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Tom's Hardware Compares Power Supplies
Some guy wrote in to say "Tom's Hardware Guide takes a hard look at power supplies to find out if we are getting what we paid for. The results of the testing were very surprising." Very useful to anyone who has built their own machine from scratch or burned out a cheap power supply.
My friend and I set fire to quite a few power supplies, mostly of the cheap variety... one was in an emachine (gah, they SUCK) after sticking a G4 ti4200 in it...
that was an accident..
the other was when he flipped the voltage on a system that wouldnt power on... that was an interesting smell, let me tell you...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I hope a few of those people who pay $400 for the latest and greatest video card and $15 for a power supply read this.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
I had my computer for 3 years. Never once had a problem with it. My dad decided to install extra memory on it. It literally caught on fire.
I know you're thinking novice... But he's a software engineer, and has worked with a computer since the transitor moving days.
Lesson to be learned:
Buy cheap powersupplies, and give them to your eniemes as presents.
Rob(ert) #3
i buy them at newegg. highly recommended.
Wow, we killed tomshardware, maybe his power supply went!
I bought this power supply about a year ago. Not only is it as quiet as they tout, it's been a real work horse for me. I have a Lian-Li case, all drive bays filled (from time to time, not constanly ALL hooked up, but...), this thing keeps on running.
I highly recomend checking these folks out.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
From the article:
Fortron FSP, Verax and Herolchi
With its generous maximum output of 390 watts (at which point it powers down in an orderly fashion), the Verax FSP300-60ATV is an impressive performer. Thanks to its quiet fan, the Verax is practically inaudible in use. Also recommended is the Fortron FSP. This model achieved a maximum output of 450 watts - and it was quiet. The Herolchi HEC-300LR-PT was one of the least expensive units in our test. Despite its low price of about $50, this 300-watt power supply performed well. It also addressed safety issues adequately with a built-in safety cutout.
For those looking for a more readily available solution, we recommend the Antec True Power 380P. Antec has done a good job in making their products available from a variety of sources including many local retailers. Chances are that you will have no problems being able to find the Ture Power 380P. The True Power 380P offers a good balance of performance for the money, but expect to pay a little more for this unit, but you will get excellent packaging and a manual that is ahead of the others.
To sum up: More support for consumers
Our comparative power supply test indicates, beyond question, that some manufacturers need to make serious quality and accuracy improvements in the information provided with their products and with the performance statistics claimed in order to make these products perform as represented. Time and time again, our lab measurements were unable to verify the output figures represented on the model identification sticker. And how, exactly, is a computer purchaser supposed to check the output of a power supply? This kind of feature marketing is not possible with other hardware components, such as processors or graphics chips, because the user can check for performance using benchmark-testing software.
Here are some of the salient facts from our lab test. The 520-watt rating of the Maxtron TOP520P4 was overly optimistic. In our test, it burned out well before this, when it reached a combined load of 446 watts. The Leadman LP-6100E also performed well below its manufacturer's specification; the specification claimed a 500-watt rating, but in practice it only delivered 426 watts. On the other hand, the power supplies from Conrad, TSP and Verax were able to provide stable voltages, even when stressed in excess of their specification. With a measured peak output of 454 watts, the Fortron FSP exceeded its specification by 23%. The 300-watt Verax was able to deliver an astonishing 390 watts.
We do not recommend the models we tested from Noise Magic, PC-World and Maxtron, as none of these models offer any safety overload protection (auto cutout) and their capacitors explode with an audible "bang!" well short of their maximum rated output.
There are a few surprises for the potential power supply customer in the area of price. With the exception of the SCS, retailing at approximately $30, all of the other test models retail for at least $50. The highest priced example is from Engelking, with its 300-watt model retailing at about $235.
Can't we just all agree that Tom's Hardware is a good site that should be read regularly?
:)
THG readers' mantra:
"Why's the server so slow today? Ah, darn, Slashdot again".
It sounds as if power supply makers are taking a marketing lesson from audio amplifier companies... bigger is better, and no-one ever actually verifies those numbers.
My favorite was a $25 amp car audio amp I bought about 10 years ago. I kid you not, this thing is about 2x the size of a deck of cards, and is rated at 500W per channel. Ha ha ha ha! No, I didn't buy it for it's amazing power, I bought it because it was $25 and I needed a cheap amp for some tinkering!
"Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
Users who stand to fare the worst are those who have purchased their computer from a computer super store and/or discount retailer. These systems are generally fitted with cheaply made, low-cost power supplies, which often can sustain damage even under minimal loads.
I realize that me and the half of my friends and family that are not hardware-savvy only make up a small sampling. But none of the people that I know that have bought pre-built machines have had a problem with power supplies. Whereas at work, where my office is filled with machines constructed from the parts of other machines, we've had two instances of power supply failure.
Of course the machines at the office are older and are used more often than the home-based ones, but I figured I'd put in my 2 cents.
Had to find this out on my own a while ago. I though my motherboard was bad... now it's in pieces, the largest being in a dump somewhere. Whodathunkit? We didn't get a review of this problem before it came out. I'm so disappointed...
I don't think these were fair tests. I would have liked to seen some oscilloscope measurements of what the voltages/waveforms looked like under full load. Being that we expect our DC power supply to delivery a DC voltage, even a novice can tell a "bad" output from a "good" output. Take two power supplies for example. A 300W and a 500W supply. (For numbers sake, let's say they only deliver 5V to the load. No +12v, -12v, etc). If I max load the 300W supply and it is delivering a clean 5volts, that's a great supply. But if the 500W supply is spiking or has considerable noise with a 300W load, who cares if it runs up to 500W?
