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My AX760i and AX860i boot loop experience: Very Bad


shikhar.21

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First off, system specs:

 

Samsung SSDm2 -500 GB,

Asus Strix 970GTX,

Corsair Vengeance pro PC3 19200 -2x8GB

Intel Core i5-4590

Asus Z97 Pro Wifi Ac

Windows 8 64 bit

Corsair AX760i - Because I wanted a very good PSU :mad:

Corsair H80iGT Cooler

 

I decided to share my experience with Corsair when I was building this new machine.

 

So everything was brand new and I put together the parts hoping system would come up.

 

As soon as turned on the system, it won't turn on.

I would hear a clicking noise from PSU and all fans would turn on and another clicking noise and system goes down.

 

The loop continues till I take the power cable off the PSU.

I couldnt even imagine PSU was an issue but after 2-3 hours of t/shooting, fix was - Remove all the cables from PSU and put them back in.

 

System turned on fine and worked for a month.

Then again one day, decided to get stuck in the loop.

Then started to show this issue every week and then every day.

Fix was always to unplug everything from PSU and put it back.

 

Anyways, I turned up to RMA and got weird response.

They told me AX760i is obsolete and they don't have it. :eek:

 

I was offered a replacement with AX860i which I thought was good enough.

 

Now 860i was even worse.

After connecting everything, system came up fine for 17-21 seconds.

I thought it might be an OS issue so I went to BIOS but same thing.

 

At this time, I was very angry.

 

Again to RMA and I was sure 760i/860i are garbage.

There is a serious issue with these supplies which you can read about all over this forum and Corsair tech support guy told me that this model is not affected by this issue of rebooting.

 

Anyways, my next choice was Hx750i and I am not kidding. Placed everything together and it turned up fine without any issues.

 

No clicking noise. No reboots. No issues.

 

RMA case open - 4th August 2015

HXi received - 16th Sept. 2015

 

Waste of my time/energy - 100%

 

Not looking for any responses here but before buying digital PSU's, consider my experience.

 

There is something seriously wrong with the digital PSU's which leads them to drive the system crazy at startup. And Corsair doesnt have guts to admit it as well. I mean read around, this forum is filled with those issues which I experienced. And you know what, everytime, I thought it can't be Corsair; may be my MOBO is bad or something else is but everytime, Corsair PSU was the culprit.

 

I must say. My faith in the product quality has gone down. If HXi didnt work, I was ready to dump the Corsair brand and go for Cooler Master or may be Antec.

 

Hope this helps someone else.

 

PS: RMA process is very slow and I cant blame the Tech's. They are just doing their job

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  • Corsair Employee

The "problem" with the digital PSUs is that they're very sensitive to shorts, incorrect PS good signal timings, etc.

 

If there's is ANYTHING wrong with your build (short, etc.) or the motherboard BIOS doesn't have the correct PS good signal timing (often fixed with a BIOS update) the AXi units will not work.

 

This is hardly an issue with the PSU. I personally use two AX860i's and never have a problem. If I were in your shoes, I would have tried a BIOS update. If that didn't work, I would tear down and rebuild. If that didn't work, I would use a different board.

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Could be the case but I did test out of the cabinet.

BIOS update was done to latest. Didnt help.

 

So the best PSU cannot adjust to minor hiccups which the lower models can! Wao.

 

Make stuff too sensitive to a level that it wont work.

 

The concept of PC is to be able to put in anything and make it work.

 

If the PSU is failing to do it, Corsair should be able to handle that.

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  • Corsair Employee

Really, the minor hiccups shouldn't exist in the first place... Honestly, why is it up to the PSU to compensate for something else's problem?

 

That said, your train of thought's not an uncommon one.

 

Way back when, I worked for BFG. We had a 650W PSU that we sold hundreds of thousands of and never had any issues. All of the sudden, TigerDirect decides to bundle our PSU with an EVGA motherboard. Kind of an odd couple since both are graphics card vendors, but I guess if you had no brand loyalty, you don't care. Tiger managed to sell hundreds of this bundle.

 

At any rate: The motherboard would fail to post using the BFG 650W PSU. Customers replaced the PSU with any other PSU and the board would post with no issues. Therefore, from process of elimination, the customer would determine that the PSU must be at fault and returned the PSU. We had a HUGE spike in PSU returns, but every one we got back tested good... unless we used that particular EVGA board.

 

Naturally, we weren't in any position to ask EVGA to make any changes to their board since it worked with other PSUs. Best we could do is just tell TigerDirect not to bundle the two together again.

