EDIT: Nevermind, it started working again (not sure why or how)

"Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen" (sportwagen) 11/12/2014 at 22:14 • Filed to: None

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Okay, so about 1.5 months ago (September 26, to be exact) my 1.5 month old EVGA Supernova750G2 blew up/shorted out (I'm not sure) so I set up an RMA for it. EVGA replied with "something something RMA approved"...

except that I forgot about it-until yesterday. I set up an RMA request (which was approved in 14 minutes, HOLY SHIT) and I printed out the label to take it to the UPS store. One minor issue though; I have to pay shipping... WTF EVGA?!?! I buy a $120 PSU from you just to have to pay $15 + return shipping to have you probably ship me back a refurb?! SERIOUSLY!

Can anyone help me out here?

JGrabowMSt > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:17

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Industry standard for the most part. I would suck it up and deal with the return shipping.

eVGA has some of the best warranties on their products in the entire industry hands down.

$15 to get a unit replaced is peanuts, because they cover return shipping.

Also, what the hell do you need a 750W power supply for? I don't even need that, and I'm pretty certain I would have more of a need for it with my desktop....

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > JGrabowMSt 11/12/2014 at 22:20

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My computer sucks about 500W at full tilt and the 430 just wasn't cutting it anymore... also because it will last me forever! (or so I thought) 10 year warranty, duh!

JGrabowMSt > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:21

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What hardware are you running to pull that?

Tohru > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:21

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Who did you buy it from? NewEgg?

Lekker > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:23

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That's actually not bad man. If you slipped on the first RMA and not only they approved the second one but they are only charging for return shipping, not both.. I'd say that's a sweet deal.

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > JGrabowMSt 11/12/2014 at 22:24

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FX8320 (at stock 3.5GHZ) with an Antec Kuhler 620

Asrock 990FX Fatal1ty

MSI R9 270 (underclocked to 900MHZ core)

2x 1TB WD Caviar Black

1 Seagate 500GB Barracuda

1 Kingston SSD

about 4 NZXT fans

4X4GB 1600mhz ram

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > Tohru 11/12/2014 at 22:25

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NCIXUS (which I'm kind of regretting now...)

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:26

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That would explain the power draw. Those vishera cpus sure like the wattage. You should overclock it.

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > Lekker 11/12/2014 at 22:26

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I wouldn't know... however I do know that I didn't do anything wrong and that their (basically) flagship PSU basically committed suicide...

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/12/2014 at 22:27

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Not really. I'm about to explain something...

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/12/2014 at 22:29

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Nah, looking at selling it actually :P Planning on getting an i7 4790K w/ MSI Z97-G45 using the funds from other parts of the machine (GPU, RAM, etc)

Lekker > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:31

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It happens man. I had two out of 5 items arrive DOA on me. One hard drive (2 TB Western Digital Flagship HDD), a fan controller (NZXT 6 channel) and a set of RAM (Corsair something something lol). It happens. The issue is, there are so many things that can go wrong, like a spec of dust that has some left over aluminum shavings landing on coils, or the X-Ray scanner from the USPS/Mailing company damaging magnetized material. That's why RMA's are fairly flexible. Have faith my compadre

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:31

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Do you need an i7? I have an i5-4690k and it's more than powerful enough for gaming.

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > Lekker 11/12/2014 at 22:40

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I shit you not... it just started working again! WTF?!

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/12/2014 at 22:41

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I guess I could use an i5... :P GOOD NEWS! The PSU just started working again! I wonder what happened?

Lekker > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:41

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Just send it in anyway, I bet you there's a cable loose that is shorting out or something. Or.... it could be your CPU/MoBo are overheating

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > Lekker 11/12/2014 at 22:42

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My room has been having the occasional power spike... (the lightbulb blows out about every two months) or it is just dirty power :( time to get a surge protector...

JGrabowMSt > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:45

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Nowhere near 750W honestly. Under a "real world" synthetic benchmark like Prime95 or Orthos while running ATI Tool, you might be able to get your draw upwards of 350W, but I have extreme doubts it's an ounce over 450W. A 530-550W power supply is all you realistically need, especially because it's extremely rare to see any machines start running at full tilt unless you're doing CAD design with GPU rendering (and many CAD programs will use GPU or CPU, rarely if ever both).