To me that's almost more important than if the supply shuts itself down or not. Which, by the way, is still a nice FEATURE.
This applies particularly to power supplies. Sure, CPUs and memory, but the prices aren't nearly as fixed as they are for power supplies. Really, with power supplies, the price range doesn't vary much and the good ones tend to cost (though there are some decent ones for decent prices).
Before I came to my company, they bought a bunch of no-name PCs. There must have been a motherboard flaw that caused them to burn out power supplies and they kept replacing them with cheap supplies which couldn't handle whatever the motherboard was doing, and they would burn out too. Out of about 8 machines, I think we went through 14 power supplies in two years.
You'd always hear, "What's that burning smell?" "Did you check the back of your machine? I think that's smoke from your power supply."
I ALWAYS get a decent supply and have NEVER had problems, even when I lived in Mexico and had pretty questionable electricity.
Over at "The PC Guide," there is a comprehensive look at issues related to the output power capacity and ratings of power supplies. I found it to be very informative... The link can be found here...
I recently bought a 430-watt Antec power supply, and it is a beast. It has two temperature-sensitive fans, gold plated connectors, and weighs about four or five times more than the one it was replacing. It was well worth the money, especially given the system it powers -- two CPUs, a GeForce 4 Ti, two optical drives, and a handful of modern hard disks.
On the plus side, my system is more stable, runs cooler, and is quieter than it was before. I greatly favor my premium power supply over the one that came with my case, and I strongly recommend anyone with a downed PSU to pay the extra dollar.
By noise, I mean noise on the supply line. Ripples, Spikes, dropouts, etc. Not, "how loud is the fan."
I've been shocked/burned countless times goofing with PC's. Electricity is dangerous! If you don't know what you're doing, you could get hurt/killed.
You don't know priorities of nerds and geeks. What are you doing on slashdot?
Inadequate and Deceptive Product Labeling:
Comparison of 21 Power Supplies
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Full Load and Overload - Power Supply Units Pushed to the Limits
Hehe...
Inadequate and Deceptive Product Labeling: Comparison of 21 ... WEBSERVERS? :P
Seems quite slashdotted.
Life sucks.
I bet it was so much fun, they do reviews like this a lot more often. I know I would if I got paid to try to blow something up.
I remember blowing a power supply on an Apple IIe once as I turned it on. Scared the shit out of me too! Since then I've never had any more trouble with the supplies in Apple's Macintosh computers (which weren't reviewed here, but seem fairly solid nonetheless). I did once get a nice big fucking jolt off of one of their monitors though, numbed my right arm to the elbow and left my right side sore for a couple days from the violent muscle spasm it caused. Had it been my left arm, I probably wouldn't be typing this right now...
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
I assume it's true that when a PSU goes, it can take the major components with it? All the more reason to get a good power supply.
A single floppy connector, as supplied by Engelking and Coba, is not enough. You will need at least two of these.
Haven't given them a thought in over a year. All their "reviews" tend to shine highly on the products that fit "their" personal views. I mean jesus, any place that thinks you should have 2 (two) floppy drive power connectors is a little behind the times. Most people don't even use 1 floppy, let alone 2. And for all you people who weren't aware, a reviewer is supposed to enter a situation unbiased. Tom's hasn't started a review unbiased in easily 2 years.
I use a 350W one with the same model # as the one THG tested. There are definitely different grades of sparkle, you can tell by comparing a current 300W and 350W model.
Thanks Tom! To show my appreciation, I'll post your copyrighted work on Slashdot so people don't give you any page views.
Copyright of all documents and scripts belonging to this site by Tom's Guides Publishing LLC 1996 - 2002. Most of the information contained on this site is copyrighted material. It is illegal to copy or redistribute this information in any way without the expressed written consent of Tom's Guides Publishing. This site is NOT responsible for any damage that the information on this site may cause to your system.
The only decent third-party manufacturer of power supplies that I (and I presume most people) have every heard of is PC Power and Cooling. It doesn't appear that this article covers any of their products. Am I missing something?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
That is not a very large sample. I wonder how much specs vary between individual units of the same make and model.
In particular, it would not surprise me if there are unit-to-unit variations in noise and the power at which they give up.
Tor
The #1 reason that I have seen for hardware failure was that the PS fan had stopped working and no one noticed. Most PC's (bought or built) are designed to pull air in the front of the machine because of the vaccuum created by the PS exhaust fan. No air flow = stagnant hot air = hot heatsinks = hot chips = CRASH. This is a very important component that is often overlooked.
On a slightly unrelated note, I've noticed that I've continually had problems with CPU fans (usually of the cheaper variety) dying a fairly early death. However, even on the cheapest of PSUs this has never been an issue for me. Does this jibe with anyone else's experience? If so, why might this be the case? Does the smaller CPU fan size somehow increase the expense of providing decent bearings?
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I know I'll get modded down for this...even slashdot isn't immune from morons who think they know something about computers because they can build one...if you need a support group for people who spend insane amounts of money to make their quake3 framerate go up, then by all means, go visit Tom.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Something I've been ranting about for years: It's not just that power supplies are rated in "music watts." It's also that basic engineering apparently went out the window when micros came in--and has never come back.
Why isn't every board and component clearly marked with its power consumption?
Why isn't every system clearly marked with the amount of power available to devices on the bus (power supply minus consumption of preinstalled components?)
Why isn't there some kind of built-in INDICATOR that WARNS you when the drain is approaching the power supply capability?
None of this is rocket science. It requires fourth grade arithmetic, a multimeter, and a little honesty.
On minicomputers, the power supply was sized for the worst-case set of boards that could be installed in it. That's probably too much to expect from PC vendors, but at the very least there should be an easy way to TELL.
