I have a quite nice 850W "single rail" supply that just started giving low 3.3v.
It just started reading below 3v here in the past month.
As a result my computer has not been reliable.
So....I cracked it open to find two domed capacitors.
!WHAT LUCK!
What ya think my chances are that I replace the caps and everything starts working again?
It just started reading below 3v here in the past month.
As a result my computer has not been reliable.
So....I cracked it open to find two domed capacitors.
!WHAT LUCK!
What ya think my chances are that I replace the caps and everything starts working again?
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Here's your problem - Capacitor plague - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You should replace every electrolytic capacitor in the supply - or at least everything on the secondary side of the supply. They probably all came from the same manufacturer/series - and your +3.3V cap could have failed first, but your +5V/+12V/etc caps could be very close to failing also.
Based on the size of those main transformers and heatsinks, I seriously have my doubts that this an 850 watt supply - and a fake label generally indicates a lot of other bad things about the design. I wouldn't trust it, even with new output capacitors. I think you're best bet is to pick up a good, known brand power supply.
You should replace every electrolytic capacitor in the supply - or at least everything on the secondary side of the supply. They probably all came from the same manufacturer/series - and your +3.3V cap could have failed first, but your +5V/+12V/etc caps could be very close to failing also.
Based on the size of those main transformers and heatsinks, I seriously have my doubts that this an 850 watt supply - and a fake label generally indicates a lot of other bad things about the design. I wouldn't trust it, even with new output capacitors. I think you're best bet is to pick up a good, known brand power supply.
What brand is it by the way?
It should be noted that I only trust Seasonic brands, know why? because Seasonic manufacture/design all of the pcb's and power supplies for every other brand of power supply out there.
If you pop open the lid of a Seasonic 430w and the lid of an Antek 430w you will notice they are the same pcb, the only difference is that the Seasonic has good brand capacitors in there and the Antek doesn't.
Antek actually lied to my face back in 2004 and told me that my power supply would last forever what with its 3 year warranty and good brand japanese capacitors, know what was in there? Fuujyuu brand.. and it was recommended to be a reliable brand, bla bla bla, sure enough 1 day before the warranty was to expire the computer started acting up (Watercooled AMD Athlon XP 2000+) and then the motherboard regulators blew up.
It should also be noted that I own 4 Seasonic psu's across 4 systems, 3 of them are 430w SII's and one is an x900, all of them except for one that I blew up by accident are still working 4 years after I bought them.
The X900 tho didn't have a ball bearing fan, it had a sleeve bearing fan which had to be replaced at about the 2.5 year mark (when it started making noise)
Unfortunatley every brand will try and cut corners somewhere and put in a little planned obsolescence, Seasonic have their fans and Antek and the like have their capacitors, I'd much rather have a fan die in one of them than a capacitor...or none at all, far less chance of damage to my computer then.
It should be noted that I only trust Seasonic brands, know why? because Seasonic manufacture/design all of the pcb's and power supplies for every other brand of power supply out there.
If you pop open the lid of a Seasonic 430w and the lid of an Antek 430w you will notice they are the same pcb, the only difference is that the Seasonic has good brand capacitors in there and the Antek doesn't.
Antek actually lied to my face back in 2004 and told me that my power supply would last forever what with its 3 year warranty and good brand japanese capacitors, know what was in there? Fuujyuu brand.. and it was recommended to be a reliable brand, bla bla bla, sure enough 1 day before the warranty was to expire the computer started acting up (Watercooled AMD Athlon XP 2000+) and then the motherboard regulators blew up.
It should also be noted that I own 4 Seasonic psu's across 4 systems, 3 of them are 430w SII's and one is an x900, all of them except for one that I blew up by accident are still working 4 years after I bought them.
The X900 tho didn't have a ball bearing fan, it had a sleeve bearing fan which had to be replaced at about the 2.5 year mark (when it started making noise)
Unfortunatley every brand will try and cut corners somewhere and put in a little planned obsolescence, Seasonic have their fans and Antek and the like have their capacitors, I'd much rather have a fan die in one of them than a capacitor...or none at all, far less chance of damage to my computer then.
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It is a Silverstone DA850.
I am a little miffed about the False Advertising I have found in this supply.
It was marketed as a "Single Rail" supply but inside I found 12V 1,2,3&4.
It says it is an 850W with 70A of continuous 12V @50deg C.
Inside I found the main board marked for 750 with daughter boards marked 650.
I have had it for about 5-6 years now and has performed FLAWLESSLY at least 8 hours a day ever since.
That alone says alot with about 15k hours on the thing.
