Seasonic psu running hotter than expected

Antonio Lambranca · 1 May 2020 at 06:34

Hi. I'm the happy owner of a Seasonic PSU like the one below bought about a week ago.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seasonic-core-gold-gc-500-500w-80-gold-power-supply-ca-071-ss.html

However, I have noticed that the back and the top of the case (I still have an old pc case) are very warm. I have installed the psu fan down as by the instructions.
Also, the Seasonic PSU calculator did calculate a 370W power draw and recommended a 420W so it's definitely not due to running it too hard.
Now, should I be worried about it or is it normal?
Is there anything I can do to help it run cooler such as adding case fans? I am building a new pc soon so will get a new case.

Below are my pc specs:
Standard case with PSU on top and 1 exhaust case fan by the CPU.
AMD FX4300 with Artic Cooler
Gigabyte GA-970 DS3 ATX
20GB DDR3 1666Mhz
EVGA GTX 550Ti
Kingston SSD 120GB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
LG DVD-RW

Dave Burton · 1 May 2020 at 14:39

~~Some of them on the back have a toggle or push button to turn off the internal fan, you haven't got that pressed in by accident have you?~~ Never mind, the image linked doesn't appear to show one. What sort of airflow do you have in the case?

Grimley · 1 May 2020 at 17:58

To me it looks like the PSU fan is drawing in the hot air created by the PC components from inside the case. Long term you wont be doing the PSU much good even though modern good quality PSU's are designed to operate at 40c.

pastymuncher · 1 May 2020 at 19:10

Buy a decent case that doesn't use the psu as a exhaust fan and the psu will run cooler and potentially live longer.

EsaT · 1 May 2020 at 21:34

PSU on top case design expired 15+ years ago:
It was designed in time when typical power consumption/heat output of PC parts was like 50W...
And garbage efficiency PSU itself could produce nearly as much waste heat anyway needing high speed fan.

Antonio Lambranca · 2 May 2020 at 20:36

Thank you everyone for your input.
Following your advice I did some cable management and installed an intake fan by the CPU (it's the same but this time is intake not exhaust).
I am going to order 2 more fans to pull in more cool air and will try to get a used m-atx mobo so I can buy the new case.
Here's the tidied up case now.
Messy case.

Tidy case

Coojeekitten · 6 May 2020 at 10:45

Dave Burton said:
~~Some of them on the back have a toggle or push button to turn off the internal fan, you haven't got that pressed in by accident have you?~~

Thought I'd mention Dave, The button doesn't turn off the fan as such, it's for Hybrid mode, which is just a fan curve. Fanless <40C then a regular curve.

Dave Burton · 6 May 2020 at 16:12

Coojeekitten said:
Thought I'd mention Dave, The button doesn't turn off the fan as such, it's for Hybrid mode, which is just a fan curve. Fanless <40C then a regular curve.

I knew it had something to do with stopping the fan, but couldn't remember exactly what, hence the strikethrough.

Antonio Lambranca said:
Thank you everyone for your input.
Following your advice I did some cable management and installed an intake fan by the CPU (it's the same but this time is intake not exhaust).
I am going to order 2 more fans to pull in more cool air and will try to get a used m-atx mobo so I can buy the new case.
Here's the tidied up case now.
Messy case.

Tidy case

No pictures fella, would be interested to see the before and after!!