Time for a new PSU

My Novatech i5 9400F box is now 7 years old which collective wisdom on the internet says time to replace the PSU. It's a no name PSU branded Novatech I think.

So I have gone for a beQuiet 650w Pure Power 13 mainly because of reputation, 10 year warranty and German engineering. It's modular and has a super quiet fan.

Only 2 possible hiccups are physical size (if the original is OEM special) I dont think it is and the new PSU doesn't have a -12V rail but I dont think the Gigabyte H310M S2H 2.0 rev 1.0 needs one as it is not that old.

Thoughts?

If It's still working then why replace? Not sure how old mine is, but it has to be over 6 years old.
I found this about your new one.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/5935

I agree with Adrian- always a good idea to have a spare of course, but if it ain't broke why fix it?

In reply to a post by billford:

I agree with Adrian- always a good idea to have a spare of course, but if it ain't broke why fix it?

Asking Brave Ai it reckons average life of a PSU is 7 years and its a no name PSU so if it fails it might take the motherboard with it which I dont want. Went for the beQuiet because it has 10 yr warranty. Was gonna go for a Corsair but been bitten by a fail in the past. Might keep it as a spare not looking forward to rewiring a perfectly good build.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If It's still working then why replace? Not sure how old mine is, but it has to be over 6 years old.
I found this about your new one.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/5935

Changed my mind as Novatech sales have said the original is a 750W PSU so ordered the bequiet 750W Pure power 13 M.

Now testing the new 750W Pure power in the hallway with test dongle. No 3.3v rail according to the dongle but Brave Ai says that some test dongles fail to show 3.3v rail under no load. Thoughts?

In reference to www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/5960:

+3.3V (A) 20

a lot of devices still use 3.3v

Yes but is it the test dongle at fault. I am having trouble using a multimeter as the wires are all sleeved on the ATX24 connector to test the 3.3 rail.

Found this on DDG.

Yes, an ATX 24-pin test dongle may not show the 3.3V rail if the motherboard or connected components do not draw power from it, as some modern systems rely on local voltage regulation instead. This can lead to the 3.3V rail appearing inactive during testing.

Edited by Banger (Thu 05-Feb-26 20:44:52)

Well have changed my downstairs PC PSU which was also a Novatech build but had a Hiper M 530W PSU of 2009 in it. So have fitted the Be quiet 750W Pure Power to the build, which is a Core 2 Duo running Linux.

As for my upstairs PC with the Novatech PSU, am going to keep it running for a couple more years as researching it is a re-branded High Power (Sirtec) 750W PSU which should last a few more years.

Have ordered a Seasonic Focus GX 750W for stock as a spare for the upstairs i5 Novatech build.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Well have changed my downstairs PC PSU which was also a Novatech build but had a Hiper M 530W PSU of 2009 in it. So have fitted the Be quiet 750W Pure Power to the build, which is a Core 2 Duo running Linux.

As for my upstairs PC with the Novatech PSU, am going to keep it running for a couple more years as researching it is a re-branded High Power (Sirtec) 750W PSU which should last a few more years.

Have ordered a Seasonic Focus GX 750W for stock as a spare for the upstairs i5 Novatech build.

ahh hiper psus brings back memories - all good memories. Seasonic are probably in super duper ultra tier for psus .

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by Banger:

Well have changed my downstairs PC PSU which was also a Novatech build but had a Hiper M 530W PSU of 2009 in it. So have fitted the Be quiet 750W Pure Power to the build, which is a Core 2 Duo running Linux.

As for my upstairs PC with the Novatech PSU, am going to keep it running for a couple more years as researching it is a re-branded High Power (Sirtec) 750W PSU which should last a few more years.

Have ordered a Seasonic Focus GX 750W for stock as a spare for the upstairs i5 Novatech build.

ahh hiper psus brings back memories - all good memories. Seasonic are probably in super duper ultra tier for psus .

Your memories of Hiper good or bad? From my research the type R blows up and fans failing seems common on the type M which is what the one I have replaced is.

Forgive my almost total ignorance of Gaming PCs and their benefits.

Speaking as someone who built, redesigned and repaired my own standard PC systems, I have never bothered with a Gaming PC but instead have just stuck with Gaming Consoles: since these replacement power supplies cost over £80 a pop; Why not just put that money off the cost of a Brand New XBox Series X Gaming Consol ?

Perhaps, its my old age but these days we use an XBox Series X with a top range Panasonic OLED TV and the graphics are excellent without the need to faff about with power supplies.

Also, if you plan to keep the system as it is,, (which is entirely your choice as I am always in favour of people making their own choices). - Presumably the reason why these power supplies have a limited lifespan is because they are susceptible to potential deterioration that is caused by heat and if so then the fan is the probably the weak link that will deteriorate first. - Would it not be cheaper/simpler/easier to just periodically renew or hoover out the fan instead of the whole unit. - Just a thought.