For the first 3 years I had at least a 50A load on the 12V "rail" most of the time.
These Teapo SC caps are only rated for 3000hrs, I am replacing them with Panasonic FR's that are rated at 10k hours @ 105C with ALOT more ripple.
I am a little miffed about the False Advertising I have found in this supply.
It was marketed as a "Single Rail" supply but inside I found 12V 1,2,3&4.
It says it is an 850W with 70A of continuous 12V @50deg C.
Inside I found the main board marked for 750 with daughter boards marked 650.
I have had it for about 5-6 years now and has performed FLAWLESSLY at least 8 hours a day ever since.
That alone says alot with about 15k hours on the thing.
For the first 3 years I had at least a 50A load on the 12V "rail" most of the time.
These Teapo SC caps are only rated for 3000hrs, I am replacing them with Panasonic FR's that are rated at 10k hours @ 105C with ALOT more ripple.
The first pic is a 2200uf 10V cap, it only measured 350uf.
The second pic I removed all three they are 470uf 16V, the domed one measured 220uf the other 2 still measured 511uf.
I ordered extras for the 470's I was thinking about doubling them up.
It would lower the ESR even more and double the ripple capability.
What do you think?
The second pic I removed all three they are 470uf 16V, the domed one measured 220uf the other 2 still measured 511uf.
I ordered extras for the 470's I was thinking about doubling them up.
It would lower the ESR even more and double the ripple capability.
What do you think?
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I would not hurry to double the caps, nor to modify the ESR, in fact i would try to get caps of the same ( or closest ) ESR possible and identicall capacity, cus both of them are used to calculate the compensation network and i doubt that there would be too much headroom for them, so in other words you could ( an d i stress could ) come up with an unstable PSU.
The PSU clicks? to me it would seam that too much power was demanded from the supply and the protection did not do it's job cus it should have blocked the psu at some current level, that could be cus of your replaced parts, as i have sayd changing caps with larger capacity ones is not always a good thing, not in ATX power supply, so if you added more capacity to the filter caps section be sure to change it back to what it was the original, and also be sure the ESR is as close as possible to the original caps, it is verry important for the compensation network.
The caps were replaced with the same value and the ESR was about 10% lower.
The power supply makes a slight click and then a faint short buzz.
When I pulled the supply after the shutdown it's heatsinks were so hot you didn't want to touch them.
I think the whole culprit of this situation was the Fan and the protection circuits onboard didn't protect the supply.
Oh well I have a SeaSonic on the way.
I'd still like to see if I can figure this supply out more as a learning experience at this point.
The power supply makes a slight click and then a faint short buzz.
When I pulled the supply after the shutdown it's heatsinks were so hot you didn't want to touch them.
I think the whole culprit of this situation was the Fan and the protection circuits onboard didn't protect the supply.
Oh well I have a SeaSonic on the way.
I'd still like to see if I can figure this supply out more as a learning experience at this point.
I may be wrong but as i see in those 2 pics the heatsinks are verry small, way too small for that much power so combined with a not so efficient cooler fan and maybe a too high of a prot treshold the power devices overheated, i would start by replacing the power transistors and schottky rectifier diodes, after that check everything on the primary side of main PSU ( resistors, caps, diodes ) all removed from the board, and after making sure all is good try starting the psu again.
As @Einric sayd it is mainly a learning experiance so it does not matter if the PSU will be or not used on a PC, what does matter is that this can help him better understand the workings of PC power supply and in the future the experiance gained with this one can really help him.
On the other hand, i dissagree that a psu with primary side blown cannot be safely restored and used again on a PC, my own PC supply it's revived by me after someone managed to blow it up real bad, it has been a few months of almost continously ON state without any sighn of problems, and i work it up with the PC real hard many times so with good care and some decent experiance good things can stii be done with them.
On the other hand, i dissagree that a psu with primary side blown cannot be safely restored and used again on a PC, my own PC supply it's revived by me after someone managed to blow it up real bad, it has been a few months of almost continously ON state without any sighn of problems, and i work it up with the PC real hard many times so with good care and some decent experiance good things can stii be done with them.
What really concerns me is that it's supposedly an 850w continuous cower supply but when it popped I was pulling somewhere around 600W from it.
The only way that should be possible is the fan/fan controller, I don't think SilverStone would false advertise that badly.
When this supply was new I'd regularly pull 700W from it without complaint.
The only way that should be possible is the fan/fan controller, I don't think SilverStone would false advertise that badly.
When this supply was new I'd regularly pull 700W from it without complaint.
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