The R9 270 has a core clock of 900, so it's not underclocked, it's running stock speeds. The Overclocked R9 270 uses 290W at full load, which most games wont be able to do anyway, because for smooth playback, you'll lower settings, which means your power draw wont be max, it'll be higher sustained, but not 290W.

I mean, at max draw, you're looking at 290+95+40+20+10, and that's really shooting high, because most devices today run on far lower power than the labels say. Hard drives are about 4-6W, Fans are often less than 3W each, a motherboard may only draw 15-20W, and CPUs are generally below 90W draw today. Let's not forget that TDP is the maximum amount of heat it can dissipate , not a reflection of how much power it will draw.

Anyway, I have a dual Xeon system with a GTX660Ti, 3 hard drives + SSD, and a couple peripherals powered by the computer as well. I've never seen power draw over 450W, but I've got a solid 110W idle, and when encoding 1080p video to h.264 BluRay settings, I see average load around 300-350W, rendering just shy of realtime. I use a 750W power supply because it was the only thing with cables long enough to reach around the eATX motherboard (12x10") and not be a hideous mess.

Now, AMD has always been known for running higher wattage comparatively, I'm not disagreeing with that, but 750W is way more than you need, your original eVGA PSU probably was bad to begin with (I don't often see any units fail after such short periods of time regardless of the brand), so getting it replaced is important, but 750W is way more than you'll ever need unless you were to throw in a second R9 270. That would be more realistic for 750W. You certainly have wiggle room for the future, so we can just call it "future proofed," as long as the ATX power standards don't change or get replaced.

I build and fix computers as my day job, so I'm not trying to come off as some high and mighty dick, I just value lowering power usage, so I have done a lot of real-world testing for power usage, and build machines to use minimum power draw, but maximize performance. For your use, originally with a 430W, that is absolutely cutting it too close, but 530-550W would have been just as good, with probably a higher selection of Gold/Platinum rated PSUs.

I've had debates with clients over their "gaming" computers in the past. Sure, in the end the customer is always right, but sometimes they're not. If I'm contracted to build a computer, I don't need help from said client's "friend" about what components to use. I've got a handle of what to use and what the computer will require. It took me a long time to break my boss of all those habits.

Lekker > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:50

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Thats a freaking must, get on that, like yesterday. You can lose all your hardware over that shit!!!

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/12/2014 at 22:53

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I would still go through with the RMA, even if it did start working again. You never know if it might fail again.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/12/2014 at 22:59

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I understand. So many people overestimate required power draw. I have a 600W PSU for my i5-4690k and R9 290, and the power draw is usually at around 420W maximum. I got the PSU because it was on sale, and cheaper than the 500W version, so why not.

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > JGrabowMSt 11/12/2014 at 23:02

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I was planning on CF'ing the R9 270 in the future... (and gold rated for $80! That was why...)

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > Lekker 11/12/2014 at 23:02

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I know :( I guess I've been lucky so far...

Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/12/2014 at 23:03

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Yep... I'm probably going through with it

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/12/2014 at 23:17

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Often times yes, buying things on sale is where you end up with more than you need. While it doesn't often affect higher draw units, there is a rare phenomenon where using a power supply with too much wattage actually wont run because the power on circuit does not have enough draw to fully start. For example, if a computers total power draw is say, 20W (this is an example of a computer I actually do have), and the power supply is 80W, I have to hit the power button twice quickly to actually get the machine to start. Not common, but it is a real problem that exists.

But also, power supplies today have two distinct categories: Continuous and Peak. Peak is the old "standard." It mean that if the sticker said the unit was good for 300W, it would fail within 10% of that maximum draw, because that's all it had. If the computer had a draw of 290W, that 300W power supply would fail at some point, it would be a guarantee. Now we have Continuous power supplies, and they're a great thing. For example, a 450W continuous power supply would be able to continuously provide power at it's peak (450W), but if at any time the unit would experience a spike in the power draw within a certain percentage (they're all rated a little differently), the unit would be able to handle it just fine without experiencing any failures. It's a lot like taking a 520W unit and rating it for 450W continuous, but the components are higher quality, and the units work really well.

