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.

Comments

Power Supplies

[LordYUK]

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...

Any article that has a flaming PSU is good.

[Prince_Ali]

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.

Re:Any article that has a flaming PSU is good.

[drinkypoo]

I paid $169 for a 4U aluminum rackmount case, and $7 for a power supply. And I'm running Windowx XP. Oddly enough my system is now the most stable it's ever been.

Re:Any article that has a flaming PSU is good.

[Flakeloaf]

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.

I work at a computer store in Ottawa, Canada. At least two people come through our store in the space of a week who buy all of the components except the case, which they found cheaper elsewhere..... one of these $30 (Canadian!) wonders with a miscellaneous power supply in it. To lift one of these babies you'd swear it was hollow ;)

Strangely enough, I also see a number of people come back with burned Athlon XPs hiding under 200W "Deer Company" power supplies mislabeled as 300s. Funny coincidence that.

Fireworks

[RobPiano]

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

Re:Fireworks

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're thinking novice... But he's a software engineer


You learned the wrong lesson.

Lesson to be learned:
Never, Never, Never let a software engineer touch the hardware.

Re:Fireworks

[ngoy]

Since I am from the old school of computing technology (where off is actually off, none of this soft-on/off crap) it surprised me when I was putting in some dimms into a friend's HP that the RAM slots were powered for some reason (no, it was not in sleep mode). I pushed on the dimm and suddenly saw a bright point of light and little puff of smoke. I yanked the dimm out, only to find that one of the gold traces on the dim got so hot it melted the epoxy (or whatever holds it onto the pcb) that held it on and soldered itself to the dimm slot on the pc. So I ended up using a twice as large dimm in the other slot.

Moral of the story is unplug the power cable (we all do that don't we). Nothing gets your heart going like electricity! Like the time I was putting in a gable fan in my attic and cut a live wire with my T-Cutter's. THAT was a bigger spark, and burnt a nice big hole in the cutters. At least I got to exchange them at Home Depot

ngoy
(I'm still alive! Darwin ain't got nothin' on me!)

Re:Fireworks

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

That's the one thing I like about when I occasionally work on old AT computers. The damn power supplies go ON and OFF when you want them to, none of this crap with the power button connected to the motherboard and holding it for 6 seconds to make it turn off.

Tim

Re:Fireworks

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Yeah, the new ATX specs have power going to the board as long as the cord is in the wall. I was from the AT crowd too, I had actually been taught that a power supply plugged into a grounded socket was a good thing to leave when working inside the computer.

Luckly my surprise with the new ATX stuff wasn't as bad, I just had a machine power up when inserting a video card. No damage done.

To keep this a bit more on topic too, most good power supplies have a hard switch (as opposed to the soft one that the ATX power button triggers) on the back that will keep all current out of the motherboard.

Re:Fireworks

[ewhac]

Lesson to be learned:
Never, Never, Never let a software engineer touch the hardware.

The software guys at NTG -- myself included -- had this habit of wandering into the hardware lab and taking up space just to kill time and/or clear their thoughts, sometimes idly frobbing tools. Drove the HW guys mad.

Actual overheard statement, delivered to wandering SW guy from head HW lab tech in police officer-voice: "DROP THE SCREWDRIVER! PUT DOWN THE SCREWDRIVER AND WALK AWAY!"

Schwab

Re:Fireworks

[mustangdavis]

Hmmm ... I'm going to be throwing a Age of Mythology LAN party next month ....

I was having a hard time deciding what to give the winners of the tournament .... ya know, the little bastards that have nothing better to do that play games all day (* ok, I'm jellous *)

Maybe I'll give away marsh mellows and PC cases with really crappy, Maxtron power supplies ...

A 400+ watt fire should be pretty cool :)

Re:Fireworks

[Subcarrier]

But he's a software engineer, and has worked with a computer since the transitor moving days.

Well, that explains it. Some of the dust bunnies must've been shaken loose from his pullover.

And I bet you forgot to warn him that these days you're not supposed to pre-warm the vacuum tubes with a cigarette lighter, before cranking the big power lever.

Re:Fireworks

[Oloryn]

One leaves the computer plugged in for the ground. Unplugged, you won't get electrocuted, but the box won't be grounded either. You have to pick one, or find another way of grounding the box (which realy isn't that hard)

For that matter, if you're concerned about static zapping computer components, it's typically sufficient to make sure you are at the same potential as the computer by using a wrist strap connected to the chassis.

Re:Fireworks

[ed1park]

I used to leave the power supply plugged in to for that same reason on my ATX Abit board.

Then I dropped a screw onto the motherboard and the computer came to life! Scared the hell out of me I tell ya.

Rather than reaching for the screw and causing a short-circuit or fire destroying my brand new mb, i unplugged the machine and thanked God that my system was fine afterwards. whew...

I guess that experience is closest to working on a dead person in a morgue and have them move/come to life. hehe...

Re:Fireworks

[dildatron]

I'm with you. Viva la Old School! I still leave the power cord in, I think it has magical powers. I was also taught that it grounds the system.

screw this soft-off crap.

Re:Fireworks

[dildatron]

You are correct. 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.

Re:Fireworks

[Ed Avis]

I upgraded a machine from a P200 to a 1.73GHz Palomino by replacing the motherboard, but kept the 235W 'Sunshine' power supply. No problems so far.

As I see it, if a power supply is crap, there's no great loss when it eventually dies. Just keep using it until it does, and replace it if and when you need to - not on the basis of FUD and some vague belief that a higher wattage must be better even when you're not drawing that much power. If the air blowing out the PSU is warm, so what? Any modern motherboard will cut out when the CPU gets too hot anyway; as long as your hard disk keeps reasonably cool you should just let the system run.

For servers it's a different matter of course.

Re:Fireworks

[belroth]

It's easier/better to switch the PSU off at the PSU if it has a switch (no, not the front switch). Then switch the PC on with no a.c. power, this will discharge the caps in the psu - often the fans will spin slightly.
I wouldn't necessarily believe that the case was grounded with a switched off ATX psu without checking - I haven't bothered to check th specks so I use a wrist strap. YMMV

Re:Fireworks

[muixA]

There is one compelling reason to leave the power-supply plugged in when working on the system -- static.