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I agree.

 

So why not put a warning on the PSU stating that digital PSU might not work in certain configurations. At least I could return my mobo in time if it didnt work.

 

Obviously Corsair cannot test all MOBO's but can do some . If one PSU works and another doesnt with same MOBO, either qualify the MOBO's or at least have some mechanism to tell what is wrong.

 

If motherboard works. Not a MOBO issue.

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  • 3 months later...

Gahh! I believe I am having the same issue.

I have gotten this to work, some of the time by yanking all of the connections. What did you wind up doing to solve the issue?

 

I have an old TX650 (Corsair) in my primary PC that I am going to pull and replace the AX860i that I have in my new build. I guess I should have bought an Analog Power supply in the first place....My new build is a Motherboard is a Supermicro x9srl-f and the CPU is an Intel Xeon e5-1620V2. I just got the wiring looking good, and now I have to pull everything.

 

So what did you do with the PSU?

 

Jwagner

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My AX1200i (Old Firmware Batch) almost took out the whole rig with it. Well it partially did. A Corsair Link and Lighting node, EVGA GTX 480 and a EVGA X99 Classified. The CPU (5930k) and a GTX 780 Classified Hydro Copper along with the rest of the system, including a custom water cooling system, thankfully got sparred. I really thought I was in trouble when I heard the popping sounds of electricity, smoke and flashes of flames from the MB. Don't think I'll ever be able to erase that from my memory.

 

Nonetheless, I always thought the Corsair PSU's were Seasonic rebrands but it wasn't long till I found out they aren't anymore or at least their premium "AXi" series aren't. If I would have known what I know now, or at least what I've gone through the last 5 years, I would have went with another PSU. Seems like Corsair has dropped the ball massively, especially that Corsair Link as a lot of their premium products are based on that botchy piece of software. I went through hell and back for 4 years being a beta tester for them while I was the one that dished out $200ish for the whole thing. Its all sitting in a box collecting dust as I went to a more reliable monitoring and control system for my rig (Aquaero 6 XT).

 

I think overall, Corsair has gotten very lucky when it comes to the old batched AXi PSUs on the X99 platform and the Corsair Link to a flickering RGB keyboard, in a legality aspect. They weren't so forward towards a recall or letting people know that there was a issue with said product(s) when they're advertised to work as intended.

 

Not here to bash Corsair as I own lots of their products. Just stating the obvious. Hopefully they might one day do the right thing and apologize to all those customers that they might have affected.

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  • Corsair Employee

Sounds like you ARE here to bash Corsair. ;): At the very least, you're quite off topic.

 

The OP isn't talking about a PSU that's blowing up components. Just one that won't allow his motherboard to POST.

 

FWIW: The AXi line is made by Flextronics. An OEM that's actually FAR superior to anything Seasonic currently offers. There sure as heck isn't any plans to "recall" the AXi line since the number of components fried versus the number of units sold is 1/1000 of 1% or less.

 

And why are you so convinced that the PSU "blew up" your motherboard and not that the motherboard was just bad? I used to work in RMA and had motherboards blow up all of the time... sometimes shooting three inch flames out of VRs. That had nothing to do with the power supply. All the time we get people to send in components that they feel their PSU has fried because we actually have a damage claim program, and 9 out of 10 times, the PSU was not responsible and works fine. 9 out of 10 times, the components they thought was damaged by the PSU was actually bad in the first place.

 

Jenn_Wagner: The OP has a PSU that's latching off when he's trying to power it up. I don't think we've had a chance to test an AXi with a SuperMicro X9SRL-F, but it's certainly something we can do. Of course, if you put the TX in there and it still doesn't work, are you going to then consider the board is bad or will you continue to blame the PSU?

 

Try it and get back with us and I'll try to get Corsair's validations lab to test that PSU with that motherboard.

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Sounds like you ARE here to bash Corsair. ;) At the very least, you're quite off topic.

The OP isn't talking about a PSU that's blowing up components. Just one that won't allow his motherboard to POST.

 

FWIW: The AXi line is made by Flextronics. An OEM that's actually FAR superior to anything Seasonic currently offers.

 

And why are you convinced that the PSU "blew up" your motherboard and not that the motherboard was just bad? I used to work in RMA and had motherboards blow up all of the time... sometimes shooting three inch flames out of VRs. That had nothing to do with the power supply.

 

Sorry you felt this way, Mr. corsair employee.

