Corsair AX850 dead after 5 months

The professional......yeah

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." by Lord Acton  
Well we are not really talking about that sort of power and corruption here it's really just for thought. So yeah, thats it. My Corsair AX850 power supply has died after only 5 months. Lasted only 5 months, I bought it on the the 3rd of October 2011 and it has died on the 1st of March 2012. Not what you would expect from a "premium" part that cost me Usd260. This is the most expensive component in the whole system, and for it to fail is a disappointment. They say it's just a luck of the draw. *Vent released*

Since the first week of running the new machine, the psu has made a buzzing noise. I believe they call it "capacitor whine" from the forum posts I have read online. It is fairly intermittent, haven't found anything specific to trigger it. A search on any search engines with the keyword "AX850 buzz" will yield enough results.

Updates are at the end of the blog. ( This article updated 13th June 2012. ) 

Looks nice eh...well it did

Of course, I have no idea what caused the psu to die. One of the odd things is that the power cable of the psu is still fine and wokring. The AX850 has now been sent to back to shop where they will send it back to the distributor for repair or replacement. I am wondering how long this is going to take, as the tech at the service center said the distributor is very slow in responding. The tech even mentioned a case where it took half a year for a fix/replacement. :o That was not what I wanted to hear. Oh and for reference my AX850 is on revision A1W with starting serial number of R10. The tech also mentions that if the returned psu comes with a new serial number then it means it's a replacement otherwise if it still has the same serial number then it was just repaired.

So for the time being I got a replacement PSU that is a Xigmatek NRP-PC602. Albeit forking out some money for it. Bleh. It's a 600w power supply with non modular cabling. Pretty much a step down but costing me around a Usd100. So far it has been running fine, it seems decent.

*Update 10th March 2012

Seems the Xigmatek is struggling a bit when I my hd 6870 gpu is under load. There are frequent slowdowns in gaming. The xigmatek does come with a 52A 12v rail. Which is 30A and 22A, but the combination is only stated as 42A. My Asus HD6870 Directcu 2 is the overclocked version and states that it requires 40A.

And on another note, the Xigmatek psu also made a buzz sound after 4 days. For a brief  period, then it went away. Seems like I need an AVR.

*Update 12th March 2012
Apparently the hdd slowdowns is caused by win 7 loading wrong drivers and my sata 3 hdd running in sata 1 or 2 mode. Not good, see my next post. 


*Update 5th May 2012

The shop called. I can collect my power supply. So how long was it then to get it fixed? 2 months. This is in Asia by the way. Return times would be faster in North America or Europe perhaps. Down here for Corsair it's just sad.

Well, back to the psu collection. As usual, "Hello, I've come to collect my AX850 psu." . The technician replied, "Here it is, just sign here." Hmm, confused. "Are you sure? This is a sealed box, new?" Techncian, "Yes, they just send you a whole new unit if it's unrepairable."

I collected a new unit, new sealed, new serial numbers AX850. Nice.

The old unit's serial is R1012B. Revision : A1W Manufactured : 11021873 (2011/week 2)
The new unit's serial is R1201B ( 1st 5 chars )  Revision : A1W ( still ). Manufactured: 120703341 (2012/week 7).

I've only installed it on the 26th of May, as I just bought a new casing and haven't had time to transfer the whole thing over. It's a CM 690 2 Advanced Usb 3.0 case, we'll talk about this later.

So, installed the new AX850 on 26th of May. Ah, so glad to have my expensive component being used again, while playing BF3. Around 6hours of usage later, the Buzzzzzzzz!!!  Bzzzzztttt Bzzzzzttttt Bzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttttt.  Ugh! Only temporary maybe 5 or 10 minutes. But it's a reminder of something not good. I'm hoping not! Up to until now (the 13th of June ) I still get occasional Buzz, randomly.

So, what do I have now? Mixed feelings honestly.

Corsair I thank you for replacing it with a whole new unit. But the issues with AX850 is horrid. The replacement psu, a Xigmatek 600w at 1 third the price of the AX850 brought me less headaches.

If I could, I would gladly exchange my AX850 with any other model of psu from Corsair. As the AX850 is just plagued. Corsair!!! I want a psu SWAP!!!! I don't want the AX850 anymore!!