Most folks don't use ground straps, and hence may carry a potential with respect to devices they are handling. You need not see, or feel an arc for to destroy a component!

A good supply should have a rocker switch in the back that cuts the power, but leaves earth ground intact.

This way you can power off the system (for real), and it will remain grounded. Now all you need do is keep a hand on the case at all times.
--
Matt

Re:Fireworks

[ncc74656]

Easy solution. leave it plugged in, but switched off at the wall socket.

It's kinda hard to do that when wall outlets aren't switched. (Yeah, I know the Brits have switches on all of their outlets...but they're weird that way. :-) )

sparkle power supplies

[mackstann]

i use sparkle power supplies. they are second only to pc power & cooling, and they dont cost an arm and a leg (pcp&c do!)

i buy them at newegg. highly recommended.

Re:sparkle power supplies

[NetFu]

I'm sorry, but I work for the number one power supply distributor in the USA (we're not a direct reseller, though) and Sparkle power supplies are the BIGGEST pieces of sh*t I've ever had the misfortune of touching. They are extremely prone to failure -- as high as 10-25% out of the 20-25 we've bought for I.T. use (I'm the Director of I.S.) and we have lots of manufacturers who replace failed Sparkle power supplies with others that we sell.

Yes, they're cheap, BUT you'd better buy two for every machine you use them in (one for backup) just to save you the trip to your local Fry's (or whatever your local computer hardware reseller is) for a replacement WHEN it fails.

And to top it all off, most Chinese power supply companies (like Sparkle) feel that 10-20% failure rates are ACCEPTABLE! This is in an industry where a 1% failure rate usually sends the engineers back to the drawing boards. Sparkle Power is a huge joke in our industry...

Re:sparkle power supplies

[Stephen Maturin]

Whatever you say, fishbulb....

Re:sparkle power supplies

[Chad Page]

You've never dealt with Deer (aka L&C, Allied, etc), have you? I've seen Deers destroy motherboards when they go.

Re:sparkle power supplies

[Verteiron]

I've had excellent luck with Antec PSUs. I've got the 420W one in my system with 5 IDE HDDs, 2 cd-roms and a zip drive. One of the things I really like about it is that it comes with two special extra connectors for fans. Any fan hooked up to them will be speed-regulated like the units internal exhaust fans. This can really make your whole system a lot quieter. Antec costs a little more than average, but they are constructed well and come with excellent documentation.

Re:sparkle power supplies

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been running a small computer store for almost three years, and we started out using nothing but Sparkle power supplies, and out of the several hundred systems we built with them, only one died - when a storm knocked over a tree, which fell into a power line, which, well I'm not sure of all the details, but end result was that anything plugged in to an outlet in half of the customer's house was completely fried. Satellite receiver, stereo, TV's, etc, and computer; most of this stuff was plugged into cheap "surge-protectors" too. In any case, none of the components in the computer were damaged - swapped PSU's and it was up and running.

We briefly switched to Deer, mostly because we got a really good deal on some cheap generic cases that came with the Deer supplies. No kidding the failure rate was over ten percent, but we only sold about 120 of these, so it's maybe not a great sample. But friends at another, larger store across town said that at least half of the supplies in the first batch of cases they ordered died within four months. Needless to say that was also the last batch of those cases.

Another thing - one customer who lived in an upstairs apartment in an older house had problems from day one - crashes, freezes, you name it. Every time he brought it in for service, though, it worked great. Right away we suspected PSU, and so we swapped in a Sparkle on his second visit - I talked to him a couple of months later and he hadn't had a single problem since. Similar things happened to a lot of rural users as well.

Why trust Sparkle? If I remember correctly, they make power supplies that are used in hospital equipment such as Dialysis machines and "Iron Lungs." These, obviously, have to be reliable, so the company definitely has the know-how, even though the PC PSU's are undoubtedly held to lower standards. They aren't cheap, but they aren't the most expensive on the market, either.

In the end, we settled on Antec equipment, not for any problems with Sparkle, but because it was difficult to get a decent case sans-PSU to put the Sparkle's into. We've yet to see one of these come back dead, either - since we started using them, we've sold over three hundred. That's a pretty good record for both companies, if you ask me.

Re:sparkle power supplies

[zulux]

I second this - If I open up a 'white box' and I find a Sparkle in there - it gets replaced then and there. No sense in having to replace it later.

Perhaps Sparkle has gotten better, I don't know or care. Their past reputation with me has earned them a permenent spot in my 'shitty hardware/software list'.

Sparkle is right above MS BOB, and right below IOMEGA in the list.

Re:sparkle power supplies

[XorNand]

I second the recommendation for PC Power and Cooling. I got tired of going through a PS every 6 months, having themburn-up or worse; the bushings would start to fail and it would sound like a turbine engine until it warmed up. As far a price goes; it's a matter of perspective. I think I paid around $200 for my high-perf 350W supply about 5 years ago. To date, it's the only piece that I haven't upgraded or replaced in my system (including the case). Spend twice that amount for the latest bleeding-edge graphics card and see if you still have it half for half as long.

Re: Sparkle Power Supplies

[person-0.9a]

Kind of a bummer name they picked. The top three things things I do not want my Power Supply to do:

- Flame
- Smoke
- Sparkle

Re:sparkle power supplies

[ackthpt]

I just got a PC Power & Cooling supply (Silencer 400, IIRC) ~138$US and it is cooling its heels in a cabinet at the moment. I certainly agonized a lot over making sure I'd have a decent source of power for whatever I jam into the cabinet over the next couple years. Seemed PC Power & Cooling is highly regarded, so I sprung for the extra. Rather a bummer THG didn't include any in their tests, as I'd like to see how they stacked up, at least representatively, if not the exact model.

