PC Peripherals Don't Be Surprised When Your Cheap PSU Blows Up...!!

[Lord Nemesis]

Recently we had threads asking about why good (branded) PSU's are important and we had also people arguing that its all marketing gimmick and that there is nothing wrong in using a cheapo PSU when you don't have high end hardware or claiming that they had been using cheapo PSU's for 10+ years without problems, so it is alright to use one.

Well here is an article from Toms Hardware that might be interesting to you guys.

Don't Be Surprised When Your Cheap PSU Blows Up : 1670 Watts For $60?

They have tested 3 El Cheapo PSU's and here are some choice quotes that confirm what me and few others have been saying all along.

These are for the so called 500W model.

We could not even begin to test the two 12 V rails. Rated at 26 and 14 A respectively, the PSU shut itself down long before we even got close to those numbers. At combined loads as low as 270 W, the voltages on the 3.3 V and 12 V rails were already falling below values required by the ATX specification

The efficiency reached its maximum value of 81% at a load of only 20% (100 W), suggesting that this is probably not a 500 W unit, but rather a relabeled 250 or 300 W unit. Ripple and noise measurements resulted in 3.3 V values that were already well out of the ATX specification at a 50% load, and most likely much worse so at higher loads. By the end of our testing, we could clearly smell the overloaded PSU components, and the unit was noticeably hot in some spots.

These are for the 750W Model.

Alarmed by the weaknesses of the 500 W unit, we began our tests at very low loads. Again, the results suggest a PSU originally designed for a maximum load of 300 W. Looking at the test results at low loads, this becomes rather evident.

Compared to the 500 W model, the Sutai Double Power P4-750W is an even bigger shame. While its little brother shut down at low loads, at least it'd fire back up after resting a bit. The 750 W unit overheated after just a short period of testing, and was completely dead after that.

These are for another 420W Model.

There is not much to say about the test results of this PSU. We again started out cautiously and were actually able to identify its efficiency levels at 25, 50, and 85 W loads, reaching a maximum efficiency value of 79% at 85 W.

Further testing was not possible because, during a short test with a 300 W load, the PSU suddenly bode us farewell with several explosions and sparks flying everywhere. Once more, we didn’t even have our camera ready. We simply were unprepared for a unit to totally give up so far below its rated output ceiling.

 

[Ameet148]

LOL.

Lord Nemesis,here are my voltages

CPU CORE 1.440 V
MEMORY CONTROLLER 1.904 V
+3.3V 3.392 V
+12V 12.224 V
+5V HIGH THRESHOLD 5.699 V
CMOS BATTERY 2.976 V

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are they alright?Am using an eXtreme 650w.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

^ +5V seems a bit high. But motherboard sensor readings are usually inaccurate.