Why's that all important? People buy what's on sale, whether it's the best part or not, because it's on sale. It's a psychological thing really. The 600W unit you bought on sale might be okay, but the unit that wasn't on sale, despite having a lower wattage rating printed on the label, would probably have been better. I rarely buy things on sale under impulse because of just that. There's that whole "you get what you pay for" adage, and it is true of just about everything.

Just today, I had given a client a quote for a new computer roughly $1400. Sounds expensive, considering it wasn't a high end build. The catch is that it had to have a parallel port, and it had to be able to run a Win 98 virtual machine for a specific program that only worked with a specific printer over the LPT bus. I can't just grab an off the shelf motherboard and use that, because USB to parallel adapters do not work with this program, and that is a known problem. The customer declined the bill and had me transfer his data to an external hard drive instead, and he's going to try and figure it out himself, after admitting that he's going to try and use a parallel to USB adapter. Okay, I can't change your mind, but when it doesn't work, I'll re-evaluate the quote and make sure I can still do it for the same price. The difference is, the $1400 computer from me will work out of the box first time. The $600 all in one from Best Buy 1) doesn't have the LPT port you need and 2) you'll have to set up all the software yourself, which would have been included in my build cost, as stated on the quote.

So, in the end, buying cheaper things more often than not can and will bite back, and hard. Unless you know what you're doing, and then, well, you know what you're doing, right?

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/12/2014 at 23:26

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I sure hope I know what I'm doing. I don't get why you think the lower wattage psu would be better though. The two are the from same company, same product line, just one was 500W, the other was 600W, and the latter happened to be cheaper at that time,even though it is usually more expensive. I didn't know about the peak vs. continuous though. Is the 20W computer a Raspberry Pi?

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/12/2014 at 23:51

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Dear god I sure hope people aren't running Raspberry Pi's up to 20W, those things are 5w, I love mine.

I have a Via C7-D + 120gb 2.5" drive with 2gb of RAM that has a 20W draw. I can safely run it off the power adapter that comes with most external hard drives (24W), and have done so quite often.

I think that "better" is a very subjective term here. A 500W could be "better" for a build that will never be upgraded over time. Nearly all of my client machine builds that are average to moderate usage get 380W and that's that. It wont get more unless it's for gaming or really heavy usage like CAD or 3D animation (I have a client that's an aerospace engineer) but even many of those builds may not require much more than 380W. Energy usage has significantly dropped in the past couple years.

So has the use of PCI/PCI-Express cards. So few of my builds ever get modified once they're completed that it's a waste of space to build ATX machines unless it's a server. There's just no reason to. Given how powerful Intel's GMA chipsets have become, it's also almost pointless to put a dedicated graphics card into most computers unless it's for gaming or CAD. Most builds I do will average 50-80W, some lower, and very few higher.

For that reason, the lower end build, for a client who thinks they need more, the 500W might be a way to save them from themselves. In terms of my business, because we do not buy things in enough bulk to see any massive price drops, higher wattage will be more money always. To cut the cost down to reflect a sale will always cut into profits. So with that in mind, plenty of times, it makes more sense for me to buy lower wattage than higher wattage because it's 1) usually more than what is needed anyway and 2) the cost gets passed along in the end anyway.

Ive had a couple customers buy all their own parts and have me put them together, but every single time that's happened, either something was missed along the way, so we have to order some part anyway, or "minor details" were missed, like matching CPU socket to the motherboard. I had one guy nickel and dime me over certain rebates for parts, so I told him he can order the parts and bring them in (I can't pass rebates along to the customers anyway). He ended up having a total nightmare getting the rebates done, and in the end, it cost him about $300 more than my initial quote would have.

With that in mind, for someone like you or I, it could make sense to buy the higher powered unit on sale, but since I do this for a business, it changes the situation a lot. I also get parts for a lot cheaper, so I'll order whatever I want, sales don't usually come as low as what I end up paying to begin with. Also being a local business, being the cheapest isn't as important as being higher quality.