The reason the power supply is idle is because I'm building a system to replace my agonizingly slow laptop (my only concession to PC's so far) and I'm getting bits of the system over time. Novemer is monitor month and looks to be an NEC 1700 job.

I was hoping for the much ballyhooed Serial ATA drives to come out, but see Seagate's ST380023AS (80G, also the 120G) drives have been pushed back from late October to late November. :-/

Re:sparkle power supplies

[fmaxwell]

Short answer: Antec makes multiple supplies. The model that the other poster mentioned is in a PC I have and it's damned quiet and built like a tank. I've had other Antec supplies that do not advertise themselves as being quiet -- and they are not!

Re:sparkle power supplies

[Reziac]

Eight years ago I paid all of $50 for what at the time was the only 300w p/s available in the Los Angeles clone market. (At the time, standard 230w units were about $25, and everyone looked at you funny if you wanted a 250w unit, let alone 300w.) The thing weighs a ton all by itself, and has 7 independent power leads, all with heavy-duty wires. I've had to replace the fan a couple times but the p/s is still cranking away as we speak (supporting one largish HD, CDROM, CDRW, two sound cards, video card, P3/550 CPU, 1gb RAM, two floppies, 3 fans, modem, SCSI card, printer autoswitch, and I just recently chucked out an old internal tape drive that was a known power hog).

When I look at a cheap p/s, with a paltry 2 or 3 leads and those extra thin wires, I wonder how many devices they can support before going flaky, no matter what they're rated at. And I consider how often I'd have to replace 'em, vs. just paying a bit more up front. Eight years and counting has become my standard. :)

Re:sparkle power supplies

[NetFu]

Aah, the great myth that if the MAJORITY of users have a good experience, then the product in question must be good.

Obviously if 80% of the power supplies don't fail, then most of the users would be perfectly happy. That doesn't mean it's good, that just means they didn't piss off most of their customers.

Shouldn't we in the electronics industry strive for more than a 10-20% failure rate or just "not pissing off more than half our customers"?

Re:sparkle power supplies

[NetFu]

I think you need to retake a math class or two:

4*15%(10-20%)= .6

My statistics stand -- how can you compare your buy of 4 power supplies to our buys of thousands of power supplies??? Don't you think I have a better grasp of the real failure rate -- especially when I'm the one talking to the assholes at Sparkle who freely admit their power supplies have an "acceptable" 10-20% failure rate?

The statistics aren't just ours, if you had read my post, you'd understand that they ADMIT 10-20% failure rates of power supplies they sell to suckers like you and say that it is ACCEPTABLE.

That just isn't acceptable to reputable companies like us which is why we don't sell their crap any more...

Re:sparkle power supplies

[NetFu]

Fuck you anonymous asshole -- if you wanna see me here in Sunnyvale, come on over!

Yeah, I didn't think so -- shitbreath!

dead toms.

[lamp77]

Wow, we killed tomshardware, maybe his power supply went!

Good and QUIET!

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

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.

Tom's Recommended/NOT-Recommended Power Supplies

[plasticquart]

I've been looking for a solid Power Supply review for a few days now. Thanks Tom.

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.

Marketing lessons from audio amps?

[Rob Parkhill]

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!

Re:Marketing lessons from audio amps?

[afidel]

They might not be lying, peak to peak for one cycle it might be able to output 500W (just before it explodes). Of course most respectable amp manufacturers will list the RMS watage number tested by an independant lab. I think it was funny one time when a friend was laughed at by some rice boys because he had a 100W amp, what those kids didn't realize was that this was a competition quality amp and that 100W was a true 100W RMS with a peak to peak measurement of well over 1000W!

Re:Marketing lessons from audio amps?

[bogie]

Ha, Pyramid. My friend bought one of those $25 500W amps for his Jeep years ago. It looked and was shaped like a giant red christmas tree. Luckily it got stolen not soon after and then I made him by a real amp.

Re:Marketing lessons from audio amps?

[Lumpy]

and it's ratings were accurate.

It was more than likely rated at 500watts Peak and did not mention a THD rating at that wattage.

Car audio is usually marketed at truthful levels. Pyramid (I think that's how they spelled it) amps were usually rated at thousands of watts. but if you look it is rated as peak not RMS and it's THD was at 5%.

now an amp that sounds great is rated at 0.05%THD at RMS watts. a 100watt RMS at 0.05%THD will knock your socks off with a pair of 15" woofers in an isobarik enclosure.

the moral? read and UNDERSTAND the specs... car audio makers bank on the fact that the large number of cunsumers are too dim to understand the markings on the box.

Non-custom built power supplies poor?

[ohboy-sleep]

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.

Re:Non-custom built power supplies poor?

[Kevin Stevens]

Well I think this comes back to the fact that most people only use their machine to surf the web and read email. I think it is a fair guess that most of these people have onboard video or an otherwise anemic card, along with a 5400rpm HD, etc. Also, unlike business machines which are usually on 24 hours a day for their entire lifespans, I would say most home computers are not on as much and maybe more importantly- recieve less use as they get older and get relegated as a secondary machine in a house. I would say very few home machines get used for much more than word, websurfing and file sharing nowadays, which is a breeze for todays, yesterday's and even two years ago processors. This is a bit of a stretch, but I worked for a company that regularly made use of upgrades to extend the life of a machine... adding second disk drives, upgrading the processor, ram, etc... but of course never even thinking about upgrading the PS. I can not say how prevalent this is in other companies, but if it is, that could be another reason the PS's are overloaded and thus fail.

Re:Non-custom built power supplies poor?

[Tailhook]

It's a question of usage patterns and necessary capacity. The common Best Buy PC used in a typical manner does not tax a garden variety Chinese PSU enough to ruin it.

A SMP box with a Gig or more of RAM, used to compile kernels, run FPSs at high resolution, host a couple extra drives of various sorts, get frequently booted between multiple OSes (startup loads are extraordinary,) run benchmarks, and basically do a bunch of other crap, will need a LOT more power. I fried an Antec 300W PSU in 3 months like this. Give yourself a fright and watch the case temperature during a FreeBSD "makeworld" sometime.