 

I voiced my story because in some cases some of these symptoms were experienced before the blowout. Did you bother asking them if they had one of the old batched PSUs before something catastrophic could possibly be waiting? Not trying to scare anyone but saying it as it is and wouldn't want them to go through what I went through. Sorry you felt that my post was irrelevant to this thread.

 

IIRC from two reputed Online Reviewers, the AXi PSUs during the release of X99, took out two other MBs from two different companies, that doesn't include my MBs company which would make it the 3rd company. Coincidental? You be the judge.

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Sorry you felt this way, Mr. corsair employee.

 

I voiced my story because in some cases some of these symptoms were experienced before the blowout. Did you bother asking them if they had one of the old batched PSUs before something catastrophic could possibly be waiting? Not trying to scare anyone but saying it as it is and wouldn't want them to go through what I went through. Sorry you felt that my post was irrelevant to this thread.

 

IIRC from two reputed Online Reviewers, the AXi PSUs during the release of X99, took out two other MBs from two different companies, that doesn't include my MBs company which would make it the 3rd company. Coincidental? You be the judge.

 

No reason to get snarky, but I also believe you got some of your facts wrong. You can say I'm defending the PSU because I'm a Corsair employee, but if you understand the fundamentals of PSUs, you might consider that I'm not overly defending the Corsair PSU here.

 

I believe what you're actually referring to is ONE reviewer that experienced a problem on the older AXi's, which had no OCP on the +12V. When the motherboard failed, the power did not stop getting delivered to the motherboard and this blew up the VRMs. But it was still the motherboard that failed first. It was not a case of the PSU blowing up the board. The board had already failed. I was actually working with Asus and Nate from Legit reviews on that incident.

 

That is... if we are talking about this here: http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-x99-motherboard-goes-up-in-smoke-for-reasons-unknown_150008

 

Now.. I'm more than willing to admit that I'm wrong if you're talking about some other incident with AXi's and X99's if you can provide links.

 

And, for the record, ANY PSU that touts itself has having a "single +12V rail" is a PSU that has a high OCP on the +12V rail. THAT is what makes it a single +12V rail. The AXi was no exception to that and, truth be told, ANY enthusiast level Seasonic product ALSO has a single +12V rail and would have done the exact same thing to the motherboard. It just happened to be the PSU Nate was using when his X99 board blew up. The GOOD THING about the AXi is that you can actually toggle it to a multiple +12V rail using the Link software. The mistake made by Corsair on the earlier AXi's is that the PSU is set to single +12V rail by default, which sort of defeats the purpose.

 

So no... AXi PSUs do NOT notoriously blow up X99 boards. Again: If you can provide links that show otherwise, I'll gladly recant. But just saying "if I remember correctly" and assuming I'm defensive because I'm a Corsair employee defending Corsair product aint going to cut it.

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I'm not being "snarky" nor do I appreciate the attitude from a company employee. If I was snarky, I'd call Corsair right now and complain about one of their employees attitudes towards a loyal customer. I would advise in a training course on customer service so you can better understand frustrated and angry customers who feel wronged.

 

I'm not here to question your knowledge or experiences but to help other members who might possible have the same issue before it might get worst as well as my experiences in the past with company products which might be irrelevant but should raise some concern.

 

I still stand with everything I've said.

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Jenn_Wagner: The OP has a PSU that's latching off when he's trying to power it up. I don't think we've had a chance to test an AXi with a SuperMicro X9SRL-F, but it's certainly something we can do. Of course, if you put the TX in there and it still doesn't work, are you going to then consider the board is bad or will you continue to blame the PSU?

 

Try it and get back with us and I'll try to get Corsair's validations lab to test that PSU with that motherboard.

 

Jonnyguru-

 

I got up at about 03:30 this morning and cut all of my beautification zip ties on my old pc's power supply. I snaked the PSU cables from the old PC to the new build. It powered up like a charm. It also looks like a horrible conjoined PC joined at the cables...:roll: <snark on> So yes, I will continue to blame the PSU. This is after flipping out everything but the cpu and the PSU with another PC, before even looking at the PSU. <snark off>

 

I will flash the Super Micro x9srl-f Mother Board bios with version X9SRL5_116 to see if this resolves the issue with the PSU.

 

Do I need to flash the PSU? I looked at (http://www.corsair.com/en-us/ax860i-digital-atx-power-supply-860-watt-80-plus-platinum-certified-fully-modular-psu) and I didn't see any detail on this.

