SK_Adam Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 Hello. I am here to just let the competent people know who can pass this info to the engineers. This issue will be resolved (hopefully) by a second RMA at the seller. Let's get into it. I'm going to begin that it's not the Capacitors. Small backstory: I upgraded my computer in 2016 to my shiny new RM1000i. After 2 years the power supply began showing rather concerning behaviour. Electrically it didn't effect the PC at all but when I plugged my PC in the wall socket (my location is Slovakia so we run a 230V mains) it made a huge arc pop in the wall socket and also inside the power supply. This behaviour was not normal compared to the new power supply. Days went on and during use my room was filled with a burnt bakelite smell regularly when I gamed. And my PC isn't even all that power hungry I got a OC 8700k at 4.7GHz and a 1080. Nothing horrible. Eventually the powersupply ended up popping breakers either every time I turned it on by the switch on the back or by the front switch. (Mind you I am using B25 breakers. Medium speed 25A breaker) And the suicide disc is easily identify able without the need of taking it apart and ruin the warranty seal. Its what I assume a inrush current limiting NTC. RT1 on the board. Why am I so sure? I'm a electronics amateur. I create stuff I fix stuff and I know the fundamental function of switchmode power supplies including the basics of the PFC for higher power power supplies. So here are my questions. How many switch cycles is the power supply rated for? (Full discharged filter caps switched on). Also what makes that "tick" noise when I press the startup button on my pc after let's say a hour of not using my pc just sitting there. I assume it's the power factor correction thing that does that initial "tick". It's not really pronounced but it's there you can hear it. My assumption is that someone didn't think of the NTC needing to be beefy enough. The capacitors ale too large for the NTC so after a few cycles the NTC just deteriorates to a practically short circuit and now it has no brakes against pulling full short circuit current to charge the filters. Anyone able to get some engineering info? I know the RM series is very old by now I hope stuff was caught already. Two years after getting my RM1000i I had to RMA it...they gave me a returned RM1000i so i used it for another two years aaaand now we arrive here...it happened again. Except this time it failed during use (popped the breaker at 3AM while browsing the internet) Thanks for any info and I really do hope it makes it to the engineering team (Ill attach a picture after this of the suspect) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SK_Adam Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 The picture was taken trough the fan shroud. I have not taken the power supply apart. I just hope and pray that the seller accepts the RMA and gives me back my money finally so I can buy some better PSU. Hopefully this time not one that pops it's NTC. Any recommendations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeDoyen Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 (edited) Well the protection circuit should last very long since you're not supposed to switch off the PSU on the back switch. The capacitors will see very few charge cycles and the PTCs will basically not be stressed, since they will work only at times when you will have switched off the PSU for maintenace/upgrades/cleanup.. If you switch off the PC with the back switch regularely, that's what killed it. ( see here for an official view on similar matter https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=201814 ) If you only use the PC case switch and never power down the PSU, it should basically outlast its advertised lifetime (~10 years or so) Edited January 12, 2021 by LeDoyen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SK_Adam Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 Thats quite sad that I cant use the rear switch. As far I know nobody stated that in the manual. Why include the power switch then. Sounds rather pointless. How many cycles is the PSU rated for when you use the rear switch ? (Turn the rear switch off after the pc goes into standby ofcourse). I still don't know what is that tick sound then I press the start button or start the powersupply manually after being in standby for and hour. As I said my assumption is it's the PFC circuit when it initially starts up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeDoyen Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 ATX PSUs should be left on all the time. I don't know what the cycle rating is, but even if you have an aircooled PC with no dust filter, you may need to switch it off to dust it maybe every month at worst. that's not a lot of cycles needed. But from what i saw here from people that flick the switch every day, PSUs die in 2 - 2,5 years, so i guess it's consistent with what you saw. The switch is here to avoid burning the plugs when you plug it in with all the arcing that charging caps cause. We get that with laptop chargers all the time.. when plugging it, it sparks and erodes the plugs quite a bit (and that's like 60W adapters, not a 1kW PSU with massive caps) The click it should be the fan controller that starts it briefly during power up to check if the fan works. That is normal :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SK_Adam Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 The fan controller..huh interesting. Didn't think of that causing the click. The problem is it wasn't just me switching the power supply on and off. Power outage with my unfortunate location also contributed to it quite a bit. The reason why I so commonly switch it off is because 99% of the time my PC is put to sleep mode. Windows itself loves booting up randomly at 4AM asking for approval for update and if it doesn't get one it will just update itself without my consent and all my unsaved progress will be gone. So the instant it goes to sleep I switch the PSU off so that the PC can't wake itself up. Also...I have played a lot on the bios of my Maximus X Formula. I did not even manage to successfully disable RGB so when my pc is powered off it's still on despite the bios being set up properly. Well I guess I will have to create some external solution. Maybe a timed resistor in series with the line (because at some I will have a main switch for my entire desk setup for every electrical appliance). Yeah I think a resistor quite the power resistor in series then bridged with a relay or contactor will be the easiest and probably most sure way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeDoyen Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 For the motherboard lighting, i had the same problem but i solved it by playing with the energy saving options. I believe it was by activating ErP that Aura finally went OFF when powering off the PC. You can also look at the options relative to AC power loss. It should be set so that the PC does not start when AC is restored. That will save you from having a nice bright windows update screen at 4 am. If you really need to use sleep mode instead of closing windows and shutting down, maybe try to use hibernate mode. This one allows the motherboard to switch off instead of sleeping. If it's not available on the start menu, you may have to activate it through command line as administrator with that : powercfg.exe /hibernate on Maybe you tried some of these, maybe some could halp, i hope :) Building a soft start for the PSU could work, but it shouldn't be necesary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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