Tom's caters to people that push high end hardware to it's limit. You're basically reading hotrod magazine and wondering what's wrong with your Accord.

Re:Non-custom built power supplies poor?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Yeah we upgrade slightly sometimes. It's all dependent on the software that needs run. Sometimes when software requirements go up, instead of a new machine, we get a memory upgrade or something similar. That just recently happened to me when we are about three months from upgrading our primary machine at work. When that happens, the current machine becomes MY personal machine as I am constantly ssh'd into my AIX servers, testing scripts that backup boxes across the network, developing production quality Xerox VIPP applications. The current machine is fine for me, although I requested a new image before that happens, and I get the LCD off of the new one as it's smaller then the 21 inch CRT they currently use (they use it to monitor 4-5 TN3270 sessions all at once).

Power supplies usually don't become an issue at work as we have IBM's and I am starting to fall in love with their hardware. I have yet to see a IBM thinkpad, desktop or server blow anything up, although it's possible. Our AIX boxes are rock solid and if setup correctly, we can lose a drive, a power supply or in the multi processor boxes a CPU and not go down, just operate at a lower capacity. My 3-4 year old thinkpad has been rock solid and the only thing I have had to do with it is add a new CMOS battery. After tinkering with hardware for about a year, I am tired of trying a new MB and only go a year until something freaky happens (CPU Fan Circuit....not the fan itself went out). My most recent upgrade has caused me all sorts of issues and I am not quite sure if I got the all resolved. The thing that's looking real attractive to me are lapotps, or pre-built desktops. I want to buy a system with a 3-4 year warantee. I need to have at least one of my boxen to be ROCK solid with no problems and I see this and the warantee as a way to make that happen or if it does not happen, I get the thing fixed. I work on computers enough at work...my home machines I want to just work.

Now if I can find a way for my wife to run her stuff for work on Linux (VPN and some weired terminal emulator...I believe for a Tandem??), then I can expunge Windows errors myself and life will be nice!

Missing Test Equipment

[CMiYC]

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.

Re:Missing Test Equipment

[mark_anderson]

CMiYC has an important point. There's a lot more to a power supply than simply providing lots of DC current. Tom's Hardware used a constant load. Computers, especially CPUs do not form a constant load. A cpu may increase its consumption by a factor of 10 almost instantaneously. This can happen everytime the scheduler goes from the idle loop to running a cpu intensive task. The motherboard regulation will absorb some of this, but not all. The PSU must be able to respond to these surges without significant ripple or spikes. This requires good capacitors, and may require tuning the switcher frequency to improve the response.

Re:Missing Test Equipment

[Nogami_Saeko]

Believe me, I know what it's like to be "the computer whiz", and I feel that since I've been gifted with something, I ought to share it. To do otherwise would be unjust.

Ya, everyone who knows me and has their computer blow up seems to feel the same way ;P

You get what you pay for

[Pedrito]

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.

Re:You get what you pay for

[Tackhead]

> 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).

Very true. The problem's one of brand differentiation.

At the low end (vast majority), there's Joe Sixpack, who doesn't know anything about what's inside his box, and who doesn't even think there are modular components in it. "Dude! I got a Dell!"

At the midrange (20%), there's most of us. "It's an ASUS or ABit mobo, an AMD/Intel CPU, and an nVIDIA or ATI card. Umm, and a power supply that came with the box."

At the high end (5%), there's folks who know that no-name power supplies suck (IMHO) and Enermax rox (IMHO). But only because we've read from...

...the really high end (1%), which are the folks who know why one brand/design beats another - say, under-rated capacitors, or a design flaw that results in the switchmode transistor getting shorted in the event of a failure of the +12V or the +5V standby line, and is typically present on the $15 fly-by-night power supplies but not on most of the $50+ brand names.

Unlike ATI-vs-nVIDIA, where the midrange and high-end folks can plunk in an "upgraded" video card and immediately see the difference between "good" brands and "shitty" card manufacturers, brand names in power supplies have trouble gaining traction, because while they're working, they're indistinguishable from each other.

And of course, when they stop working, it's too late. For that reason, always keep a spare supply handy. Even a "free" no-name supply ($5 bucks from a surplus store) will last you a week until your "real" power supply arrives from the web merchant.

Rule of thumb: Put your hand over the PS's exhaust fan. If the air's significantly warmer than the air in the PC's case, get a bigger power supply.

(I learned it the easy way - a d00d at work got a dual Athlon mobo and just tossed it into his old case, and wondered why it was so warm under his desk while his CPU temperatures were normal. Answer: 2-year old 300W supply + dual athlon + two 7200 RPM disks = one massively overloaded P/S. We threw in a 365W "spare" for the weekend and ordered a 450W that got there by Monday. Air flow out the back was much cooler. Frankly, I'm amazed the 300W supply was even able to boot before blowing itself to hell.)

Re:You get what you pay for

[BgJonson79]

It also applies to hookers. Don't learn the HARD way!

Re:You get what you pay for

[bogie]

"even when I lived in Mexico and had pretty questionable electricity."

Thats the job of a UPS. While I agree a high quality power supply is good, It can't do anything is the powersupply is constantly bad.

Re:You get what you pay for

[Reziac]

There's a particular generic AT case that I liked for nice internal construction -- it came with various faceplates under various names, but inside it was all the same unit. However, no two of 'em had the same p/s. Some had a really cheap p/s, others had really good ones. I learned to pop the hood and check which p/s was in there before buying the box. (This makes all the clone dealers look at you funny. :) Odd thing was, over several years' time, the included p/s trended toward better quality!! The last one I bought has a real nice 300w unit that's been supporting all sorts of crap 24/7 for 4 years now.

Re:You get what you pay for

[ncc74656]

Rule of thumb: Put your hand over the PS's exhaust fan. If the air's significantly warmer than the air in the PC's case, get a bigger power supply.