 

I will say, that this is a more expensive PSU than I would normally buy. I would expect to have less problems with the premium price. It is a newer product, so I will reserve judgment until this matter is resolved. I will say that I work with a lot of servers, and I don't really see a lot of PSU issues. I usually see memory errors and hard drive failures. I spent a day or so chasing down memory / video issues, because I just expect to NOT have problems with a PSU unless it is simply dead.

 

On a related question, The PSU is in a 780T (Corsair) case mounted on the bottom. From what I have read, I see that I placed the unit upside down with the fan pointing up into the case. Is there a "right" way to mount the PSU? I was concerned that I might suck up carpet critters into the PSU.

 

Oh yeah, pass this on to the design guys. Making sure the Sata power cables are able to reach from one drive bay to another, is probably a good idea in your own cases.

 

Thanks,

 

JW

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  • Corsair Employee
I'm not being "snarky" nor do I appreciate the attitude from a company employee. If I was snarky, I'd call Corsair right now and complain about one of their employees attitudes towards a loyal customer. I would advise in a training course on customer service so you can better understand frustrated and angry customers who feel wronged.

 

I'm not here to question your knowledge or experiences but to help other members who might possible have the same issue before it might get worst as well as my experiences in the past with company products which might be irrelevant but should raise some concern.

 

I still stand with everything I've said.

 

The you stand with something that's wrong and that's my point.

 

I don't necessarily WANT to argue with you. And maybe you really are trying to help. But if you don't have the correct information in the first place, then you're not helping and you're actually defaming the brand.

 

Like I said before: The difference between old and new AXi PSUs was simply switching the default OCP setting from single +12V rail to multiple +12V rails. This single +12V rail mode didn't kill components and it's a design that 90%+ enthusiast PSUs on the market all have, therefore there's no reason to do any kind of "recall".

 

If you feel that your PSU did in fact kill any components, then pleas do contact support and have them do a damage claim for you. That's WHY we have the damage claim service.

 

If you did reply to this post hoping to get help with your own issue, then I'm sorry it got derailed into this exchange. But your post was off topic as the OP was talking about a motherboard that would not POST. Second unit POSTed but did not stay up. Nothing about PSU's "taking out a whole PC" like you stated in your post. This is what troubled me. It as if you went out of your way to present a worst case scenario to an unrelated issue in the effort to, as I said, defame the company.

 

I don't believe there's anything wrong with my attitude given the direction the thread has taken. If you want to talk about an actual incident, we can take it up in a new thread specific to your concerns. Otherwise, I'd appreciate it if you would stop telling people that their AXi PSU is going to blow up their motherboard and that Corsair should recall the product (paraphrasing).

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Jonnyguru-

 

I got up at about 03:30 this morning and cut all of my beautification zip ties on my old pc's power supply. I snaked the PSU cables from the old PC to the new build. It powered up like a charm. It also looks like a horrible conjoined PC joined at the cables...:roll: <snark on> So yes, I will continue to blame the PSU. This is after flipping out everything but the cpu and the PSU with another PC, before even looking at the PSU. <snark off>

 

That's good that you had the other PSU to try. So clearly there is an issue, but it could be just a bad PSU and not a compatibility issue.

 

Super Micro is right down the street from Corsair and I know guys that work there and can get a board just like yours and test it.

 

We typically partner with most mobo manufacturers and have them do compatibility checks, tweak their BIOSs accordingly, etc. We don't normally do that with Super Micro because they're more server oriented and most of the time their boards are built into Super Micro cases with Super Micro power supplies, so it's not something that comes up very often.

 

I will flash the Super Micro x9srl-f Mother Board bios with version X9SRL5_116 to see if this resolves the issue with the PSU.

 

Do I need to flash the PSU? I looked at (http://www.corsair.com/en-us/ax860i-digital-atx-power-supply-860-watt-80-plus-platinum-certified-fully-modular-psu) and I didn't see any detail on this.

 

End users aren't able to flash the AXi PSUs, I'm afraid.

 

I will say, that this is a more expensive PSU than I would normally buy. I would expect to have less problems with the premium price. It is a newer product, so I will reserve judgment until this matter is resolved. I will say that I work with a lot of servers, and I don't really see a lot of PSU issues. I usually see memory errors and hard drive failures. I spent a day or so chasing down memory / video issues, because I just expect to NOT have problems with a PSU unless it is simply dead.

 

And it could be simply dead. That's not unheard of either. In fact, it's more likely dead than that there's a compatibility issue.

 

On a related question, The PSU is in a 780T (Corsair) case mounted on the bottom. From what I have read, I see that I placed the unit upside down with the fan pointing up into the case. Is there a "right" way to mount the PSU? I was concerned that I might suck up carpet critters into the PSU.

