XFX Black Edition 850w ATX PSU Blows Up During Max Load Test
@ 2009/10/12Right about now I’d probably be contemplating an award such as Editors Choice or maybe Gamers Choice and an almost full-bars score. But unfortunately as I’ve already covered on the previous page, the XFX Black Edition 850w does have a a tendency to go ‘pop’ under certain load conditions. These conditions were of course outside specification during the "Max Load" tests where the unit was placed under a load approaching 1000W, but under no circumstances should a PSU of this quality fail in this manner simply because the load is too high. OCP (Over Current Protection) should kick in every time, saving both the PSU from failure and your hardware from being 'zapped'. For this reason alone the Black Edition 850w won't be walking away with any awards today, which is a great shame considering how well it performed in all other areas.
On another note we did also experience something slightly untoward with SCP too. Although I'm not sure of there is any specific behaviour that a PSU must adhere to with regards to SCP protection, the first XFX unit seemed far too keen to power back on again after we intentionally shorted it out. Most PSU's tend to require a hard reset after a short circuit (off at mains for a minute and then switch back on), but the XFX unit bounced straight back on again after the short circuit was removed (without even a power button being pressed).
Both units are now on their way back to XFX for inspection, and I imagine that they will want to investigate the problem with Seasonic before making any official reply on OC3D.