jayhall0315

Interestingly, when I load up an image I made of Windows 10 from last weekend (where iCUE 3.38.61 was working fine) iCUE immediately stops working. This is before any programs (like Windows Update) can even kick in.

I have been using iCUE since 3.38.61 was released. I do not wish to upgrade to version 4.0 yet bc of all the issues I read about it. Today iCUE stopped working. After going through all the regular 20 beginner and intermediate steps listed in these forums, I cannot get 3.38.61 working again. On a whim, I reset the time in the Windows 10 kernel and it installs fine. Obviously, the question then is: Is 3.38.61 set to fail on purpose for some n amount of people as a timed obsolescence to force people to upgrade to iCUE version 4?

Just leaving a posting for others to see how this case resolved: HX1200i went dead on July 28th, 2020 Filed for an advance replacement and paid by credit card on July, 30th. Advanced replacement HX1200i came very quickly on August 4th, 2020. (That particular rig would have been down for one week if I had reinstalled the new HX1200i as soon as I received it.) 5 stars to Corsair for their quick advance replacement option and for several support members who emailed me promptly with the correct details to get the return processed. Well done on the warranty end Corsair! Much better than 3 or 4 weeks that many competitors likely offer, so kudos for that service. I am also glad this forum has Jonny and I believe Corsair is trying to improve their PSU support options. That said, our lab has experienced several Corsair PSU failures in the last three years, including a fair percentage of the AX units that we used to use. On August 1st, I went to our department's store room and signed for a 1200 watt PSU (from a competitor brand to Corsair). I installed it that day with no issues. The reason I had originally chosen the HX1200i for one of my home rigs is bc it seemed like more of a workhorse without the temperamental electrical engineering issues of the AX line, and then that unit too failed about 28 months in. I just can't have that on a near-mission-critical rig. Because of this, I am choosing to go with a competitor for the short term and see how that works out. That competitor does not have the iCUE enabled monitoring of the PSU by USB cable offered by Corsair but that works out just fine for me, .... I actually prefer a rock solid unit that works versus one that may or may not, especially with the ever erratic iCUE. (iCUE has improved over the last two years but it always gives me an uneasy feeling and early versions of this software caused CTD and BSOD. I also do not like that the install takes up more than 1 GB of drive space.) I have a plethora of Corsair enabled parts in my PCs, ... and I like them. I plan to buy more high-end Corsair hardware in the future, ... just not any more PSUs. If there is anything I would urge Jonny and Corsair to consider, .... it would be the exact electrical engineering design of the PSUs. The design specs have ... issues. If all the design work is done by poorly paid Seasonic electrical engineers in Taiwan, who in the United States is overseeing that work and making sure the designs are rock solid? I suspect there are few if any real electrical engineers in Fremont, CA who are actually overseeing the designs and correcting the errors. I mean no disrespect to Jonny, but I remain skeptical that the overall failure rate of Seasonic (Corsair) PSUs is under 1%. I have a Swiss Army knife my grandfather gave to me that was made in the 1960's I believe, ... still works as well today as the day it was made. No reason that higher end Corsair PSUs cannot be engineered to almost the same levels, ... if corporate is willing to pay qualified U.S. engineers $140,000 a year to correct the designs. I have a feeling that if you calculate the return rate and loss, it is cheaper just to pay the standard Bay Area salary for a highly qualified engineering team. Something to consider .....

Yeah sure Jonny, you and I understand that, but that is what is written in the instructional HX1200i pamphlet. A newer user with less experience though is likely to be fooled if for example their unit was damaged during shipping but the power on self test is working. They would then naturally assume things are good to go and wire up everything only to be left in bad spirits wondering why the motherboard will not POST. I think Corsair should include a mandatory jumper block for the ATX 24 pin header to confirm everything is alright for new users. As to our lab computers, it is a mix. ~ 30% are desktops, 30% are more for software development and ~40% are machines running Quadro cards for nn modeling. Our lab has had particularly horrible results with AX units. We will not use them anymore. As to my wife's old computer, the Corsair unit was exhibiting random failures. It took several days to eventually narrow the problem down to the PSU (we initially thought it was a bad EVGA graphics card). We replaced it with an Antec unit and the desktop continued to work fine for three more years until we upgraded all the hardware.

