PSU Warranty, yeah, What is it good for?

[lilhasselhoffer]

I think it's funny that people are only now getting the whole warranty thing now...

Let me ask you this. What is a lifetime warranty? Is it:
1) For the lifetime of the purchaser.
2) For the lifetime of the product line.
3) For the next 3-5 years, after which all defects will be functionally ignored as "wear due to regular use" and thus not covered.


I'll give you a few seconds to make your decision.... And over. If you are purchasing a $2000 or more bathtub-shower combination made out of fiberglass the lifetime warranty is...drum roll...C. That's right. Once you read the fine print you'll see that the thing advertised as being capable of taking a 90+ mph fastball and being brighter and whiter than competing acryllic tubs only really has a lifetime warranty that covers about 5 years. For some sanity, that's manufactured January 2020, shipped to customer in march 2020, sat in their inventory 6-8 months, sold to a customer, shipped to a job site, sat for another 3-6 months, installed, forgotten about for 2-3 months as the rest of the finishing gets done, and about two weeks to a month before the hand-over gets inspected and can first be rejected for defects (3+8+6+3 = 20 months), meaning that if there's anything wrong that takes time to show up you've got between 16 and 40 months before your warranty is effectively gone... so... hope that you didn't have a significant amount of value associated with that "lifetime" warranty.


For me, 3-5 years implies that a company doesn't cut corners on product quality. 10 years or more implies that the company is looking at a way to add value without adding something they have to pay out...because 10 years will make most hardware obsolete...think about Intel's 12 volt only, or the high power GPU plugins that are becoming a thing now. I don't seek a warranty above 3-5 years, and don't see value in anything above 4 hardware generations (1.5*4 = 6 years...which would bring us from Bulldozer to Zen...which makes me laugh a little to think what progress we've made.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

that was Corsair (made by CWT or Seasonic depending on version) and his was Seasonic. Corsair in my opinion does a very good job with customer service

The behavior was the Same on a RMx 850, G2 850, Focus GX 750, and a RM 2021 850.

Worked fine on both a newer model Prime TX 850 and my Prime Tx 1000

Oddly all PSU worked just fine with a base model 3090 from PNY. They all also work fine with my 4090 although the G2 is now retired and the RMx/RM are in backup systems.

Either way the only one I actually wanted replaced was the prime unit because I had already tested a newer model not exhibiting the issue although its now just a back up power supply.
The only other psu company I've dealt with warranty was an XFX branded seasonic unit and they were also a pleasure to deal with kinda bummed they left the market.

 

[Ruru]

I'd say that if a PSU has long warranty, its manufacturer trusts its quality.

I prefer 5 years as a minimum when I'm purchasing a PSU. Though 10 years is always better.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

If I am looking at two very similar units at similar prices I would go with the one with longer warranty assuming all other things are equal....

I stick with EVGA, Seasonic, Corsair for my personal systems.... But I have used a ton of other units in builds from other companies and I would probably not buy EVGA anymore who knows if they will have any support 2-3 years from now.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

My Vertex GX-1000 has a 12 year warranty

My HX 1050w seems to have a 7 years warranty.

Looks like certain models are 5 years, others are 7 and others (2) are 10 year warranty.

Haven't stressed it real hard yet, but I've pulled 600w+ continously from it a couple times benching 3D. Seems OK.

Anyhow, it seems the "HX" line has several different warranty periods. Gold and platinum have the longest standing warranty of 10 years.

 

[BSim500]

Your thoughts? Does the PSU warranty play a part in your purchase or does it come to a point where three is just as good as five, seven is just as good as ten, etc., etc.,

They can often give a clue as how the manufacturer views their own predicted reliability. Eg, Samsung 850 PRO (MLC) = 10 year warranty vs Samsung 990 PRO (TLC) = 5 year warranty vs Samsung 870 QVO (QLC) = 3 year warranty. There's a very good reason for that. For PSU's, the last time I looked 2-3 year warranty usually = "Bronze efficiency rating and cheapo 85c capacitors", whilst 5-10 year = "Gold-Platinum efficiency and 105c capacitors". The only PSU I've ever had fail was a 3 year Seasonic Bronze with 85c caps, I haven't touched a single thing below Gold since.

 

[DaemonForce]

Anything over a 1-2 year warranty probably doesn't make sense unless you keep a lot of cold spares around but I think leaning further in that direction is a good sign of reliability in these products. If you have a bad power supply, you're going to find out about it very quickly.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

I think a matter at least as important as any warranty period is the company promising the warranty period. If you buy Brand-X product with a "10 year warranty", but they fight you tooth and nail on everything to make it just a marketing warranty (no service provided), than it's worthless. Sadly, companies providing good warranty support seems to be a severely declining trend.

That said, I'd still feel more comfortable with a product the company expects to support for 10 years over one they expect to support for 3 years of use. It usually means they expect to not spend much time or money supporting customers on that product for that period of time due to confidence in the design. I like to support companies that put out products they don't expect users to throw away in the near future. The car example is one that frustrates me immensely as the car companies now treat their products as throw-away items. This is exacerbated by EVs (especially ones that aren't built to allow battery replacements), but that's a separate topic for debate elsewhere. My point is that a long warranty period from a reliable company that is known to provide good support for their products is worth a lot to me. A warranty period from a company that doesn't actually respect their own promises or is so short they're just being open about it being a thing they don't expect to last long is going to steer me away from that product.

 

[Assimilator]

This is an extremely strange rant from someone as respected as crmaris. His rationale, if we can call it that, is questionable at best.

 

[P4-630]

These days I only buy PSU's that have at least a 10-year warranty, no less.

And this:

Something like a 10-12 year warranty tells me the company has faith in their product, 2 years tells me they do not.

 

[Ruru]

These days I only buy PSU's that have at least a 10-year warranty, no less.

And this:

Heh, I bought my main PC's PSU used without warranty, but I've never heard an EVGA G2 break in the whole interwebz

That Seasonic FX750 on my 2nd PC still has 5yrs left IIRC

 

[dirtyferret]

This is an extremely strange rant from someone as respected as crmaris. His rationale, if we can call it that, is questionable at best.

Well, I can understand his thought process (not saying I necessarily agree with it) but it basically falls in line with what our eggplant loving friend above you posted, what's the point of a warranty if the company giving it simply rejects most of the claims as outside of the scope of the warranty? I wonder if Aris was getting an earful from some of the brands who do honor their warranty complaining how others simply tack on the warranty with no intentions to honor them making the an increased cost for the more honorable of the brands.

 

[#22]

Longer warranty is added value what makes it pro and shorter is lacking, so con - there's no discussion here. Aris' explanation is just bad and his PSU knowledge doesn't protect him against thinking in wrong way - it's such example.

In general warranty shouldn't be considered as indicator of quality. Some of you for sure know low quality products with absurdly long warranties or rock solid ones with surprisingly short. That's because warranty in the first place comes from company's attitude toward client. Also from competition between companies. Product's quality is just mixed here.

My take on PSUs and warranties is buying from brands established and known for good aftersale service. It doesn't tempt me to buy "value PSU from niche brand", so save usual <20% on component relatively cheap and long lasting what makes such savings nothing and potential warranty service crucial.