"This is a real good power supply and it should be OK unless you put in an awful lot of boards that take a lot of power" just isn't the way to do things.
We expect this stuff to be clearly marked on our light bulbs, our vacuum cleaners, and our fuse boxes. Why shouldn't we expect it in our computers?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Actually, I wish more case designs supported dual PSU's as the power supplies these days are relatively cheap and I could use the redundancy and extra oumph.
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
How is Enlight power supply unit (340 watts) in a gaming and workstation machine? I know they're a bit loud, but how's the performance and reliability?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I'm surprised that in this day and age, where your power supply is becoming one of the more critical components to keep track of (along with the CPU and GPU temperatures), that there's yet to be a way to monitor the performance of the PS with hardware/software monitors, short of wiring your own. That is, just like you can monitor temperatures and fan speeds with most modern mobos, the power supply is completely independant of this. Yes, it would require some standardization of how that info is sent and a plug on the mobo (most likely situated near where most USB/KB/M cutouts are as to avoid a 20ft wire to get it to the northbridge site), but it would seem to me to be really useful information to determine the PS health beyond the current hope-n-pray methods...
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
....Tom's Hardware is on fire...slashdotted already :)
I plan on visiting the site in a few hours to give it a critical read when I can actually click through to the next page.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
For my part, I would have liked to have seen THG use a true electronic load for their testing. Something from Transistor Devices 'Dynaload' line would, I think, have been a much more accurate (if more expensive) choice than a box full of power resistors.
They should also have used a good O-scope to take a look at the power output waveforms while under load. I've seen a number of cases where a switching supply will look perfectly clean under low-to-medium loads, and then start to spike and freak out under higher loads. 'Tis a nasty thing to behold, and it can cause problems that can drive techs who don't know what to look for absolutely batty.
Also, others have mentioned that PC Power and Cooling was left out of the review for reasons unknown. I would guess that it was price. If so, all I can say is "How highly do you value your hardware?"
Clean and adequate power is the ONE factor that can cause more woes than any other. You can have the slickest quad-processor-super-Linux-cluster-RAID-whatever on the planet, and it won't do you one whit of good if you've got dirty power feeding it.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
We do not recommend the models we tested from Noise Magic, PC-World and Maxtron, as none of these models offer any safety overload protection (auto cutout) and their capacitors explode with an audible "bang!" well short of their maximum rated output.
I don't know if this is the case with these power supplies or not, but some transformers are loaded to go "bang!" when they exceed tolerances so that they don't melt and fuse shut and start a fire.
Hello? Why didn't he review the wonderful offerings from supermicro, I have one of their very nice 400W, and we use them exclusively at our shop, can't kill 'em. Weigh a ton and are fairly expensive ($150) but well worth it.
Life is but a Beta test...
Yes, does anyone know of a way to determine what your power needs are?
Why buy a beast of a 500W supply if all you're using is 300W, much better to invest it in a quality 300W.
A PSU comparison that doesn't include something from PC Power & Cooling is about as ridiculous as an ATA RAID comparison that doesn't include something from 3ware.
Oh...wait. *sigh*
I've been looking for a solid Power Supply review for a few days now. Thanks Tom.
That's very informative information. I always wanted to know that you were looking for a solid Power Supply review.
Geez, that's incredibly dishonest and disrespectful thing to do. Sure, you made sure that we knew it was from the article, but did you ever notice the copyright disclaimer at the bottom of their pages? They aren't making money if we read the article from another source.
I can almost understand this when a site is slashdotted, but that rarely happens to THG.
Any person that read the parent post and decided not to go to Tom's Hardware web site as a result, please do so anyways. They're surviving on advertising revenue.
I bought a Enermax and noticed it had the largest cables on a powersupply I've ever seen! After reading Toms review, they really are longer. Looks like 55/50/50 are the average, and some are even smaller 30/30/30'ish. Enermax ATX/ATX 12V/AUX is 68/70/70 cm.
Really nice on a towercase, but a midtower, I have to roll up the power cables. Nice quite powersupply too.
I'm currently planning my second own-built PC, and I must echo the article's request for more (precise) electrical information from manufacturers. It is outrageous that the peak current at 12V drawn by a HDD, or the maximum current at 12V provided by a PSU, is missing from documents that call themselves 'technical specifications'.
This information is vital: it only takes a high-end PC with 3 modern HDDs (what you might use for RAID or for other multi-disk performance tricks to overload a 400W PSU. Not because it draws 400W during normal operation, but because on startup the disks draw too much current at 12V.
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
Does anyone have experience with Raidmax power supplies?
And besides,
maybe if
Tom put more than
two or three lines
of text
on each page
and 25K of
banner ad HTML
his server
wouldn't get
slashdotted
so easily.
One of the tests that many techs seem to like for power supplies is weight. While it doesn't really indicate the quality as per will-it-fry-my-components basis, it does seem a somewhat good indicated as to whether a supply will dish out near the indicated wattage on a regular basis (as opposed to a once-on-a-blue-moon basis).
My newest power supply really dishes it out. I can't remember the brand name offhand, but I will repost with it when I get home. My previous power supply didn't come near to giving out its supposed "350 W", which gave me a lot of issues while running DVD-ROM and CDRW etc at the same time. When I swapped the supplies I noticed that the newest one was about 1.5 to 2 times heavier.
Again, this isn't to say that all heavy power supplies are good, but if your supply is feather-light, it may be an indicator that it's not so powerful as stated.
The heat output and the likelihood of catastrophic destruction demonstrates an inverse relationship.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It's really scary to get downtime just because somebody steps on the chord or something. Shit happens when you do important work, that's a corollary to Murphy's law.