Dual Athlons run hot, no matter what power supply you use. I have a dual 1900 at work and a dual 2100 at home, both powered by 430W Antecs. The exhaust is a fair bit warmer than you get from most other computers.

The home machine previously had a 1.0-GHz Athlon, powered by a 350W Enermax. I could've tried running the new setup on the old power supply, but decided against that.

Useful Related Link...

[TheGreenGoogler]

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...

Antec Power Supply

[delta407]

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.

Re:Antec Power Supply

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I was wondering why Tom didn't review any Antec PSes. That is all I use these days, and have been very happy with them.

Not only do they have varible speed fans in them, but they have a 2 wire lead to run 3 case fans (I only have 2) at varible speed.

With the front fans of the Lian-Li case that blow over the hard drives that are variable on their own, my machine is pretty quiet when doing nothing, but comes up to a nice wurr when compiling the newest glibc with "make -j2" (yes, I know it isn't parallel safe, but you only have to do it twice to catch the one file that hangs things up).

Re:Antec Power Supply

[Dr. Manhattan]

Just a couple weeks ago I finally got the money together and stuck an Antec 300W power supply in my machine (ASUS P5A, K6-II/500, Geforce 2 MX400, etc., etc.). It had been unstable ever since I put in the Geforce, in both Linux and Windows. Unplugging a couple of peripherals (a CD-RW and a floppy drive) seemed to help.

Since the 300W one went in (replacing an old 235W) it's been rock solid, even with the CDRW and floppy reattached. Now if I only had time to play games...

Re:Antec Power Supply

[jpaz]

I've been a big fan of Antec. Never had one of their power supplies go bad. Very reliable.

Side note: I'm also a big fan of Antec's computer cases. High quality, sturdy, well designed. Antec's cases also have Antec's power supplies. You can't go wrong with Antec.

I'm not employed by Antec, but simply a satisfied customer.

Re:Antec Power Supply

[wilburdg]

I also recently purchased an antec power supply.

I purchased the SL350 power supply, from their solution series.

For a little less money than the True series, it has dual temperature sensitive fans, with plenty of power for a fully loaded system, yet runs quietly.

I payed about $50 for it from googlegear, and I have been very impressed with the noise/heat/performance.

Re:Antec Power Supply

[skeedlelee]

Actually they did review one Antec powersupply (the True380 I think). It came in just behind the leaders, though not for any reason I could tell from their spec's. Seems to have performed at manufavctures specification and was reasonably quite. Maybe they didn't think it was quite as good a deal. It was nice to see one of the readily availible brands come in near the top though.

Actually, I was curious, if you're using a lot of Antec supplies could you tell me what the practical difference, if any, is between Antec's True power supply line and their Sl line? Is it just that the tolerances on the voltages are a little tighter?

Re:Antec Power Supply

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I believe that the SLs don't have ATX12V and the Trues do. Since I deal mostly with dual CPU motherboards the ATX12V is what I need.

The TruePower series also have "bling-bling gold grills" as my co-worker put it.

Re:Antec Power Supply

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I picked up an unopened Antec PP-403X supply at a going-out-of-business sale.

Is this one a good one? My Athlon has an Allied/Deer PS (came stock with the case). I've heard nasties about Allied/Deer, and am wondering...

Re:Antec Power Supply

[Reziac]

I'd been drooling over Antec cases at the shows, and have since had my hands in one that belongs to a client.. and I'm convinced. My next upper-end case will be an Antec.

But since Antec came on the clone scene, some of the budget-priced cases have been emulating the general Antec design (makes them much nicer to work with!) I like RaidMax midtowers as a cost-effective alternative for lower-end machines. Dunno how good their p/s are yet, tho.

[Quickly hiding all the random freebie cases that the salvage-built computers live in] :)

Re:Antec Power Supply

[Zurion]

Actually, I was curious, if you're using a lot of Antec supplies could you tell me what the practical difference, if any, is between Antec's True power supply line and their Sl line? Is it just that the tolerances on the voltages are a little tighter?

The True Power line actually has dedicated circuitry for 3.3, 5, and 12V's. There's some other differences too:
http://www.antec-inc.com/pdf/truepower_inclusion.p df

BTW: Definition of Noise

[CMiYC]

By noise, I mean noise on the supply line. Ripples, Spikes, dropouts, etc. Not, "how loud is the fan."

Power error?

[mikers]

Inadequate and Deceptive Product Labeling:
Comparison of 21 Power Supplies

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Full Load and Overload - Power Supply Units Pushed to the Limits

Hehe...

Good article, wish I could have written it!

[Arcturax]

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...

Re:Good article, wish I could have written it!

[afidel]

Your lucky that's all you got from the monitor. I was working on a Sun LC2 workstation (kind of like an old mac with the motherboard and monitor all in one). I did not have all plastic tools but thought I would be fine using plastic handled screwdrivers to adjust the focus boy was I wrong. I bumped the main cap with one of the screwdrivers I was using and the voltage jumped the gap between the two by going through me! I was thrown back about 3 feet by the convulsion, hit a wall and knocked me out for several minutes. When I came too the TA who's lab I was working in had the most worried face I have ever seen. Since then I have decided that I will never work inside a crt again.

Re:Good article, wish I could have written it!

[hedley]

On the original Mac, I went through 3 supplies. Each of the ones before the final one had fires. I would come into the room seing smoke pouring out of the left vent looking at the unit. Supply was made by a company called Astec.

There was a lot of good info in that article. When you are putting together a linux server to be on 24/7 this is good into. Last thing you want is

1) unreliability (you want clean voltages under load)
2) Your house burning down when your not there after the sleeve-fan seizes.
3) Noisy. If you sleep near the machine noise is an issue. I can hear mine in the other room.

The ones I like are the people that say, "my fans making a horrible noise" and then they are all happy when the noise *stops*!

Hedley

Tomshardware

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Tomshardware

[Tha_Big_Guy23]

"Tom's hasn't started a review unbiased in easily 2 years."

