Newegg RMA

[FoxyProxy]

This thing was about six months old and blows up last night! Scared the bejesus out of us. Loud pop and a crackle. I found a piece of an electronic part in the bottom of the case that's plastic. It looks like a big power transistor like they use in a car amp or something. What's scary is I was just reading a web page and it blew! :|

Anyhow Newegg covered this with an RMA and approved it immediately. I printed the stuff out and noticed they have written out to return original packaging, manuals, etc. Uhoh I don't have any of that stuff. I only have the power supply, cord and the modular cable connectors. Do they dock this from your tally on exchange or do they just send a replacement back matching what you sent in? I'm really frustrated about this.

What to replace it with? I'm not putting the replacement back in my system for damn sure! Is it a waste to buy a 1000 watt supply when the box needs about 500-600? The PCPC supplies are good (and $$$$!) but are they noisy? The Liberty was very quiet until it sounded like an M80 going off! Help!

 

[n7]

Enhance.

A quick search will reveal the models you want

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Are you SURE none of the other hardware was damaged in the blow-up?

Only by powering up with another PSU will you know for sure. Run stress tests to check the system.

Most systems can be run very well with a 500W Enhance ENP-5150GH. It will Froogle for <$70 and is a very good, no frills unit. It's quiet and 80plus certed http://www.80plus.org/ http://www.enhanceusa.com/
List your system specs please.

Your M-80 BOOM was probably caused by a shorted capacitor that over loaded a MOSFET/VRM, it over heated very quickly and...BOOM!

I would call and email Enermax today and see what they will do if other hardware was effected. Do this before sending Newegg the unit.


...Galvanized

 

[Dom1105]

Very good idea Galv. Oh and remember if you have done any over clocking on it dont tell them about it becasue OCing as you probably allready know VOIDS all warrenties

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Dom1105
Very good idea Galv. Oh and remember if you have done any over clocking on it dont tell them about it becasue OCing as you probably allready know VOIDS all warrenties

Err, no it doesn't.

Only thing OCing voids warranty for is the CPU, & perhaps the RAM if it was being run over specified vdimm.

 

[Skeeedunt]

lol, OC the power supply

Enermax is supposed to be pretty solid... I wouldn't hate on them too bad, everybody turns out a bad one once in a while. Enhance or Seasonic are good alternatives though.

 

[Howard]

All power supplies fail. One unit failing doesn't mean they're all bad.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Dom1105
Very good idea Galv. Oh and remember if you have done any over clocking on it dont tell them about it becasue OCing as you probably allready know VOIDS all warrenties
[/

it is darn near impossible to tell if a PSU had issues because you were over clocking.....
usually companies don`t check equipment to see if you were over clocking ot not...
It the tell tale signs are not there then its a moot point!

 

[Baked]

While it is very nice on Newegg's part to cover your jihad PSU, I would definitely call Enermax and have them replace the PSU and all components damaged during the suicide explosion.

 

[Navid]

I would inspect the motherboard, graphics card, sound card and every other part carefully looking for scratches on the printed circuit boards, broken pieces, disconnected components, or blackened regions on the PCBs. I would do that before powering up anything.

Another problem is that the parts may be fine now but pieces of metal from the PSU fallen on them could cause a short the next time you power them up resulting in further damage!

I would not just get another PSU and plug it in and power it up!

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Originally posted by: Navid
I would inspect the motherboard, graphics card, sound card and every other part carefully looking for scratches on the printed circuit boards, broken pieces, disconnected components, or blackened regions on the PCBs. I would do that before powering up anything.

Another problem is that the parts may be fine now but pieces of metal from the PSU fallen on them could cause a short the next time you power them up resulting in further damage!

I would not just get another PSU and plug it in and power it up!

This point is well made but any decent PSU will have short protection

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee

Originally posted by: Navid
I would inspect the motherboard, graphics card, sound card and every other part carefully looking for scratches on the printed circuit boards, broken pieces, disconnected components, or blackened regions on the PCBs. I would do that before powering up anything.

Another problem is that the parts may be fine now but pieces of metal from the PSU fallen on them could cause a short the next time you power them up resulting in further damage!

I would not just get another PSU and plug it in and power it up!

This point is well made but any decent PSU will have short protection

Yes, and such protection will limit such possible short circuit current to something like 10 to 20A (the current drive capability of a single rail). But, even a 1A current at the wrong place (a narrow track on the graphics card or the RAM module) could still cause damage.

The short circuit protection protects the PSU for sure. But, it may not protect what the PSU powers.

 

[FoxyProxy]

The system is working. A friend from work was nice enough to come over and connect another power box. It's an off brand (OCZ) but seems to work well and actually looks better made than the Enermax. It's a single rail with 28A and seems to work ok but I have not worked the system hard yet. He put the compressor on an separate 12v supply (it's a phase cooled system) to reduce the pull but even then he said a *GOOD* 600W should not have any problem. He suggests the Power PC and COOLING 1kW PS though so I ordered this from newegg tonight. It was on sale too!

I thought Enermax was a good make and they probably are OK but I started googling Liberty 620 failures and it seems like enough of them are going belly up to make me not want it back in my system. This system cost a lot of money to have it get destroyed by the power box!

There was no metal in the case. We took it out in the garage and gave it a good blasting with the air compressor. Some dust came out of the video card coolers though. The system has a pair of 7900GTX "game" cards, 4GB corsair "dominator" memory, AMD FX62 CPU (3.6 GIG!), SCSI and SATA RAID cards and 11 hard drives. We have 650 DVD's backed up to a RAID array (9GB rips) so it is important to keep the system up or we lose our entertainment. :Q

 

[Navid]

I can imagine what a shock it must have been to hear the loud noise unexpectedly. Please forgive me but I cannot stop laughing just thinking about it.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Newegg is usually very generous about the situation, but if you're missing gear most of the time, they just tell you that they will exchange it for the exact same item only. So no refund or store credit.