It doesn't need to last very long, just so that you get the time to put the chord in again, and take the box down gracefully.
I know it has been done, but I couldn't find the link right now, but AFAIR, it didn't have the output you need nowadays.
I bet that the reason why it hasn't taken off is that most people use an OS that crashes so much, some downtime due to powerfailure isn't much of a deal... :-)
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I recently installed an Antec 350 power supply and it is working out great. My stock power supply couldn't support a new GeForce 3 TI card in my dual PIII box.
I chose the Antec brand because I had read an article that discussed how there appeared to be a direct relationship between the weight (yes, lbs) of a power supply to the quality. The article recommended Antec and a few other brands.
I wonder why Antec isn't listed in the summary heading. Looking at the chart and inside the summary paragraph, it seems to have performed very well.
I bought a case with a built-in 400-watt power supply that swamped a nearby AM radio with a buzzsaw noise. Replacing it got rid of the problem. Power supplies aren't that expensive, so save yourself some headaches and buy a good one.
When my display went blank followed by two intermitten pops, I immediately assumed I blew out the monitor's tube. I'd been tweaking the X settings on a recent linux installation and those warnings in the man pages left me a bit paranoid.
Only after I followed a faint but distinct odor to the back of my computer did I find the true cuprit.
When I extracted and opened the power supply, sure enough, two capacitors had blown, throwing festive streams and curls of cardboard and what looked like gobs of hot glue in all directions. Despite such self-scrificial heroics, my motherboard could not be saved. Though everything else remained undamaged, I took the opportunity to upgrade my processor and video card, renaming the box "leemajors" on the local network.
Most interesting, however, is that when those capacitors exploded, they smelled just like fried crabs!
But here's the funny part: I ended up getting a new power supply by just puchasing a new case that came with one. Since then, I've added on a CD-RW and a couple of hard drives. Perhaps I will once again have my room perfumed by the scent of fried crabs....
I put an Antec TruePower 480w (about $90) in my CoolerMaster 200 case. I'm running an AMD 1800 XP on a Asus A7V333 w/ RAID option, Radeon 128MB (non-LE), 4 120GB WD w/ 8MB cache, and a total of 7 80mm fans. Toss in a CDRW and DVD-ROM and that's my PC in a nutshell. I've been happy with it but I haven't stressed it much either.
Ooh I know that one. I once was talking with a NASA engineer, his motto was: Never trust anyone in the software industry that doesn't understand hardware.
Om, nomnomnom...
While at Tom's site, check out this fantastic article entitled Western Digital WD1200JB
Outperforms SCSI Drives. Of course, the article provides no evidence to support the claim.
I'm about to buy a new PSU. Low noise is really high prio (of course not higher than stability though).
Upon reading the review, the Verax PSU seemed quite sweet. Does anyone have any personal experience of it? (I am a bit leery of only trusting a THG review)
Algún individuo escribió adentro tomas de la guía del hardware de Tom de la opinión "una mirada dura en las fuentes de alimentación para descubrir si estamos consiguiendo lo que pagamos. Los resultados de la prueba muy sorprendían." Muy útil a cualquier persona que ha construido su propia máquina del rasguño o queme una fuente de alimentación barata.
...Ever.
i have 300w ATX power supply and i know that not
enoght to run destly alot of hardware so i have
added another 220w AT power supply and it works
great...
I had this configuration for over a 1.5 years now
it great...
if any one interested here is the link how i did
it with some pictures
Who controls the information, controls the world...
The relevant safety standard is UL 60950 (or the identical EU 60590 in Europe), "Safety of Information Technology Equipment". One of the required tests is a full-load worst-case temperature test. No way should those units have received UL or CSA certification.
UL's certification search engine is broken today, so I can't check the power supplies listed to see if they really passed. But those certifications are public information; you can check.
Current CPSC product recalls in the computer area include PowDec power supplies for NextLevel DSL modems and several batteries for laptops. Sounds like that list needs some additions.
If anyone from Tom's is looking in, perhaps they may want to try out this test rig we developed for testing power supplies.
Back when I was working for NTG (later acquired by 3DO), our chief hardware designer, Dave Needle, assigned one of the engineers to test power supplies. It had to supply 5V at some large number of Amps, absolutely flat, and do it on continuous duty. Dave informed me -- to my utter, youthfully naive astonishment -- that the specs on power supplies couldn't be trusted.
The test rig the engineer came up with was several low-Ohm high-wattage resistors wired in parallel, submerged in a pan of distilled water. He then turned on the juice and watched the output on a 'scope. The room where these tests were carried out came to be known as The Steam Room.
I think he went through about a dozen prospective supplies before he found one that was acceptable.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Just where can you buy one of these? Who has ever heard of Verax or Herolchi, anyway? I searched on google, pricewatch, and newegg; and I couldn't find anything but a single Fortron offering.
I've always had a really hard time finding these "secret" premium low-noise components. I would love to make my desktop quieter, and I would love to believe that these products will do the job. But if they're so awesome, why doesn't anybody sell them?
That's for sure. I have to buy a new floppy drive every time I use it. That's because I only use a floppy drive about once every 12 to 18 months when someone gives me a floppy instead of emailing files to me. By then, my floppy drive is level full of dust and cat hair.
At least on the Dell laptop I can pull the floppy drive and put it in a bag to keep it clean.
" I like to either lick the chassis and keep my tongue touching, or keep my nipple pressed against the chassis while I am installing/removing cards. "
OH GOD! MY EYES! MY EYES ARE BURNING!!