While I generally think that Tom's is biased in some respects, this example isn't the best one. (Not that I'm trying to create havoc or anything, or disagree totally with the Anonymous Coward's opinion, I'll just present my own opinion.) Realistically, most people still use a floppy drive. Although you can burn a bootable CD, CD's are still rather impractical for transferring small files to another computer. You say, why not transfer it over the network, well, if you're trying to get the newest NIC drivers to a computer that you just put the NIC into, then well you have a problem.

Next problem, the reason that 2 power connecters was suggested, was for the Radeon 9700. If you take a look at the card, you'll see that it requires an external power source, as the AGP bus isn't quite powerful enough to give it ample power. This external power connector is a Floppy Power connector. You'll probably start seeing more graphics cards like this in the coming years, unless they drastically increase the voltage supplied to the AGP slot.

Re:Tomshardware

[Dynedain]

Other devices do use floppy power connectors.

For instance, the head unit for my Creative SBLive 5.1 Platinum and various casemod toys like temperature monitors, fan speed indicators, etc.

Re:Tom's Recommended/NOT-Recommended Power Supplie

[MagPulse]

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.

No PC Power and Cooling?

[LordNimon]

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?

Re:No PC Power and Cooling?

[Gogo Dodo]

Nope, didn't miss anything. PC Power and Cooling wasn't represented in the review.

I have one of their PSUs and three of their Silencer fans in my PC. Works great and is very quiet. Sure, they're more expensive, but I'd rather pay for high quality instead of a burned out PC.

Re:No PC Power and Cooling?

[mackstann]

you are not missing anything, unfortunately.

this review is pretty lame IMO, they failed to review: both sparkle and pc power & cooling, probably two of the highest regarded names in power supplies, while at the same time they reviewed such no-name junk as "engelking", "coba", "channel well", "scs", "task", and "levicom".

and the summary is also quite worthless. basically they recommend 3 no-name brands as the "winners", no one is going to buy these due to availability and/or fear of no-name brands, while THG also recommends antec psu's to those who cannot find the others, which is also stupid because people already buy antecs in droves.

also we have the issue of rebranding. many power supplies on the market are simply rebranded no-name power supplies, how do we know that just because one "herolchi" power supply tested well, all others will also be top quality? the different herolchi models could be from completely different manufacturers!

Re:No PC Power and Cooling?

[Tailhook]

Good question. My "came with the case" Antec PSU died and I replaced it with a PCP&C unit, 450W. The machine is dual P3, .5GB RAM, dual HDDs, SCSI, GForce, etc. Uses its share of power.

The most useful part of the Tom's Hardware writeup is the breakdown of estimated power consumption for a "high end" machine. Based on that, I figure the 450W part I have is just a bit over the necessary capacity. Maybe 15% or so, assuming the rating is accurate.

Anyhow, like you, I was disappointed to see Tom skip PCP&C in a rare PSU test. Sometimes I wonder a lot about Tom's. The AMD bias is obvious to me. OTOH, it's possible PCP&C wouldn't play ball and submit units for testing. Not unheard of. It's an American company, possibly with enough lawyers employed to govern a State.

Re:No PC Power and Cooling?

[?erosion]

Not everyone is so sweet on PCP&C as you would expect. I personally just had one of theirs murder my KT7A-RAID, along with all 3 DIMMS that were installed. I'm just glad the proc, cards, and drive all lived. Along with a couple of other bad experiences, my $250 upgrade is up to about $600 now. At least I may be able to get a refund, but we'll see. I've got an RMA and I'm shipping it today.

I was wary of even using it in the first place, and there're two things I didn't like. There was no switch, and there was no vent on the bottom. I know a switch isn't technically necessary, but I really like the idea of switching off my PSU and leaving it plugged in while I tinker (grounding...). And the vent is kind of important, since the proc sits right under it...

And yes, I took all due precaution, and no, there is no obvious indicator that it is for a Dell (which are wired differently). Try a Google groups search for more experiences. No link, no time. Sorry.

Re:No PC Power and Cooling?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Thank you!

I bought from them back in the olden days (late 80's) ... I needed a big AT power supply that would provide tons of 5V. Most of the big PSen gave lots of 12V (for all the hard drives). I had a 68030 debugger board that drew 14A of 5V. PC Power and Cooling did the job for me!

Re:No PC Power and Cooling?

[Reziac]

Actually, I've seen good longevity from Task and Topower, even just random units in clone cases. Most of the *very* old ones (8-12 years) I've seen still chugging away are Topower units.

Tho I've wondered about rebranding issues too. Do any of them bother to print the real mfgr's name anywhere?? Even inside the unit??

Only one of each tested

[f97tosc]

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

often overlooked...

[jaredcoleman]

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.

Re:often overlooked...

[afidel]

That's why I have active airflow both in the front and rear of my case. Big slow rotating 5" fans can push a lot of air without making a lot of noise. The only problem is that the psu would probably overheat as it sits directly above the cpu and between its own waste heat and the non vented cpu heat it would overheat quite quickly I would think.

PSU Fans versus CPU Fans

[Hayzeus]

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?

Re:PSU Fans versus CPU Fans

[uspsguy]

We have a couple of racks of process control computers - 30 or so - and I think not one of them made 2 years before the power supply fans quit. These boxes run under load 24/7. We keep a stack of supplies on the shelf and part of the PM is to see if the fans are turning. P S failures cause about as many problems as everything else put together.

Re:don't you think?

[Gizzmonic]

it "should be read regularly" if you like pseudotechnical hogwash, incestuous relationships between advertisers and content providers, and meaningless benchmark data.

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.

NO SPECS for boards, no overload indicators...

[dpbsmith]

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?

Dual PSU's

[twoslice]

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.

Re:Dual PSU's

[baptiste]

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

Some folks make redundant supplies that fit into an ATX compliant sizefactor. Thus they'll fit any case. They range from 250W all the way to 500W Antec used to make one I thought. Maybe Enermax. But they aren't cheap.

How good is Enlight?

[antdude]

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?

PS Diagonistics?

[Masem]

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...

Re:PS Diagonistics?

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

Hrm.

