering your previous advice..

I have bought my new rig with the following main components.

i5 4670K (no OC) with Asus z87 sabertooth
Asus 780gtx dc2 OC
G.Skull (2 x 4GB) 1600 ram
Samsung Pro 256 GB SSD
WD Blue 1 TB HDD
Seasonic X 650W PSU

I managed to boot up the rig and entered Bios without any problems.

Unfortunately, after installing the drivers and utilities for the M/b, the rig suddenly reseted on its own with the following message, 'Power supply surges detected during previous power on. Asus anti - surge was triggered to protect system from unstable power supply unit'.

A few seconds later, the PSU blew with a 'POP' sound.

I am still wondering why the PSU blew.. (doubt its any issues with the hardware as they are all new). Im taking the PSU to Tradepac for a 1 to 1 exchange later but am wondering if I should stick to 650W or increase or decrease the waltage?

Thanks..

from tom's hardware: 1050W seasonic GOLD PSU problem

ok now try g00gle for more hits of the issue. lots of hits. seems quite widespread. rumour has it that the seasonic p series is also affected. try g00gling for that too.

so any experts here can shed some light on what exactly is causing this and why doing that kung fu trick with the psu switch gets it to power on? my nub take on it is that there's some kind of a problem with the 5 volt standby circuit. junk caps being used there perhaps? that explains the cold boot problem. doesnt explain how the kung fu trick somehow fixes the 5vsb circuit problem and gets it to power on?! this has got to be one of the weirdest psu problems of the decade with an equally weird fix! looks as bad as the kzg/kzj fiasco!

[momaka]

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

junk caps being used there perhaps?

More than likely. Heck, I would bet my lunch on it.
They are probably either on 5 VSB circuit like you said (either output or start-up caps), or some of the small caps affecting the PG signal.
Or, if PSU has APFC, that could be starting to malfunction too.

[Stefan Payne]

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

...but we're talking about japanese Nippon Chemicon (KY and KZE) Caps here...

[Gabriel]

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

Interesting thread, didn't know about this problem as I just bought a x-650 based on the good reviews and top quality caps used.
Mine is the X-650 km3 version, will be fitting it in a few weeks.

[stj]

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

looks o.k. in the foto's
i hope it's not a problem with a poly going leaky!

[ChaosLegionnaire]

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

seasonic seems to like using enesol polys judging from the reviews of many of their units. this includes their g series which has a low wattage model which im eyeing.

anyway, is enesol a taiwanese or japanese company? im guessing taiwanese but not sure how reliable their polys are. anyone have any experience with enesol polys?

[momaka]

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

...but we're talking about japanese Nippon Chemicon (KY and KZE) Caps here...

... Hmm.. Well, I guess I should have looked at the reviews before yapping with my big mouth.

Really makes you wonder why those units have weird problems then. Perhaps they need some corner-cutting... er sorry, I meant *simplifying*. Have Deer have a go at it, and it might work just fine . Sometimes, crude devices work better only because there is nothing to break in them.

[shovenose]

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

We have an X-1050 modular come in at work. Dead. We RMAd it and got a brand new one. Still amazed I found a defective Seasonic.

[Behemot]

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

...but we're talking about japanese Nippon Chemicon (KY and KZE) Caps here...

So junk man, so junk…

Anyway I heard about increasing numbers of RMA'd S12II series as well. Besides the fact mostly all units all the way up to G series have fan spinning at airfighter speeds.

[Stefan Payne]

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

Anyway I heard about increasing numbers of RMA'd S12II series as well. Besides the fact mostly all units all the way up to G series have fan spinning at airfighter speeds.

The ones with not working overload protection on some rails (BEWARE: it's german!)?

[Behemot]

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.

[stj]

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

lol
fans are made to spin - that's their function in life.

[Behemot]

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

Nobody wants to listen to that.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

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

don't see the point in running psus passively cooled or even having a passive cooling option switch like on some psus. psus just run more efficient when they are cooler. sure the fan draws some power but that is paid back for by making the psu cooler and thus more efficient.

i dont understand why ppl whine louder than psu fans about the noise made by psu fans. i personally dont mind a psu fan screamer if it makes the unit one 80 plus grade more efficient.

[Behemot]

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

You live in 1990s.

Modern high-end unit has 80+ Gold, Platinum, Titanium and BECAUSE OF THAT it can run semi/passive.

That heat vs. efficiency does not apply for a LONG time now. Just take some modern unit and try. I watched wattmeter under Digifanless when it was undergoing the Sweater contest. The power draw increased half a watt, if at all. That thing was about boiling by the end. So some 50 °C more and no change in power consumption. I expect this matter to be solved here.

[stj]

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

why wine about the psu fan, when you probably have a faster fan on the cpu and a big fan on the gpu!

[Behemot]

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

Because you live in 1990s with all your Pentium IVs and similar obsolete crap which used small turbine fans.

Modern 4-8core CPUs draw about 100 W and big heatpiped cooleres with big slow silent fans start from 20 US bucks. And 90% of reasonable people I see making builds on forums use these things. They also use 100-150W graphics with big heatsinks with 2-3 big slow fans (90-120mm). ASUS even makes semipassive graphics cards.

Then your argument is pure bullshit because no, reasonable people don't have frelling "faster fan on the cpu and a big fan on the gpu" so than yes, the CPU fan is fuckin' audible. Whats more, the blood noise adds to each other so when you remove one source even not as noisy as the others, the overall noise still decreases.

[goodpsusearch]

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.

[Behemot]

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

Ppl are you frozen in time? I understand you like to repair different stuff and mostly meet obsolete crap which other ppl throw away, but the mainstream is two decades elsewhere. Power supply has no such purpose. Ever heard about some modern case with bottom-mounted PSU and 2-4 big and slow fans in the top and rear? And some 2 fans in the front and 1-2 on the bottom. Those are responsible for airflow. Running at 500-700 RPM in LN builts and 300-500 RPM in ULN builts.

My favourite is http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Chassi...81_/design.htm which I'd like to get, but you can get similar midle towers much cheaper from about any today case maker. Just with some compromise here and there…Define R5 is favourite for common folk, I rather use CM 690 II Advanced.

[stj]

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

for fucks sake.
how many fucking pc users use thermaltake?

go look at fucking HP / e-machines / dell etc highstreet crap to see what 99% of the pc users use.
dont go pointing at fucking high-end gaming / semi-server stuff like it's mainstream!