These are NOTORIOUS for their tendency to burn out at the drop of a hat. However, both Sparkle and PC Power And Cooling make 145W and 180W (the latter is AMD certified) power supplies that are direct replacements for the SFX-L power supply included in the system.
EMachines are not necessarily bad machines. They just have cheap-ass power supplies and also cheap-ass hard drives. Replacing both when the machine is brand-new is a must if you want one to last for more than a few months.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I just purchased an SX-835 case from their Performance II line and it came with the SL350 power supply. I only paid $109 for the case w/PS, plus $15 to ship it.
I'm pretty impressed with the build quality overall of both the Antec power supply and case and it offers plenty of cooling options. I wish they looked prettier, but they are highly functional.
i'm sick of seeing tom's hardware stories every other day on here.
My new title at the office is "Vice-President of Everything Else"
They're quite expensive, but I have heard many, many times over the years that PC Power & Cooling makes some of the finest supplies in the business. Every machine I own uses them. I particularly like the Silencer 400. They're down to under $150 now. I paid around $250 each for the two I have, and would cheerfully buy more at that price. (IANAEE, but I've had no problems with any of the four PSes I've bought from them. All are still in service.)
I really wanted to see if they actually are as good as has been claimed.. I'm amazed that Tom left them out. Maybe if enough PCP&C fans whine, he'll do an update?
Anybody with half an education behind electronics understands that you CAN NOT MEASURE DC CURRENT WITH A CLAMP ON AMMERTER.
2 1014/ images/testaufbau9.jpg
Clamp on ammeters work on the change in the magnetic flux surrounding a conductor. THERE IS NO SUCH CHANGE when DC is applied to the conductor, only when AC applied.
The only way to measure DC current is with an DC ammeter that is physically in series with the circuit that you wish to measure.
In other words, THIS IS A CROCK.
This is the picture/caption i am referring to:
http://www.de.tomshardware.com/praxis/02q4/0
live and neutral are of course plastic, but the earth is a regular pin
That sinlge earthing cable landed me my wife, since she thought I was such a crazy ass to wire myself to the electrics to fix her computer.
Lesson be learned - save hardware, get a woman.(A housewife in her kitchen blows a whistle, bringing Mr. Sparkle to life off of his box. He calls to her.)
Mr. Sparkle: I'm disrespectful to dirt! Can you see I am serious?
(Mr. Sparkle hovers over her dirty dishes, releasing sparkles over them. The dishes' grime disappears. Mr. Sparkle floats to the living room, where he bounces over a baby's xylophone. He then appears underwater, where three women are dancing.)
Mr. Sparkle: Get out of my way, all of you! This is no place for loafers. Join me or die. Can you do any less?
(The women stop dancing.)
Two of the women: What a brave corporate logo! I
accept the challenge of "Mr. Sparkle."
Woman: Awsoma power!
(Mr. Sparkle blows magic dust over the girls as a graphic of a drumming monkey toy hovers in the upper left of the screen. The dust turns the girls into blue Sumos.)
(The scene changes to a reporter interviewing a two-headed cow.)
Reporter: Any plans for the summer?
(Mr. Sparkle appears and shatters the cow. It's
disembodied eyes blink at him. The scene changes to Mr. Sparkle coming at us from an orange background.)
Mr. Sparkle: For lucky best wash, use Mr. Sparkle!
Ever wonder how they make all those power tools that only draw 1 HP of electrical power, but are rated at 3 or ever 5 HP?
Am I the only person who is sick of computers requiring such obscene amounts of power? Newer machines have fscking radiators on them for $DIETY's sake; what's next? A heat-pump that sits outside my house to keep the environment nice and warm? In 1995, 250W was a nice, big power supply. Then, 300W, and now 500W comes along -- other consumer electronics are becomming more efficient (monitors, televisions, refridgerators, air conditioners, etc.), but computers just keep wasting more and more power.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
You know the nice brand new ATI Radeon 9700 that most people here lust over? I put one in a friend's machine recently... I was really glad for the second floppy power connector becuase then I didn't have to use the included Y cable and add more bulk inside the case. There's lots more devices that want a power connection like this, too. CF Readers, audio break out boxes, VU meters, LCD displays, etc. More connectors is generally a good thing, not a bad thing. You don't always have to use them, and cable ties are cheap.
As you might expect, we've seen more than our share of hardware trouble with cheap PC's. About 90% of the time the problem is a fan... usually the CPU fan, but quite often the PS fan as well.
Fortunately, fans are usually easy and cheap to replace (and I've performed more surgery on power supplies than any one person should have to do in a lifetime). The exception was one of the early e-machines... couldn't find a fan even vaguely resembling the dead one in the PS, and the PS itself had a non-standard mounting design.
The damned thing was so cheap that it had failed after being in service for less than five months. Hey, didn't that mean that it was still under warranty? Great, I thought, I'll just call e-machines and get them to send me a replacement PS...
Maybe they've changed their policies since, but e-machines refused. Their "warranty service" consists of you sending them the entire CPU, with all original parts in place, at your cost... then waiting for them to send you a replacement unit. Please allow six to eight weeks if you're lucky. Screw that. I jury-rigged a third-party PS, and resolved to never buy an e-machines product again.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
And where would we be without these thoughtful karma whores posting article text? I'll tell you where: Thumb-twiddling Hell
Granted, THG seems to be able to withstand the weight of a /.ing, but for those unlucky souls using shared hosting accounts, or limited bandwidth accounts -- karma whores are a savior, both to us and to them.
Many times the dead (or dying) fan can be 'revived' by pulling it out, removing the sticker on the back , and putting a drop of oil on the bearing. (Put the sticker back before you reinstall the fan.)