My PSU is currently outputting 1.71 V to Core 0, 2.46 V to Core 1, 3.28 V to +3.3 V, .497 V to +5 V, 11.86 V to +12 V, -12.27 V to -12 V, and -5.04 V to -5 V.

I can tell this all either in my BIOs or with some software I have called Motherboard Monitor or MBM for short.

Tim

I think....

[crumbz]

....Tom's Hardware is on fire...slashdotted already :)

Re:Tom's Recommended/NOT-Recommended Power Supplie

[Blkdeath]

Thanks Tom! To show my appreciation, I'll post your copyrighted work on Slashdot so people don't give you any page views.

Since they're already quite sufficiently Slashdotted, I'd say we've given them more than enough page views.

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.

Could have done better...

[KC7GR]

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.

Re:Could have done better...

[KC7GR]

That from someone who (a), posted as an 'Anonymous Coward; and (b), got a score of '0.'

So I mistyped. Big whoopee. Come back and talk to me when you're willing to stand behind what you say by saying who you are.

Re:Tom's Recommended/NOT-Recommended Power Supplie

[Patersmith]

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.

How much power

[nuggz]

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.

Re:How much power

[shaldannon]

Because according to Tom, they're probably both lying, so if you buy the 500, you might get 350 ;)

oh please!

[Tumbleweed]

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*

Re:oh please!

[blincoln]

At least they didn't fake their pictures this time, unless that burning PSU on the front page was some clever Photoshoppery.

+5, Informative?!?! (Mod the parent DOWN!)

[csnydermvpsoft]

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.

Re:+5, Informative?!?! (Mod the parent DOWN!)

[teamhasnoi]

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.

That's very informative information. I always wanted to know that you wanted to know that he was looking for a solid Power Supply review. ;)

Enermax - cable length

[BrookHarty]

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.

More information from all manufacturers

[Raedwald]

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.

Re:More information from all manufacturers

[jonnythan]

I have a PC with 3 80GB 7200 RPM drives, a CD drive, a floppy drive, and 3 DIMMS with an Athlon 1200 that runs fine with a generic 250W PS that came with the $15 case.

Re:More information from all manufacturers

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

One jury-rigged solution to this is to find an old AT PSU (where the power button goes directly to the PSU rather than the motherboard) and use that to power your hard drives.

Tim

Re:More information from all manufacturers

[ewhac]

...it only takes a high-end PC with 3 modern HDDs [ ... ] to overload a 400W PSU.

Two words for you, dude: Staggered spinup. All SCSI drives have it as a jumpered option these days.

...Unless, of course, you're using IDE drives, in which case you're screwed.

Schwab

Re:More information from all manufacturers

[Raedwald]

Says ewhac:

Staggered spinup. All SCSI drives have it as a jumpered option these days.

Not all drives have it as a jumpered option. Some only have the option not to auto-spinup the disk, in which case you have to spin it up later under software control. Says mjwise:

Every computer I've had since about 1997 with more than one IDE drive in it staggered the spinup of the drives

I believe that 'slave' IDE disks often have a spinup delay, which means all your IDE disks spin up in two groups (the masters, then the slaves). For SCSI staggered spinup the spinup delay is proportional to the SCSI ID, so you can (if you wish) spinup the disks one at a time--not quite the same thing.

Re:Tom's Recommended/NOT-Recommended Power Supplie

[Tackhead]

> Since they're already quite sufficiently Slashdotted, I'd say we've given them more than enough page views.

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.

Weight indicative of power output?

[phorm]

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.

Re:Weight indicative of power output?

[default luser]

The heaviest things in a powersupply are the transformer and the massive heatsink. Of course, you will also notice a bit more heft if they don't use the cheaper thinner sheet metal for the case too.

Very simple. A larger transformer can handle more current.

A large heatsink can mean ONLY ONE THING: the powersupply needs to dissappate large amounts of power lost to inefficiency. But this can have two causes - either the PS is efficient, but truely capable of high power, or the PS is inefficient, and they're trying to palm it off to you.

Re:Weight indicative of power output?

[Reziac]

Not just weight, but check also the number of power leads and how heavy the wires are. More and heavier is better. If the mfgr skimped on something as cheap as wire, chances are they skimped on other things too, not so readily visible.

My "best" p/s makes the case innards look like a kudzu patch (7 leads plus the motherboard leads, all heavyweight wire as such things go) but it's been under heavy load 24/7 for most of the 8 years since I bought it, without so much as a blip.

PSU's with builtin UPS!

[KjetilK]

What I really like to see is a PSU with an builtin Uninteruptable Power Supply!

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... :-)

Re:PSU's with builtin UPS!

[ngoy]

In a cost/benefit analysis, you would find that a combo unit would be a bad thing. Kind of like a tv/vcr combo, or a scan/copy/fax/printer.

Although the integration of the components makes it cheaper for the manufacturer to produce (to a certain extent) what happens to you when one part fails? You are screwed! PSU dead with working UPS = useless. Likewise the inverse. At least if they are separate you can repair one or the other and not have both sent out. If you have a tv/vcr combo and the vcr goes out, you are out of tv until it gets fixed. If the TV goes out, well, doesn't do any good to have a vcr, plus you won't have it anyways since it will be out for service.

But the corporations love selling people this integrated crap, because they know that you will sooner buy a new one than wait for it be replaced or repaired. Have you seen the cost of repairing electronics recently?

ngoy

EMI is a problem too

[John Jorsett]

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.

Antec TruePower 480w

[macdaddy]

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.

Failures should be reported to UL and CPSC

[Animats]

Power supplies that blow up or catch fire should be reported to Underwriters's Laboratories and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. These are online forms, but I'd suggest certified mail as well, with pictures. This is inexcusable.

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.

Re:Failures should be reported to UL and CPSC

[og_sh0x]

A lot of foreign import (esp. Chinese) power supplies have the UL label on them but never actually got the UL listing. As usual, the Chinese feel free to do this because it's not against the law in their country to illegaly affix this label to their equipment. If you find that a faulty power supply is falsely labeled as UL listed you can, however, go after the store that sold you the illegal power supply (it becomes illegal when it crosses the border).

