PSU & Radeon facing one another -> overheating?

[Core]

I recently sent my Corsair 650W in for RMA due to overheating and malfunctioning. I am waiting for the new one to arrive, but in the meantime I am somewhat concerned as to whether my setup contributed at all to the old one's failure. My machine's a HP Pavilion p6510y. When I install the Corsair PSU into the case, the PSU's fan is pointing down right towards the graphics card, which is a Radeon HD4850. There's maybe around 3-4 inches of space between the Radeon's fan and the Corsair.

Before the Corsair failed completely, it had started shutting the system down automatically. This began happening a few weeks after its installation (I had, however, taken it from another PC, so it had already been supplying power to another PC for 3 years.) I'd leave the machine idle with no load beyond Win7 desktop, and come back to it turned off. The PSU would also heat up the top and side of the case so much I couldn't touch it with my hand. Soon after, it failed entirely.

The PSU was getting old, so maybe it had reached the end of its life. But my concern is this: is there an issue with the Radeon's fan and the bottom fan of the Corsair being so close to one another and facing one another? Do they counteract one another and cause overheating? Or is the Corsair designed to use the bottom fan for intake and expel the hot air through its rear fan?

I just want to be as sure as I can be that the case didn't cause the overheating of the previous unit, so as not to let it happen again with the new one. Neither the Corsair nor the 4850 can be mounted any other way in the proprietary case.

 

[yodap]

Do you think the graphics card was over heating? Do you have enough exit ventilation?

 

[Core]

I don't think the card was overheating. The HD4850 runs happily at pretty high temps and I've never experienced overheating issues with the card itself. Its thermoregulated fan kicked in when under load, otherwise it ran nice and quiet.

According to someone at Corsair, the air flow apparently goes from the bottom of the PSU (intake) out the back of the unit. I am leaning towards assuming the unit was going bad, because my recollection is that it was overheating even when I took the Radeon out. But I'm just not sure...The Corsair comes with half a million cables and it gets pretty crowded in there when it's all put in.

I'd feel a little better if I could get more airflow in there, but there's no space for a second case fan in the case.

 

[Nibiru2012]

You just had a defective PSU. As long as it wasn't clogged with tons of dust bunnies it should have remained stable.

How old was the PSU by the way? Sounds to me like you had some bad voltage rectifiers or regulators in the PSU.

You should be able to mount an 80mm case fan on the grill on your RH case panel as shown.

If there is any way possible to mount a fan at the front of the case inside to pull in more cool air that would be a big help for you too.

Do you have any extra fans

 

[clifford_cooley]

After looking at the Setup Poster, I'm wondering if you could fit a PCI card slot fan between the two.

Do you have a spare slot for a fan to mount in?

PCI Slot Case Cooler from Newegg.com

 

[Core]

You just had a defective PSU. As long as it wasn't clogged with tons of dust bunnies it should have remained stable.

How old was the PSU by the way? Sounds to me like you had some bad voltage rectifiers or regulators in the PSU.

It was definitely not clogged up, surprisingly clean actually. It was about 3 years old, with 2 more years of warranty left. It's been in pretty much 24/7 use, seeing as I rarely completely power down my machines.

You should be able to mount an 80mm case fan on the grill on your RH case panel as shown. Do you have any extra fans

That's not a bad idea. I do have extra fans of various sizes lying around...

After looking at the Setup Poster, I'm wondering if you could fit a PCI card slot fan between the two.

Do you have a spare slot for a fan to mount in?

The board has just one PCI-E16 slot which is the topmost one. So while there are a couple of empty PCI-E1x slots, they're not positioned between the PSU and the GPU, but underneath the latter.

 

[WindowsGeek]

Core, I don't think that you have much of anything to worry about, but I would take Nibiru and Clifford's advice and throw another fan in there. When you get your next PSU, you can always replace the fan with a third party one that has a higher airflow, and possibly squeeze a little more life out of that PSU.

However, I have seen PSUs die around when yours did, but they ran inside of business comps that lacked standalone graphics cards. Safe to say it wasn't your graphics card.