There must be "good sparkles" and "bad sparkles" because I've got a 400W Sparkle in my system with an AthlonXP 1900+, DVD drive, CD-RW drive, 3 7200rpm IDE drives, GeForce3, TV tuner, RAID card, network card, SoundBlaster LIVE, and 2 256meg sticks of DDR266. This thing has been rock solid for over a year. Not a single crash, ever. I'll admit that I don't know much about which PSU brands are good and which are not but so far this 400W sparkle has served me well. Heck, it even has a fan that's powerful enough to suck start a leaf blower, not too loud either.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
see the fsp in the model number of the winners? fsp = fortron source power. fortron source power owns sparkle.
t =m anufactory&manufactory=1389&catalog=58&DEPA=1&sort by=14&order=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submi
click 'see picture' on the 300w/$27 unit and you'll see the EXACT SAME model number as the winner.
if you like pseudotechnical hogwash, incestuous relationships between advertisers and content providers, and meaningless benchmark data.
While I wouldn't flame them quite so hard, I have to agree with the spirit. THG lost all of my respect with their handling of that "hot contraband" P4 article. If I can't trust a website to tell me when they're Photoshopping their BIOS screens and shots of CPUs, how can I believe their benchmarks are genuine, or their reviews unbiased?
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Seriously, besides saving your data you need a good UPS with AVR to feed your Power supply.
If you have power that sags or has other problems, even a high quality power supply is not going to save you.
I still can't believe there was ever a time when I didn't use a UPS at home. You really will add time to the life of your computer with a good UPS. Your PC will still become outdated, but at least it will be less likely to fail.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Pops! The sound must've been heavily muffled by the case. I once blew up an electrolytic cap in the open and f*** it was loud. I leapt across the room before I even knew what had happened, and was showered with little flakes of plasticy papery stuff.An this was only a little guy about an inch long x 1/2 inch 25volts or such. That was 25 years ago and I've been pretty respectful of capacitors since.
Can't remember if it smelt like crabs tho'. Actually I can't recall ever frying crabs. Now there's an idea for the weekend. BBQ crabs! Mmmm, crabs. Should I add garlic?
-----
For great justice!
My manuals do not contain useful information in this area for one of my systems. It is an older system but it does a fine job for me except that it periodically just sort of stops. There are no sex lites on the kb and the monitors go black and it appears dead. I'm not sure if this is hardware or a glitch in NT 4.0 with fp 6.0. There is no blue screen of death here. Powering off and rebooting is the ONLY solution.
Here is the config:
1) Asus P/I P65UP5 baseboard plus P55t2d cpu card
2) Dual 200 mHz P200's (might be ppro if the cpu card supports them)
3) 8x32MB ecc memory probably EDO (total 256MB)
4) Dual Matrox Millinium 4MB video (PCI)
5) 3.5 FDD
6) 5.25 FDD
7) 13GB Fujitsu HDD IDE
8) Panasonic PD650 Optical/CDROM
9) Adaptec 2940 SCSI (PCI)
10) GVC network card Realtec RTL8019 (ISA)
11) Creative labs soundblaster (PCI/ISA?)
12) KB/Mouse, 2cpu fans
When I added all this up using numbers guessed from what THG used I get about 300 watts which will be right at max for this 1991 case. I don't want to tear the case appart right now because I'm using it for this communication so I may have missed a card adn don't know the P/S brand name.
I have sever class power supplies here but I kinda think this case might hold a 250 watt P/S.
Can people who are up to speed on power requirments go through the above component list and put some numbers down and advise?
Maybe these failures are PS overload in which case I can double up power supplies or just swap to one with more capacity.
Thanks.
D'oh! Yeah, many a time I've seen that with clients' machines... nothing wrong except the p/s fan has quit. Tho a CPU fan that silently died is even more common (well, at least in the socket-7 and before era). When someone's machine gets flaky, I always have them check the airflow. If that seems okay, I ask if it sounds like there are owls in the box (the usual noise made by a fan that's resisting the notion of turning).
I did notice that a lot of the comments here seem to mistake a noisy/tired fan for a dead p/s, tho. What's wrong with just replacing the fan when it wears out??! With a standard clone box, it takes all of 5 minutes.
"But the fan has a proprietary connector" or "but the fan lead is soldered" are not valid complaints. I don't even bother with the internal connector anymore, nor with hunting down a fan with a specific connector (let alone solder 'em -- I snip such leads and tape them off so they don't short against anything). I use a regular case fan and snake its power lead out where the device leads exit the p/s, and hook it to any handy standard connector. This works fine, lets me use a high-end fan if I wish, and certainly cuts fan-replacement hassle.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You know the latest bout of problems I have been having may very well have been with a power supply. I has a Antec SL-350. I kept getting random freezes and spontaneous reboots. I have now switched to a Antec 430P. We shall see if that was the problem. My REAL problem is if they can make laptops that sip power, how come they can't do the same with desktops? Laptops do the same and sometimes more then a desktop yet desktops take big honking power supplies. Can we take some tech from the laptop to a desktop??
Gorkman
What about Power PC and Cooling?
They also make some nice high-end power supplies.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I hadn't heard about this.. what's that about doctored screenshots??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I was so happy that I had done it, I turned off my PC and stepped away from it for a while. A few hours later, switch it on, and walk away as it booted. And wouldn't you know it (not a logical deduction ... just cause it's posted here), I hear a loud explosion. Look back at my compruter, and see a haze of smoke. I at first feared the worst (monitor) but saw it spewing out of my PSU (I wasn't using a case at the time so everything was out in the open). And you know what, my paper was stuck on the HD. Just when I thought I was out, it pulled me right back in.
incripshin
Well, unfortunately I can't find the original thread on arstechnica (their archive search is broken). However, here's basically what happened:
Back in September, THG posted this article with the title "Hot Contraband: P4 With 3.6 GHz" and the description "For this exclusive report, THG tested CPUs of the future, bringing you benchmarks for P4s in the 3.6 GHz, 3.33 GHz and 3.06 GHz variations."
