CX600 builder series boot failure

About 5 months ago I bought one of these power supplies for my current system, before that I was using a cheap no name psu without any trouble. This was with the same system configuration. I made the switch because I was worried about the efficiency of that old thing.

 

last month, the cx600 v1 failed to boot after I shutdown the pc for a night. Maybe you've heard of this before but when I press the power button, all the fans spin up for a split second and then they all turn off again. The power button light stays on after this though. I tried the paper clip jump start test with the same resulting symptoms and I tried replacing the power supply with my old cheap one. That one worked fine, boots and everything.

 

I didnt have any of the original receipts or warranty booklets so at this point I thought I'd open it up and see if there was anything obvious I could fix in there. Defeated, all I did then was salvage the fan and toss the whole thing out.

 

I bought another one of these things thinking I was just having a little bit of rotten luck. 20 days after I bought the newer replacement cx600 v2, it came up with the exact same problem. I'm in the middle of filling out an rma request right now (I'm getting a 504 gateway timeout error but I'll try again later) but I'm worried though. Even if a replacement does get here, what's to say this wont happen again in another month? I've been doing some research and people are telling me that the builder series wasnt made by seasonic, but instead by Channel Well(CWT) whom I've heard nothing good about. Is there any way I could get a replacement psu that was actually made by seasonic?

 

Thanks for reading.

Even if a replacement does get here, what's to say this wont happen again in another month?

For two different PSU's to die the same way kind of sounds like you have problems somewhere else. Maybe a bad wall socket or one thats improperly grounded. Do you use a power strip with a surge protector? Or are you plugged directly into the wall?

Have you checked your connections especially the 8-pin connector that goes at the top of the motherboard?

 

try different wall socket.

I also have a 600W CX v2 and a 430W CX v2 that i just bought for two Socket FM1 systems - exactly the same problem - fans run for a second then the whole system shuts off before booting. Went back to the shop and they tested my MB and CPU with memory and had it running fine.

 

I bought a power surge protector and UPS - tried different leads, different wall sockets etc - and I have tried swapping ccomponents from both systems (all brand new) and still on both PSUs I get this fault - totally run out of ideas and have a customer I need to deliver what I thought would be two simple control systems !

 

What is the main difeerence between the CX and other PSUs from Corsair?

OK I have worked it out - the systems I am building are the new AMD Socket FM1. I got hold of an old 300W PSU and it started first time. My assumpstion is that the 430W and 600W, being 'domestic' PSUs are constructed to trip out at a fairly low current spike on startup. A high current medium wattage PSU has solved the problem.

Again an assumption but from reading up and using a bit of copmmon sense I think the new APU chips with integrated APU/CPU and GPU draw a little more current on startup which trips these CX PSUs to turn themselves off.

For anyone else setting up a socket FM1 system - go for a PSU that is higher current (not wattage) rated - there are plenty by all manufacturers that are aimed at overclocking or just a bit higher specced.

I would imagine Corsairs HX and perhaps VX range would be more suitable - perhaps the people at the Corsair labs could try out a bunch of PSUs with some socket FM1 setups (no graphics card) and see which are most suitable.

 

For now I'm just relieved, after trying every configuration possible, to have solved the issue.

 

My system is

Gigabyte A75M UD2H board

AMD A8 3850 APU processor

4 GB (2x2GB) DDR3 Kingston Value Ram

500GB SATA 3.0 HDD

Generic Sony DVD

520W (overspecced but it works !) Overclockers CPU (high current)

 

Hope this helps others who encounter the dreaded 1 second and off syndrome.

What is the main difeerence between the CX and other PSUs from Corsair?

 

There is no big difference, other than that it's made on a budget platform, obviously to cut costs. Corsair PSUs come in a variety of platforms from CWT and Seasonic, with the exception of the AX1200, which is another OEM again alltogether. Anyway, I know people with CX PSUs that haven't had any problems, so maybe you got really unlucky with two consecutively bad units.

 

Channel Well do make excellent units, and if you're looking at the Corsair HX series, all but one of them are made by that OEM. (The HX650 which is Seasonic). I've got the HX750 and it's worked fine for 18 months. But I guess the 520W you have now is working out, so you're good. Just thought I'd add in my $0.02.

I registered for the sole purpose of reporting in and saying that I have the same problem with the CX600.

 

I was setting together the new build for my sister, and the system just wouldn't boot at all. Troubleshot everything, and found out I had the mobo too tightly screwed together. After that it ran fine for a couple of weeks.

 

Until today, when my sister went to turn it on, and it just died. It booted everything up for a split-second (as OP's also did), but then just died. Tried removing the PSU and do the famous paperclip green/black wire test, nothing. Sometimes it would just spin for half a second.

 

Luckily i'm in the process of moving, so i'm at home for a few months, so I have my own rig here. I tried my own PSU on her rig and everything booted up successfully.

I've just registered as well to say the same thing happened to me, New computer professionally built, less then a month old. Shut it down last night and tried to turn it on this morning.

 

All that happens is initially the case lights and fans come on for about 1/10 of a second and they die. The power supply then emits a high pitched tone that would drive animals insane. Pushing the power button again at this stage changes the whistling tone somewhat.