 

There's no one correct way to orient the PSU. I have my AX860i mounted with the fan facing up in a C70 case because the case sits on the floor and I don't want it sucking up cat hair.

 

Oh yeah, pass this on to the design guys. Making sure the Sata power cables are able to reach from one drive bay to another, is probably a good idea in your own cases.

 

Not 100% sure what you mean, but I can pass it over to the case PM just the same.

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Jonnyguru-

 

I updated the Super Micro mother board bios, and that helped to some degree. I can power up the motherboard, and I can get it to boot. However, If I turn of the computer, I get the flickering of power again. The case fans start up and shut off continuously, the power light to the graphics cards clicks on and off, the power indicator on the case flickers. It looks like the PSU is stuck in a loop of providing power, cutting power, repeat. If I unplug the PSU, and plug it back in, it boots up normally, and appears ok, until I turn off the computer again. I do not imagine this is healthy for the hardware. So how do we get this to the validations lab?

 

I do not have this problem using the TX650 PSU from my current main pc.

 

Is there a way to flash the firmware of the PSU? I installed the link software and I get sensor readings from the PSU. I do not see any way to update the software of the unit. Unfortunately the PSU does not log issues outside of the software, so I am not getting indications of what is going on when I power down.

 

Thanks,

 

JW

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Jonnyguru-

 

I saw your message. Please let me know if you find out anything from the lab. I requested an RMA with ticket 6727457. If you could push this approval, it would be most appreciated. (With a later version of the firmware of course...)

 

This build is targeting VMware. It was going to be an ESX host, but I am thinking VMware workstation with Win 10, Server 2012, or Ubuntu 15. It's definitely not a conventional build for a pc.

 

Thanks,

 

JW

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End users aren't able to flash the AXi PSUs, I'm afraid.

 

  1. Please will you tell me how can I tell the AXi PSU Firmware version?
  2. What are the latest firmware versions for the 4 different AXi PSUs?
  3. I ideally I would like to do this programmatically, but if this is not possible is it printed on the PSU? I see issues on some AXi PSUs and not others and wonder if this is down to different firmware versions.
  4. What hardware would I need to be able up flash new firmware on my AX1500i PSU?

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  • Corsair Employee

There's only two version of firmware on the PSU and neither would address this issue with this Super Micro motherboard. The two versions either had the OCP off by default or on by default. No other changes have been made, so knowing the firmware revision is a moot point for this circumstance. This is one of the reasons I got frustrated with GTXJackBauer for his comment. Focusing on the firmware on the PSU is a distraction from the actual problem.

 

But to satisfy your curiosity, if you want to know if you have OCP enabled by default, look at your PSU's serial number.

 

AX760i and 860i with a serial number of 13119560 or greater has the new firmware with the OCP enabled by default.

 

An AX1200i with a serial number of 13099520 or greater also means your OCP is enabled by default.

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Jonnyguru-

 

The RMA was approved. Thanks for your help so far. I got a friend to loan me a power supply in the interim.

 

Any word on the lab testing of the mobo / prox / psu combination? FWIW, My friend who is lending me a psu, is running the same mobo / proc / memory combo with a corsair hxi psu without issues.

 

I am willing to send details if needed, on my system, for certification testing.

 

JW

 

(Just saw your reply....oy.)

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This is one of the reasons I got frustrated with GTXJackBauer for his comment. Focusing on the firmware on the PSU is a distraction from the actual problem.

 

There you go again. Always nice to see your professionalism.

 

First of, IT SHOULD MATTER if those who got a old firmware PSU by chance and the fact that Corsair didn't announce it to their customers who purchased an old firmware PSU is pretty "snarky" in it of its self since the fact that the users had NO CLUE that they didn't have OCP enabled by default to protect their hardware on boot up. But you guys quietly switched the firmware months after release and went back to norm while some people might have had damaged goods. Maybe it was MB BIOS issues as X99 had plenty of issues of its own but the protection should have been in place for the PSU at the time when it wasn't is my point. Its well recorded in the legitreview story.

 

With regards to the OP, I only brought this up in case he had a old batch PSU and wanted to make sure his components were protected but by Guru's argument, I should shut up and move along.

 

Corsair's great CS took care of my PSU and Link as well as EVGA, as they took care of the MB and GPU. Not here trying to stir trouble as Guru tries to imply. It's obvious he doesn't want this pointed out as its irrelevant and bad PR for the company.

 

My apologies to the OP if he feels I've sidetracked his thread.

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