Mattbob > JGrabowMSt 11/13/2014 at 12:49

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using less of a power supplies capacity leads to a much longer life. Less heat due to over sized components for the load means less stress on all components. Heat ages electrolytic caps faster than normal and also causes fans to run more thus putting more dust in the system. There are definitely advantages to using a larger supply than you need.

Mattbob > Sportwägen, Driver Of The Red Sportwagen 11/13/2014 at 12:53

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if you have the budget, or can find a used one that maybe needs batteries, try to get an on-line UPS if you have dirty power. They will protect from brown outs and spikes and dirty power much better than a surge protector. If you have known dirty power, I would highly suggest it. A lot of times you can find them being discarded because they need batteries, and batteris for them are pretty cheap considering the overall price of them.

JGrabowMSt > Mattbob 11/13/2014 at 13:06

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I can see the logic, but in a properly designed build heat is of no issue whatsoever, whether under load or at idle. Also, using a higher rated unit does not guarantee a longer lifespan, as your computer spends the bulk of its time on at idle or moderate use. This means that youre not foing better with more than you are with an adequate amount.

Keeping my V12 below 2000RPM is not better than spirited driving in a V8. Thats essentially the difference is, its irrelevant. Youre not wrong with your logic, but it makes no difference when the computer is built correctly.

Mattbob > JGrabowMSt 11/13/2014 at 14:37

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keeping cap a few degrees cooler over the life of the machine will most definitely make it last longer. This is electronics, an analogy to a mechanical cars is totally unrelated. The caps and the fan in the PSU are the only things that are subject to changes in normal operating temps having a major effect on them. You won't see it until late in the lifecycle of the thing, but it makes a difference. I have testers go down occasionally because of power supplies going bad. It is usually the lower powered ones that go first, and is almost always the caps going after a minor power bump. Sometimes it's the fans getting clogged. These things are on all the time, just sipping power, no huge power req's. I know what I'm talking about. Also "properly designed" doesn't mean ideal. It means being able to pass their tests for as little money as possible. I am an EE and I know how switching supplies work and what their weaknesses are.

I'm not saying an appropriately sized supply won't last long enough, just that there are advantages to having an oversized supply.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/21/2014 at 15:35

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Do you use PC Part Picker by any chance?

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/21/2014 at 16:15

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No, why?

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/21/2014 at 16:17

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Just wondered. Do you use anything to plan builds? Spreadsheets maybe?

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/21/2014 at 16:33

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It really depends on the build. For most clients, I have a spreadsheet that may get modified depending on part availability and pricing. Many client builds are fairly uniform, and contain similar equipment.

For my own personal build, it required a little more in-depth planning.

It depends on how far I'm pushing it. I've gotten really lucky on more than one occasion with parts that on paper, would never have fit together.

These last four are two customer builds that I did. It takes hours to find the right parts because it's not just whether it's mITX or ATX or eATX or whatever, it will often come down to where the socket is placed, whether it has front panel connectors I want (or don't want) and a lot more. I find that PC Parts Picker is really only good for very basic builds that will never really get modified. My own personal computer has gotten more drives which required some thought on how I was even going to get the installed, much less plugged in, among other problems.

I've placed bets with my boss about whether computers will actually fit or not. He's learned not to bet against me on that. That last picture with the coiled cable, there's actually another cable on top of that, so the customer never ends up seeing the attention to detail, but it's always there. Every build I do has something in it that can't be bought, it has to be done while I'm building it.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/21/2014 at 16:44

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That precision is amazing, as is the cable management. My Computer has the SSD velcroed to the inside panel because there was no 2.5" mount and I didn't have an adapter. It works just fine.

If I may ask, what is your job? I'm currently looking at possible careers, and this looks like something I'd be interested in.

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/21/2014 at 17:15

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You should see the servers I build. They don't get an operating system until I'm 100% happy with the configuration and looks of the guts.