 

I choose the Corsair CX600 because I believe they were better made than the standard crap you see around. however it appears there is a large number of these power supplies failing in a short amount of time. Google "Corsair CX600 Dead" and it comes up quite a bit, the only solution is to RMA, and even then it's pot luck you get a working one, or one that makes a constant whine.

 

I'm very disappointed, it appears Corsair branched into the PSU market and offloaded the project to a third-party with inferior parts.

 

I go back to the no-name brand I think, as at least I'll get more than a month out of one, and if it blows up in a year or two it would be money better spent.

I had the exact same issue and this is how I solved it.

 

I had an old PSU lying around - a generic 400W with a 20 pin + 4 pin ATX_12V connectors. Plugged this in and board posts and boots so I know the board and CPU are ok. I swapped back to my CX600 and split the connectors down to 20 pin and a single 4 pin ATX12_V to mimic my old PSU's connectors. Plugged them in and system would not boot...fans still spun for 1 sec then stopped - same as before. This made me scratch my head for a while as I thought this would have worked.

So at this point my motherboard is sitting on the cardboard box (removes chance of shorting out on the case), all thats plugged into the motherboard is:

A8-3850 CPU and OEM fan connected to PSU_FAN connector

1x stick of memory

Keyboard

Monitor connected to VGA port

 

My CX600 v2 is connected to the MB with 20 pin and 4 pin connectors into the 24 pin and 8 pin MB holes.

 

I read that the new power supplies might be sensitive to spikes so I added 1x SATA HDD to the connections - power only, no SATA cable.

 

Still did not post.

 

Connected a 3 pin case fan along with the HDD and all the above and.....

 

SYSTEM NOW POSTS!!!!

 

removed the case fan to prove a point - System no longer posts.

 

Added a 2nd HDD to see if it was the case fan itself making the difference...

System now boots.

 

So annoyingly it looks like its a combination of too much power when using the 24 pin and 8 pins - coupled with too few power drawing devices when the connectors are broken down to their smaller 20pin and 4pin counterparts.

 

I really hope others get this working the same way, this has been driving me crazy.

 

Good luck!!

I had the exact same issue and this is how I solved it.

 

 

I registered only to give you MASSIVE THANKS, i was almost getting crazy with the exact same issue, someone please put a sticky regarding this problem.

 

I built a new pc and only had 2 fans and a hdd connected to the psu besides the mb, couldn't get the PC started without unplugging the power cord and cycling the on/off button.

 

 

Luckily i had another hdd in the house when i luckily found this thread..and what do you know, i connected it and magic happened. Now my PC powers on as it should, just for the record my PSU is CX430.

 

@nmcgowan http://www.topcultured.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/internet-high-five.jpg

I registered only to give you MASSIVE THANKS, i was almost getting crazy with the exact same issue, someone please put a sticky regarding this problem.

 

Me too!!! Finally found someone else with this issue! :biggrin:

 

I just built a new system based on CX430 and got the same problem. The system is based on an ASUS Z68 MB and a Core i5 with integrated GPU which I was planning to use. The only other thing connected is a SSD drive, and the system is completely unstable. I can boot Win7, but as soon as I get the mouse pointer (around that time), the computer just shuts down.

 

The interesting thing is that if I plug in a Geforce card in the computer, the problem goes away (even though I am not actually USING the Geforce card, the monitor is still connected to the iGPU). This is what I had to do to be able to install Windows 7 in the first place.

 

Now, the thing is I have experienced this one more time, also with a Corsair PSU (think it was VX450 or something like that). When I booted that system (Intel P67 based with Core i5 760) with a Geforce 420 (low end), it was very unstable and the PSU shut down every now and then when inside Windows 7. If I booted the system with a Geforce 8800GT instead, it was completely stable.

 

So it seems like the Corsair power supplies have problems when they are not "loaded enough". :confused:

 

I will go home and connect all fans and a secondary HDD and see if that solves the problem. And just as a reference I would call myself a fairly experienced system builder, and yes I have connected all the power cables to MB:s and Graphics cards where applicable.

 

If anyone at Corsair has any questions or would have some test carried out then let me know (quite soon since I am building this PC for someone else).

I will go home and connect all fans and a secondary HDD and see if that solves the problem.

 

Confirmed! When adding one extra HDD and two case fans, the system runs stable! If I unplug both the case fans, then it is unstable again. Not ideal since this is just an office PC, I would really have loved NOT to plug in the case fans. :sigh!:

 

I think Corsair has to address this issue as technology currently goes in the power saving direction, and computers (especially Office/HTPC ones) will consume less and less current in the future.

I had the same problem with the author , i connected a 2nd HDD and now my system works so it is confirmed thanks for the info it is a really weird solution to a really weird problem.

Just registered to report I just had the same problem with a CX500M. Adding a fan solved the problem, it seems.

my cx600 also died on me after 2 months. the replacement is still in the mail, been waiting for three weeks. will have to wait another two, from the looks of things argh corsair service support has driven me to the limits of my patience. the psu would pass the paperclip test. but no post, or ram and gpu beeps. tried another power supply and things were fine. really dissapointed in the cx series.

I jjst bought a cx600m to replace my old cx500 which had this problem. however my cx600m also has this problem and i dotn have extra hdd or fans to plug in any other fix for this?