In my mind, at least, this text implies that they managed to snag some unreleased P4 chips from Intel by one way or another and benchmarked them.
However, people on several websites noticed that the shots of the BIOS screen and the photo of the chip in question looked suspicious. They were actually from much slower chips, but with the numbers arranged so that they appeared to be from 3GHz+ CPUs. The shot of the CPU on the first page, for example, that has "PC3.3G0K" in the serial number was analyzed to show that the 3s were identical, and therefore at least one of them was copied over the original number in Photoshop.
Also, suspiciously, there was no testing of the hyperthreading that will be present in released P4s that are that fast.
Eventually, THG posted an acknowledgment of the issue, but it seems kind of hollow. For one thing, the shots they show of their super-unlocked P4 are not the same chip as on the first page. For another, they admit they're using current P4 technology. So basically what the article is about is not "Here is what the 3.6GHz P4s will be like," but "Here is what *today's* P4s are like if they are overclocked to 3.6GHz." None of the benchmarks apply to the real world unless you are going to use a liquid nitrogen (or however they managed such high clockspeeds) cooling system on a current P4 instead of waiting for the real 3.6GHz models with hyperthreading.
They *could* have been honest about it and called the article "THG overclocks a P4 to 3.6GHz!" like they've done in the past, but apparently that wasn't sensationalistic enough for them. If that weren't bad enough, they waited until a ton of people called them on their deception to admit what they'd done.
Ironically, this happened only a few weeks after Tom himself wrote an editorial about some unethical former writers for his site.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
found a nice article on how to choose a good PSU. I found this trying to find out why my CompUSA 400w wouldn't boot my Athlon1400/GeForce Ti4200, but another generic 300W would. Switched to an antec 400W (twice the amperage of the CompUSA) and she runs like a charm. Good info on how to calclulate TCO and what TCO should be acceptable (pretty low-tech, but I don't know a soldering iron from a telephone (but I do know what burned hair smells like))
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
I heard somebody's power supply was on fire. Scary stuff.
There is no mention in this article of ripple performance for these PSU's under their rated loads.
Ripple is the amount of AC left in the DC output of a DC power supply. Real engineers and technicians measure this and take it into consideration to assure the reliable and healthy operation of the equipment being powered. There is no point in having a PSU that can deliver the required amount of power if it is also delivering the parts in the computer noisy power that may lead to instabilities.
The PSU's that actually were able to deliver more than their rated power, may have in fact been designed so that they actually deliver low ripple power at their rated levels. With power beyond that starting to show what the designers would deem, unsatisfactory ripple levels (Ripple becomes more apparent with higher loads).
A quiet (electrical) supply is a good thing for computers of any size and seeing an article at Tom's omit this amongst pages and pages of a "test" comparison does not surprise me.
Blah blah blah. People who know better, don't read Tom's, they "do it" themselves, properly. But the chance to test 21 different PSU's is something few geeks can do, so Tom ought to get things done correctly if he is to pass his site off as a valuable technical hardware resource.
But what I think is the real killer, is that Tom tests the noise levels of these PSU's, but not the electrical noise, the audible! Which kinda shows in a glaring manner the level of technical prowess his site staff and readership posses. Hell, they had multimeters, how hard was it to at least set them to AC and read the amplitude of the ripple!
"Test results in detail" my arse.
I'm not being picky BTW, ripple testing is a must do in PSU design and testing for most applications of a DC supply. Proper "test results in detail" would have included oscilloscope printouts of the ripple, IMHO.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
The PSU really is one of the most ignored parts of the computer. Take the Nidec/Power General PSU in the SGI Indy. The vast majority of the dead Indy's out there are dead due to a failed Nidec PSU. The one's with Sony PSUs keep working, but the Nidec's are dead. The moral of this story: this article is not only useful for end-users, but hopefully OEMs will read it too.
-twb
Having built my first *new* system ever (ie: not from scraps I had here and there), the power supply was one of my highest priorities. I read and looked around, and Enermax looked pretty tight.
;) I don't think I've ever heard of customer service that great.
So I get one. 450W model. Build the system, turn it on for the first time.
Well, I'll spare the details. I went through several expensive components, after which I take the box into a local shop, because at least if they break something, it won't cost me anything. The tech says I should replace my power supply on grounds that it "smells funny". So I replaced it with another Enermax, 350W model. Everything works, but not because I replaced the PS.
So now I've got this 450W Enermax power supply sitting around. I email Enermax, claiming their power supply has cost me a lot of money in damage. They offered to test it. So, they had a shipping guy sent to pick up the power supply, then they paid to have the power supply shipped to Taiwan. They proceeded to test the power supply using a test rig identical to my hardware.
Then, they sent me pictures, via email, of the power supply with s/n visible, the system components (no case), and the monitor displaying a working system at the BIOS setup.
Then, they paid to have the power supply returned to me. All the way back from Taiwan (in case you missed that part.)
I now have that power supply running my new server that I built from spare components accumulated during the whole ordeal.
Needless to say, after having helped me out so much at their own expense, I'm a huge fan of Enermax (also because I've found their power supplies to be really nice, too.
-kidlinux.
Now you knew that was going to come sooner or later.
Last year, I had a power outage. My HP Kayak PII/266 was on a UPS and my Mac G3/300 server was on its separate UPS. These machine are almost identical vintage.
