My brother just upgraded his aging custom build. New FX AMD CPU, AM3+ Mobo, RAM, and a nice Samsung Sata 6.0 SSD, and new Mid-Range Radeon GPU. Problem is that upon my advice he did not buy a new Power supply. In his words, "I have had no issues from my PS so I feel no need to spend the money." Although his 5 year old (Ultra brand 500w Modular PS) seems to be working just fine with his new build, I told him that he may be playing on borrowed time with it. If by chance this old Ultra PS of his bites the dust, will that or could that damage his new hardware?
Dunno really, PSU's are one of those things... Just keep a spare $100 lying around just in case but I wouldn't swap it out until needed (My Antec is boggling my mind atm too, going nearing the 5 year mark too).
If you're going to keep $100 around on the off chance your PSU pops, you might as well just buy a new PSU outright and keep the old one as backup.
if I was doing a major overhaul after 5 years, I would most likely include the psu in that overhaul too. My current psu is some 3 years old and I won't change it until I do another cpu/mobo/ram upgrade. which will probably be within the next 2 years.
PSU's don't normally damage other components when they die. No point replacing one until it's broken. The AcBel in my spare rig is 6yrs old. I've seen a few others that were close to 10 years old in my travels. Decent models can last a long time.
My old Enermax lasted 10+ years before i upgraded to my current one. Sold it with my old parts and as far as i know its still going
Simple. Tell him to run OCCT and run PSU mode, max out 90% memory as well whilst doing this. That will give his PSU the stress test you think it needs
I still have a working Atari 7800. 5 years isn't anything lmao we should expect some longevity out of our electronics.
My old generic PSU (no brand, came with the case) died after good 6 years of usage. I replaced it with a new one, no problems with other components. So I wont worry about you brother's new hardware
I guess he should be alright. He claims it's not even getting hot during gaming and since he's not running a ton of components and isn't OCing should be ok. I was just worried if it smoked that it could waste his new MOBO.
Hello Pigchild, we meet again. Anyways yeah, if he's confident in it, then let him run it. The risk of anything bad happening is pretty minimal. If something does then just replace it. Though I doubt anything will.
Sadly when my OCZ 850w went out in 2011 in killed my 1TB and the one that it had replaced the previous OCZ 700w it killed my XFX 680 SLI lt board. Crazy it happened two years in a row. MY 700w was 5 years old.
every time I do a big rig overhaul I also change the case, I'm too lazy to keep my current ones dust free, although I do wash out the filters like once a week and blow the case out once a year maybe with a rocket blower... I just like new cases lol.
My Enermax has lasted 5 years now. I got it to run my SLI 8800GTX so ya, it's been under stress. Funny thing is the fan is supposed to work by level of load. It NEVER kicks in. It's been running 5 years with no fan. Crazy to think that it doesn't kick in. I actually got a low RPM fan this past build 2 months ago and put it in instead. Oh and since I invested in an awesome PSU, I now don't have to worry about things like this: http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/enermax_power_supplies_support_forthcoming_haswell_cpus.html since I'll likely build a Haswell system when available.
My PSU is more than 5 years old, but it's still running like a champ. I'm planning to get a new PSU but am giving this older PSU to my bro in maybe late May. deltatux
500W would be enough for FX and midrange video card. Damaging components is the last thing that probably would occur, but nobody promises that new PSU won't damage it either or just go bad. I'd keep it and get a new one, if there need for it.