I should have mentioned above Jonny that I have read many of your reviews and always appreciated their clarity and often depth. Despite the hassle of dealing with this dead PSU, If am glad to see that you are working with Corsair to improve things. One thing I notice by looking at pics of other's rigs that may help Corsair out a bit, is enthusiasts who are using one PCIe 6 + 2 pin plus 6 + 2 pin cable to plug into both sockets of a high end card like the RTX 2080 Ti. If I recall correctly (and I might not), the wiring in a single cable is rated safely up to 288 watts but folks should be using two separate cables. That way the PSU can safely deliver ~ 288 to 500+ watts for an overclocked GPU. It is mentioned with one brief sentence in the instruction pamphlet to plug PCIe (PEG) cables into the GPU power sockets but I think some percentage of the failures Corsair is seeing, are folks using high-end GPUs to boot up into Windows just fine with things moving along swimmingly until they load into a game or 3DMark overclocked. It is bc some of these folks are using one cable I suspect. I can also 100% confirm that the Power On Self Test is not accurate. Pressing the fan self test button on the back of my HX1200i does indeed spin the fan just fine on a completely dead unit :)

Hey Jonny, I agree with you that Amazon and Newegg, etc... only represent a small sampling but I also believe that the return rate for several models of Corsair PSUs is higher than 1%, which is not what it should be if they were designed correctly. (It should be less than 1%, ... it only rises to 1% to realistically account for shipping damage from carriers outside of Corsair's control.) I work mainly in pure research from the lab (I am an electrical engineer but I mainly work with mathematical models of human like neural networks. It has been 20 years since undergrad when classwork dealt with power supply basics, so a tad rusty recalling the exact specifics.) but I talked to one of our tech guys to ask about failures yesterday. He checked our purchasing logs this afternoon and got back to me, .... our lab has used 57 Corsair PSUs during the last 3 years with 11 of them failing. Myself personally, I have used 7 PSUs in the last ten years roughly, 1 Thermaltake, 3 EVGA and 3 Corsair. This Corsair HX1200i i am considering returning is dead and the 650 watt unit I used in my wife's rig started acting strangely after about 14 months back in roughly 2012. That is 2 out of 3 that have caused me problems. (My HX1000 is doing fine after 5 years.) If someone thinks that those failures might turn me into a Corsair hater, ... I'm not. I have probably spent $4000 roughly on Corsair products in just the last 4 years or so. Never had a Corsair Dominator or Vengeance dimm fail me yet, my ML 140 fans work great, my H150i is awesome, my 275R and 330 cases are not bad (could use a little extra room on the back side and in the top for AIO watercoolers), ..... the PSUs, .... eh, not so much. To spend $311 (I found the receipt) for an HX1200i and watch it fail, ..... very pissed off. As LeDoyen said, flukes happen and it is not the end of the world. It is just that I can replace a bad fan in 5 minutes. Taking apart an entire system to remove all the wiring and then rewiring it back is a major PITA. I also use that particular rig to make calculated buys for specific financial options, .... and if it is down, that is potentially money lost from pocket.

Also Jonny, this is not specific to Corsair, but if an end user correctly mounts the PSU in the bottom of their case, with the fan facing upwards, then the internal fan of the PSU is pulling in hot air from the nearby graphics card to cool the PSU? Many cases made in the last ten years have grills or vents in the bottom which means the PSU should be mounted inverted (upside down) with the internal fan of the PSU pulling in cool air from under the case (unless the case sits directly on the floor with no offset or feet). Of course the critic here would say the caps are rated at 105 deg C but still, a 3 or 4 deg delta for free is worthy of consideration.

Jonny, I ordered the advance replacement, and the good news is that it arrived six days later. I do appreciate that Corsair has this service, and I do appreciate that they charge the original MSRP for the product. Six days is certainly better than three or four weeks. That said, the last week has given me time to read up on reviews of Corsair power supplies, and I have to say, I think the real failure rate of the HXi and AXi lines is definitely more than 1%, which should be unacceptable in 2020. Based on the rate of failures mentioned at Newegg, Amazon, etc .... it seems like the real failure rate is probably about ~ 3 to 4% when purchased new and rising to ~ 8% or more by three years out. This is a bit mystifying to me since the electrical engineering specs for the ATX 2.31 standard have been out for about 12 years now. I am considering forgoing the HX1200i return (and losing about $309) because I am genuinely curious as to a total breakdown of this damaged unit to see what is up. Since my unit worked fine for 2.3 years before failure, I can rule out damage from shipping or poor installation, and am left with real curiosity. I guess Corsair would take none too kindly if we sent them back a fully dissected unit with possibly an exact answer for why the unit failed? On another note, I've got to say, the whole iCUE monitoring stuff seems, ... not needed. It may be a great selling point for Corsair rep to advertise at electronics shows but in real life? The whole point of a good PSU is that you install it and forget it. We've got one AX1600i in the lab and while it can be adjusted through iCUE, most of it is stuff no end user (including extreme overclockers) would ever actually need to fool with. I remain unconvinced there is any real need for it. Let me see how much free time I get this weekend, ....