I walked into my house only after the power had been out for a while. Only one computer was still running. Guess which one it was.
I think most of the other readers are right. It sounds to me as though you are running more computer than you need.
--Richard
UL's testing agrees with Tom's Hardware. All devices that really passed UL certification were found OK by Tom's Hardware. No UL-certified device blew up, caught fire, burned out, or failed to perform at rated load. All the units that failed lacked valid UL certification. The Leadman LP-6100 E did fail under full load at Tom's Hardware, but it shut itself down properly without damage. UL hasn't rated it, although they've rated previous Leadman models.
The Tom's Hardware article shows the data plate from the Chieftek power supply, which bears a UL marking. It's not in the database. It looks like many of those power supplies have fake UL certification, and for good reason - they don't meet specs or they're outright hazardous.
So if it's not in the UL database, don't buy it. There are plenty of good power supplies that have real UL certification. Corporate shops probably should check for those phony brands and take appropriate action. And tell UL; they will take action for phony markings.
A lot of these tests depend on how clean the 120V supply they are using. Depending on their location and wiring in house, an outlet at one place may not be as clean or truly 120V at another.
I'm sure if they did the test over again at a different place with (super/bad)-excellent source, they would get different results.
Sparkle = Fortron & PowerMan PowerMan are used in InWin cases. You want to try and buy the "G" series power supplies. The "B" and maybe "A" series are not specced as high as the "G" series is. I too work in a small shop and have only seen ONE actual dead Sparkle/Powerman probably due to neglect on the customer's part. Because of the design of the power supplies if the fan dies then they'll usually just shut themselves off without killing components. Of course some people are stupid enough to try and hit the power button on the front panel a half a dozen times so they can try and kill their parts. Experience also says Deer REALLY, REALLY SUCKS. Usually dead in under a year. I would never run anything less than a Sparkle or even HiPro in any of my systems.
I suspect that a lot of computer power supplies may actually be rated by their input power rather than their output power. ie a supply rated at 300W may consume 300W of power at full load but its output would be somewhat less due to the overall efficiency of the device. Assuming an efficiency of 80% (not unreasonable for a switchmode power supply) then the maximum power output for a 300W supply would be arround 240W.
One thing I find surprising about power supply ratings is that no mention is made of duty cycle. Maybe a duty cycle of 100% is assumed? Still it would be be kind of useful to know how long the power supply could cope with an overload.
I actually built my own power supply for my linux router/firewall. Seeing as its switched on all the time I wanted something that used convection cooling, constantly running fans piss me off. I used an old Nortel power supply board out of a telephone exchange, whacked it into a 2u rack mount enclosure and away it went. No idea what the maximum rated power output is, but its got a huge heatsink on it and barely generates any heat when powered up. uptime 90 days so far.
I wonder the final score of their enermax, it goes just about between others, being in the middle, but at the last score board it's nearly last! only over the failed powersupplies which got 0%.
I really wonder how they RATE their powersupplies, it is specified to be 350W powersupply which deliver s 389W so i think it's something else than crappy, it has variable speed fan control among other things.
I actually own a Enermax EG365P-VE powersupply which has been very good, is AMD approved having two fans, and yet still it isn't making much noise. Yes they have EG365AX-VE model, they have two of those on the specs screen, WHY DO THEY DIFFER from each other? huh, i'll say you what THG isn't neutral judge, even the TASK supply which claimed to give out 300W and gave out only 204W was rated higher, this is definately last time i read a review or test from THG Lab, if they cannot see which one is better. Huh, next time they prolly take a 20USD cheap powersupply which claims to give 250W delivers 150W and wins the comparison. THG Lab has lost it's value in my eyes. They apparently aren't professionals even many would claim something else.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I would have like to see Tom measuring the performance of these PSU's with a UPS attached upstream. Surely the quality of the mains voltage (lack of spikes, brownouts etc) would have a measurable effect on the resulting performance of the PSU... Anyone care to comment?
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
Where is Asus in brand of Elan Vital. I am using this case&power supply and said to be one of the best cases (obviously, it has no neons etc,just excellent engineering design).
Check http://www.elanvital.com.tw/
Anyone knowing it would understand why I am surprised its not on test.
What is the power coefficient? There is a graph with this heading on page 7 but absolutely NO explanation ... not even the usual two line benchmark comments ;) The values range from 6% to 117% and the power supplies that seem to be better have higher scores ... but the graph doesn't even have a comment along the lines of 'higher is better'
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
Thanks for the info. Not exactly my idea of straight-up reporting either. If they'd just said exactly what they were doing instead of fudging it, there wouldn't be a problem, but as it is... Well, I already take most hardware reviews with a few grains of salt. I'll shake a few more on Tom's plate.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Ah... one of those times when a name change actually makes sense.
This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
This ratings-race makes it difficult to sell good quality power supplies. If they give it an honest rating, they can't compete with the $19.95 junkers that claim to have better performance. This article is a breath of fresh air, though I suspect it's not going to get the bean-counters attention, and we'll still be forced to accept power supplies from the sleaz..er, lowest bidder.
If the power supply wasn't made in the computer maker's own factory, then buyer beware! That is evidence it's cost (i.e. quality) cutting time in the accounting department.
*That* explains why the 400W goes for $67 at newegg - it's a G series model whereas the 350W (also quite nice IMO) is a B.
I forgot to mention Powerman, I've recommended and used Inwin cases partially 'cuz of that. At a computer show often the Inwin cases are one of the few brands with decent power supplies. Alas, many many more "Super Cases" with Deer etc supplies are out there.
the plugs for the power and leave the ground plug to make a perfect portable grounding solution.
Works like a charm.