They are not gaming PC just standard PCs. PSUs have a limited lifespan and I am replacing them before they fail and possibly take out a motherboard. As someone who built PCs you should understand this. I have already had a Corsair PSU go pop but no damage to motherboard and you are right it was failing fan. I bought the Core 2 Duo in 2009 with a Hiper PSU so you can see how old that is. I am keeping it going with Linux and replacing the PSU with a modern protected PSU of good make.

I dont game so a console is of no interest to me. £80 is cheap to keep a £500 PC going.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I dont game so a console is of no interest to me. £80 is cheap to keep a £500 PC going.

I never imagined you as a gamer Tim, more of an old school sort of fella. I've still got an original Atari in its box in the loft to remind me of the last time I gamed must be nearly 50 years ago.

Good enough.

Personally, I have very rarely had issues with power systems other than in an industrial settings where the power supply issues caused erratic operation but in a domestic setting I found that just a periodic hoover around the fan helped it to last longer and I have only change one fan on one PC.

Luckily, I have never lost a mother board.

As I said; I am not telling you what to do as you should always make your own decisions but periodic fan renewal and/or periodic fan maintenance using a hoover may be helpful to some others.

Also, a power supply is not a complex unit so it may be repairable, at component level, if an issue with the fan caused something else to deteriorate with heat.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Banger:

I dont game so a console is of no interest to me. £80 is cheap to keep a £500 PC going.

I never imagined you as a gamer Tim, more of an old school sort of fella. I've still got an original Atari in its box in the loft to remind me of the last time I gamed must be nearly 50 years ago.

I've never really gamed. I started with a Commodore 64 for programming, still in the loft in a box but probably doesn't work any more. I tend to play with OSes and research stuff on my PCs, oh and visit TBB.

These PSUs have hybrid cooling eg. the fan only comes on when under high load probably why they have 10 year warranty.

Tonight if I get time I plan to upgrade my i5 machine from 2019 which has a Novatech 750w PSU a re-branded High Power (Sirtec) PSU which only has a 2 year warranty so it is well past that. Brave AI tells me that the reputation of High Power PSUs isn't good with failure modes like transistors blowing leading to catostrophic failure of MB (dont want that). So I have a Seasonic Focus GX 750 to go in its place which Brave AI tells me is reliable replacement with 10 year warranty similar to the German Be Quiet model.

Wish me luck and quick changeover.

All done.

Now what to do with old PSUs?

In reply to a post by Banger:

Now what to do with old PSUs?

I have it in my Newcastle United supporting head that you live somewhere on the dark side. The advice about disposing of household electrical items is on line at https://www.sunderland.gov.uk/article/12149/Househol....

Apologies if I've mis-remembered your location.

Ha ha no I am a Sand dancer will have to look up policies for my Council but have no transport and usually no pedestrians are allowed at recycling centres.

ahh hiper psus brings back memories - all good memories. Seasonic are probably in super duper ultra tier for psus .

Been looking in BIOS and on Windows at Voltages on the Seasonic and they are all very tight to the ATX spec.

There was some confusion on installation of the Seasonic. The case has a grate on the bottom as the original PSU is mounted at the bottom of the case and the fan was facing downward.

So I put it in to match the orientation of the original PSU. Then I consulted the Seasonic install guide and there is a switch on the back of PSU for hybrid fan or normal. The guide says if I am using the PSU in hybrid mode it has to be mounted upside down with the fan facing the motherboard for thermal reasons. So a quick swap round to upside down and we were all done.

Fortunately the case has holes to fit the PSU either way which was a relief.

A lot of retailers and charity shops accept electrical items for recycling. Curry’s, for example, whether you bought from them or not. Have a look at https://recycleyourelectricals.org.uk/how-to-recycle...

In reply to a post by Banger:

Ha ha no I am a Sand dancer . . . .

You might need to explain that to the people who don't know that Chichester is pronounced Ch-eye-chester

It certainly is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichester,_New_York

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

It certainly is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichester,_New_York

I was thinking of The Chi in the land of the Sand-dancers.

Yeah, in the last 35 years of working with PCs (owned or coming in contact with many hundreds of them), I can remember just one example of a PC internal PSU failing.

That was a Dell desktop with one of those annoying PSUs exactly the same as any other, with the same connectors, but with the connectors wired differently. Think they mostly stoped with that nonsense.

Actually I take it back, there was a second. My Dell PowerEdge server that lived in a damp and dusty garage for over 10 years before the PSU gave out. And it wasn’t new when I bought it 😉

Seems Brave AI is over cautious quoting the average life of a PSU as 7 years judging by your experience.

Still I am happy to have replaced my questionable quality PSUs with some decent upgrade. Both the new PSUs are tight on voltages to the ATX spec.

Yeah, well that is something I’d definitely not rely on a LLM to answer.

If you took the average life of people complaining online about PSUs failing, I’m not surprised that the answer would be low, people don’t generally get online to shout about their PSU having not died yet…

Which is exactly what is happening when you ask Brave’s AI that, it is summarising all the people online who have shouted about their PSU failing earlier than they’d like. The small number of people taking the time to say “mine is 15 years old” are going to be drowned out by the early failure complaints.