Thank you Jonny for mentioning the advance replacement. I am using the i9900K which is about ~ 150 W at 5.2 GHz, so perhaps not. Been several years since I was an undergrad and took Circuits, Power Systems, etc .... but shouldn't be too hard to get back up to speed for repairing a PSU, but I will RMA it. Any idea why the memory LEDs can stay lit while attached fans won't spin?

Jonny Guru or other Corsair techs, what PS_ON# controller IC is used in the HX1200i? Also, what is up with the attached 140 mm fan spinning for only about 1.5 sec while the LEDs on the memory stay lit indefinitely? (You can give an exact electrical engineering answer using calculus, diff EQ, etc, ... if needed.)

I spent a fair amount of money (iirc ~$350) to buy this HX1200i and now, I will be down some weeks in a close to mission critical system as I fart with the RMA process. I can understand that possibly with a Wing Tech $35 PSU but a $350 Corsair unit, .... you have got to be #$%$#$! kidding me! To say that I am angry considering the money I spent, ... would be a gross understatement. I am not trying to be a dick but I do not have ~ 3 weeks to fool with the typical RMA process. There is a 10 or 12 year warranty on these units and if that is true, then 99.9% of them should last 10 years without failure, .... no questions asked.

Update - Dragged the multimeter and oscilloscope out of the garage and tested at the wall socket and the PSU power cable itself, ... both 120.8 V rms at 60 Hz fine. Then tested the 24 pin ATX connector, .... dead. No 12 V, ...no 5 V, ... and no 3.3 V. No 12 V rail and yet the memory is lit? Black magic? ... someone poured goat's blood on my rig and did a voodoo curse? .... completely mystified at this point. 5 VSB is fine but that is a separate circuit iir. Does anyone know if Corsair warranty allows me to remove the cover and do some checking? (I think the answer is no, but if anyone knows I would appreciate it.)

I have a decent system that was working fine for the past 4 months but went dead today and will not post. I am using a HX1200i (with iCUE and the USB cable, set to single rail usage) and do not have another PSU here at the house with the two auxiliary CPU EPS connectors (for the far top left of the motherboard). I have completely unplugged the HX1200i and jumpered the main 24 pin ATX connector by connecting pins 15 and 16, and then adding one 140mm fan to give it a small load. When I turn on the main power switch, the fan inside the HX1200i and the attached 140mm fan both spin for about one sec and then shut down. (direct current seems to be flowing and then stops?) When I try the fan self test on the back, pressing the button does make the fan inside the PSU turn as long as I hold the button down. When I connect the PSU back to the motherboard, I have the LEDS on my Corsair memory lighting up and staying lit (which seems to indicate that DC current is indeed flowing thru the motherboard to the memory - stepped down from the 12 V rail by the MB if I remember correctly), a CPU error LED coming on (for about 100 milliseconds) and no POST activity (the system does not load into the BIOS). I am working to ascertain whether it is CPU, Motherboard or PSU. I would think that jumping pin 15 and 16 with a 140mm fan would either allow the fan to spin (the PSU is working) or not (the PSU is dead), but I have this indeterminate gray result. (the caps still have some charge left?, ... the rectifier is partially damaged?) Do I have a dead PSU?

Did some more investigation and found that changing LEDs on the memory sticks (Corsair CMW64GX4MZE3200C16) seems to induce the voltage regulator in the HX1200i. I am still testing with my oscilloscope .... Removing the Corsair Digital Link cable from the back of the HX1200i and rebooting, or shutting off all LEDs on the memory sticks and rebooting, ... seems (fingers crossed), ... to stop the clicking. Is there a way this bug can be reported to the developers?

I am doing a brand new clean install of Windows 10. As soon as I download iCUE 3.28.70 and install it, my HX1200i begins clicking randomly every few seconds. It does not matter whether I set it to single or multi rail. It seems that changing the lighting effect for my Vengeance RGB Pro memory may be the culprit (investigating further). In the two hours needed to setup Windows 10 (download all the 1903 and 1909 bloatware), before I install iCUE, the HX1200i displays no clicking. I am using the Corsair Link digital port on the back of the PSU and have it plugged into an internal USB 2.0 header on my Gigabyte Aorus Master motherboard. I have owned this PSU for almost 27 months and it has never displayed any clicking behavior. Any clue what is going on? (Not sure if this needs to be here, or in the PSU section or in the memory section.)