I'm the Lead Technician at a local computer shop. Web support and server support is handled by other people, because I simply don't have the time of day to drop everything and deal with those things, but I build and fix computers as my day job. The building is somewhat uncommon because most people would rather pick up a $500 box at Best Buy. That's fine, they'll still come in when something doesn't work, but the quality is pretty bad from those machines.

I'll let you in on a secret though. My major in school had nothing to do with computers. I wasn't a computer science major, or any other computer related degree. I love my job, but would never have lasted it as a major simply because as patient as I am, I'm not patient with 400 level students who don't know F5 starts their powerpoint presentation in full screen.

The bulk of my experience comes from getting computers from the local dump and fixing them. As insane as that sounds, my first laptop (which I still have, and does still work with all the original parts) came from there. I've given a lot of computers to my dads friends (my dad used to work in a factory assembling electrical switches for high voltage/high amperage use), and I've fixed a ton of their computers over the years (and still do). I have a few really intense side projects, like a SteamBox (I'm not much of a gamer, but it's proof of concept), as well as fixing flash drives and USB cables. My dad used to be a wireman for the phone company when telephone poles and wiring was originally being installed, so I have a pretty good knowledge of telecommunications setups, and I worked in broadcast radio as well for a while. Then I did tech support for audio interfaces with Avid for a couple years and that really bridged the gap between broadcast and computer repair for me.

I would say if you're in college and your college has an IT department, see if you can learn from them. Most colleges have an student based IT department for fixing computers. I'll warn you that many of them have no idea what they're doing, but it's a way to learn certain things. There are a few online forums that provide really good info, but just like some shops, there's a lot of people out there who haven't got a clue about what's going on. Not to make that dissuade you from getting into it, it's just very important to approach things carefully. For me, I'm running a business. It's both my reputation and my paycheck that I have to maintain with every job. Data recovery situations are the hardest, so are the new crypto-locker viruses, because in a lot of cases, they're total loss scenarios.

You just need to think fast, and have a really vast knowledge of different hardware for my job. I would say that currently, the computer industry has a really big divide between hardware and software. I know some coding, but I'm not big on software development. Hardware is what I like most because you can't have software without hardware.

My major in school was actually Television and Digital Media with a concentration in Production. It's a field I've been trying very hard to get into, but with my experience and my knowledge, many companies I've interviewed with don't want to hire me because I'm younger than most (and sometimes all) of their other employees, and I have the experience to match them. It makes other employees a little scared for their jobs, and is tough. Not many 23 year olds can integrate a computer system into a fully analog recording studio, much less know how to do it by poking their head behind a couple racks and seeing a couple connectors for the right box.

I digress, but most importantly, experience will trump a college degree in some situations. Certifications and experience will get you very far in computers, but certifications are primarily for software, and since I do hardware, I just have to "know."

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/21/2014 at 17:47

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Thanks for this. I've really been on the fence about what I want to go into. Right now I'm in a Design course, and I'm not sure if it's exactly what I want. Your situation sounds very similar to mine, repairing and building old computers is what I have done in the past, and it's something I enjoy. I also am not into software development, and prefer to work with hardware. I think I'll look into working with the IT department, as I need a job while I'm at school.

I was looking for courses to take to learn more, but then quickly realized they are few and far between, and experience is better anyway. The first computer I built from all new parts went smoothly with no hitches or problems, and now I've offered to build pcs for people I know, just so I can learn more. So far only one person has taken me up on the offer, and we're still in the planning stage.

About the online learning, I've quickly learned to fact check, and you're right, So many people spout the stupidest things all because of something they've heard, which is immediately valid in their head. It drives me nuts. Fanboyism and company slamming all over the place, it's hard to pick out the facts and helpful information from it all. I have become rather good at it, if I do say so myself.

JGrabowMSt > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 11/21/2014 at 19:18

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Well, if you want/need any help, you can feel free to hit me up, and I'll help you out. It's definitely an industry where it always helps to have contacts and know other people.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > JGrabowMSt 11/21/2014 at 19:26

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Thanks for your offer. I'm still not sure exactly where I'm going, but if I need help I'll take all I can get.