Seasonic X-650 died

cb95014 · Post by **cb95014** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:29 am

My 6-week old Seasonic X-650 died.

I guess this is one of the "benefits" of being an early adopter.

No smoke or fireworks, it just shut-off... Occasionally the 12V output will light-up for 1-2 sec, but usually nothing. I temporarily replaced the X-650 with a HX-520 and everything works fine.

Seasonic's required RMA web-form does not even list the X-Series (SS-650KM) yet, so I emailed support.

Do any of you have experience with Seasonic-branded warranty claims? What is their typical turn-around time?

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 2:12 pm

I had a 300 something watt seasonic die in 2 months. They just authorized a new purchase from the seller company after I bought one. was odd. It took 2-3 days from them receiving it at most. Of course, now they have about 10x the direct user contact since then, so they might suck now.

I had another seasonic die in a friends machine, both open and low wattage setups. I think they might suck more than explained on here. I have had oem psu's last longer. The corsair one down in my basement is running fine, but is a 160 dollar psu that was severely tested and designed. I can never figure why they die or did die. The company is decent though to deal with. Zalman was the best, too bad they didnt keep making ultra silent psu's to keep up with the times.

cb95014 · Post by **cb95014** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 2:39 pm

I build PCs for friends, so I buy a lot of components. This is the first PSU I've had die in the last 5 years, and the last one that died was also a Seasonic-branded model (usually I use Corsair-branded Seasonics).

Figures that it would be the most expensive one by far...

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:26 pm

fwiw I've got a 400, 380, and 430 Seasonic that are all very old by this point (I bought one around 2002, another in 2005, and one in 2006). I have used all 3 heavily (daily use from 0 to 24 hours probably averaging double digits) and none have failed yet.

I was planning on buying either the Gold X-650 or the Gold 550 seasonic in the very near future to replace the best of the three and do the hand me downs for the other two. Between that and one of the PCs being replaced by a netbook I'd have two of the old PSUs semi retired leaving either the 380 or the 430 in daily use.

If more complaints become common about the X-650 and somehow I didn't trust the 550 or it weren't available I'd probably look at the Silver M12D-750 as the next conventional option.

M12D-750 does seem to have some failure issues.

But the reviews for the X-650 and X-750 are all 5 eggs. Not a complaint on any of them.

I guess that still leaves me waiting for the after Christmas reviews. Maybe by then things will have settled out.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:05 pm

My best psu is the one I have now which is an antec 350 Phantom.

totally silent, runs mildly warm on load. Powers an e8400, 3 dvd/blu ray/cd's, ati 5770 and overvolted 4 gigs ram. Sometimes I OC the chip when im bored and it provides the juice. Been on for like 3 1/2 years gaming like a champ every other day.

hard to tell what lasts. I know that corsair has a higher line and a more regular line. I have a 620 in my basement that's awesome in both build, silence, and providing huge power although i wont be needing such power anymore with everything going 40nm and 32nm.

cb95014 · Post by **cb95014** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 11:22 pm

Seasonic's response to my email was to send a brand-new (sealed-box) X-650. No warning, it just arrived on my porch via UPS less than a week after my email!

Among other benefits, I now have *plenty* of extra cables, two sets of gold-trimmed pouches for the cables, and *two* velvet bags with drawstrings! I know this is a premium-priced PSU, but IMO the velvet bag is completely over-the-top...

Surprisingly, Seasonic apparently does not seem interested in finding out why this one died (no request for the dead body), so I plan to tear it apart. Hopefully the problem is easy to diagnose and fix!!

Owen · Post by **Owen** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 1:28 am

After I ordered my i5 rig, I discovered the socket burn issue, and now this....

b_rubenstein · Post by **b_rubenstein** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 4:24 am

Owen wrote:After I ordered my i5 rig, I discovered the socket burn issue, and now this....

Let's not get carried away. These are two very different categories of failures. The socket problem only appears with very high current loads, when doing extreme OC'ing, with one brand of sockets.

There is no reason to think that there is systemic problem with the new Seasonic platform. Infant mortality effects every model of every brand of PS's. I'm pretty sure this failue was just an isolated incident.

cb95014 · Post by **cb95014** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:37 pm

cb95014 wrote:Seasonic apparently does not seem interested in finding out why this one died (no request for the dead body

Whether coincidence or not, I spoke too soon. Seasonic called me today and asked when I'll be shipping the PSU back. I actually think this is a VeryGoodThing(tm).

b_rubenstein wrote:Infant mortality effects every model of every brand of PS's.

Yep. That is one of the early adopter risks. I've bought two additional X-650's after the failure, so I certainly don't think this is an epidemic. The extremely high efficiency, total modularity, excellent stability, & complete silence under most loads is a compelling value proposition, and IMO for a high-end build is worth the current premium price. Hopefully other manufacturers will start building competitive units and drive prices down.

cb95014 · Post by **cb95014** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 6:56 pm

Also, it turns out that Seasonic support DID attempt to contact me on the 7th, but apparently they were having problems with their email system and it never reached me.

Overall I am exceptionally pleased with the support from Seasonic. The communication issue was due to an email glitch, but the TAT was extremely fast and I can't ask for more than a brand-new replacement with complimentary extra accessories. Especially the extra velvet bag!

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:13 pm

cb95014 wrote:Seasonic's response to my email was to send a brand-new (sealed-box) X-650.

Can't ask for better than that.

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:58 pm

b_rubenstein wrote:There is no reason to think that there is systemic problem with the new Seasonic platform. Infant mortality effects every model of every brand of PS's.

Infant mortality affects to every product and avoiding that completely would require long expensive testing.
And considering Seasonic 80+ certified this platform over a year ago they've surely had good time to thoroughly test it before release.

cb95014 wrote:Hopefully other manufacturers will start building competitive units and drive prices down.

Except that many cheaper makers use lower quality parts like capacitors which probably wouldn't like about being left without cooling.

cb95014 · Post by **cb95014** » Mon Dec 21, 2009 1:10 pm

cb95014 wrote:
Hopefully other manufacturers will start building competitive units and drive prices down.

EsaT wrote:
Except that many cheaper makers use lower quality parts like capacitors which probably wouldn't like about being left without cooling.

I was thinking more like a good-quality re-branded version, for example from Corsair. Seasonic's distribution isn't very wide, so Seasonic branded units tend to be pricey.

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Sat Dec 26, 2009 2:42 am

cb95014 wrote:Seasonic's distribution isn't very wide, so Seasonic branded units tend to be pricey.

Sadly true.
Here in Finland it's very hard to find most of their models even from product lists and also European wide they aren't that easy to find from stock.

But ordered X-650 some weeks ago from German shop at good price considering overall price level of Seasonics in here and got it last Tuesday.

Joe Public · Post by **Joe Public** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:25 am

Yeah, I'm in Norway and I wanted an X-650 for the build I did last month. No e-tailers have them listed, and none of my regular shopping places could tell if if they were getting any units for sure. Too bad really. The S12/M12/M12D are available though availability isn't as good as it used to be.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 6:09 am

Good to hear you got your replacement quick. I've owned S12-600 (currently powering my sister's PC), S12+ 550 (now in storage) and two Neo HE 380, both in use right now with one powering quadcore fileserver with eight 5400rpm hard drives and other misc stuff. All four work flawlessly. My guess is your failure was a fluke, good to know Seasonic is good on their RMA.

Seasonic X-650 died

Seasonic X-650 died

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