Re:Failures should be reported to UL and CPSC

[shepd]

Illegally labelling power supply conformance is more common than your local computer store would like to admit.

Sometimes it's predone (as in stuck on the Power Supply in China). Usually these stickers are cheap fakes. I personally recall some "CSB" approved power supplies coming into Canada at some point.

The worst is when its done inside the country. I've seen computer companies send CSA stickers to IT shops because they got tired of hearing "This computer isn't CSA certified" complaints.

It sucks if you have to double check all your power supplies for conformance, but I think its worth the time if you're planning to buy quite a few.

Spec Fudging: A Long and Sordid History

[ewhac]

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

Re:ATX + AT power supply

[Hydro-X]

Somehow I can't be tempted to follow instructions on modifying electrical components with the potency to electrocute me using instructions that refer to me as "u".

Where do you buy these?

[alue]

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?

Floppy drives

[jridley]

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.

eMachines Power Supplies...

[MsGeek]

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.

I concur

[sheldon]

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.

earthing cables get you women

[inputsprocket]

I have an earthing cable that attaches to my wrist and plugs into the electrical socket....

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.

How About Using LESS POWER?

[ink]

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.

Re:How About Using LESS POWER?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just it, computers *ARE* getting more efficient, they are just doing a lot more. Consider how many ops/sec your current system could do, and how many your old system from 6 years ago could do.

Remember, you have the equivalent of a several Cray supercomputers circa 1972 parked on your desk. A single Cray supercomputer of that vintage drew enough current that they had to use cryogenic cooling. Not so bad in that context, huh?

You want a system that draws less power? Ditch GUI's, stick to vi and precompiled kernels, and run it on an older system.

Re:How About Using LESS POWER?

[_|()|\|]

Am I the only person who is sick of computers requiring such obscene amounts of power?

You have a choice in the matter. If you want top of the line performance, get an Athlon or a Pentium 4 (50 - 70 W) with power-hungry components. Otherwise, you can get a Celeron (25 W), a K6-III+ (20 W), or a C3 (10 W) with one hard drive and a video card that doesn't require active cooling.

I bought a little FlexATX bare-bones system that's a little smaller than a bread box. I put in a 5,400 RPM drive and a Celeron 850. The only fan is in the 100 W power supply.

Radeon 9700

[nuxx]

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.

Dead fans and bad service

[shadowj]

My roommate and I have a habit of buying relatively low-end, behind-the-curve computers, using 'em for a year or two, and then dumping 'em (either selling them or giving them away). We've been doing this for ten years or more.

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.

THE WINNER ACTUALLY IS A SPARKLE POWER SUPPLY

[honold]

see the fsp in the model number of the winners? fsp = fortron source power. fortron source power owns sparkle.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit =m anufactory&manufactory=1389&catalog=58&DEPA=1&sort by=14&order=1

click 'see picture' on the 300w/$27 unit and you'll see the EXACT SAME model number as the winner.

Re:don't you think?

[blincoln]

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?

Dont forget to buy a quality UPS

[bogie]

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.

Re:Dont forget to buy a quality UPS

[enigma48]

Buying a UPS to filter/condition power is a good idea but don't relax too much. I purchased a higher-end UPS (retails for at least a few hundred; online power conditioning) and while it has been a lifesave, I've still had power supplies blow up.

Just a week ago, my computer shut down suddenly while using it - power supply looked to tbe the problem. (PS fan won't spin, a quiet noise started in the lower frequencies and kept increasing - but the MB "power" LED was still on)

Got it back to the computer shop and they decide to double check - I kindly asked they unplug the MB/HD. I had my back turned to the PC and the room lit up something fierce for a fraction of a second.

I've had good luck - I've seen two PSs blow through my life and they haven't taken the computer with them. Yet.

Fan !== power supply

[Reziac]

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.

Power Supplies

[Chanc_Gorkon]

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??

Power PC and Cooling???

[acoustix]

What about Power PC and Cooling?

They also make some nice high-end power supplies.

Re:don't you think?

[Reziac]

I hadn't heard about this.. what's that about doctored screenshots??

Re:don't you think?

[blincoln]

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.

Mutton dressed up as Lamb... as per usual...

[Shanep]

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.

Silicon Graphics Indy

[lostchicken]

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.

Enermax customer service is top of the line

[kidlinux]

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.
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. ;) I don't think I've ever heard of customer service that great.

Phony/UL-uncertified power supplies

[Animats]

Let's go to the UL certification database (which, unfortunately, only seems to work for MS Internet Explorer), and check out the power supplies tested by Tom's Hardware.

• Engelking -- no find
• PC World -- no find
• Verax -- no find
• Noise Magic -- no find
• Chieftek -- no find
• Zalman ZM3003-APF -- Passed UL and CSA certification testing, certificates QQGQ2.E198072 (US), QQGQ8.E198072 (Canada).
• CP4 -- no find
• Antec True-380 -- Passed UL and CSA certification testing, certificates QQGQ2.E176105 (US), QQGQ8.E176105 (Canada).
• Conrad -- no power supplies found
• Levicom -- no find
• Herolchi -- no find
• TSP -- no power supplies found
• Maxtron -- no find
• Enermax EG365AX-VE -- Found Enermax EG365PX-VE(+) in database, certified for US and Canada. US certificate QQGQ2.E134014.
• SCS -- no find
• Coba -- no find
• Seaconic -- no find
• Task -- various companies use that name, no power supplies found.
• Channel Well CWT-300ATX -- Passed UL and CSA certification testing, certificates QQGQ2.E161451 (US), QQGQ8.E161451 (Canada)
• Topower TOP-320 P4 -- found Topower TOP-320y, passed UL and CSA certification testing, certificates QQGQ2.E130843 (US), QQGQ8.E130843 (Canada).
• Leadman LP-6100E - found Leadman LP-6100A through LP-6100D, but not LP-6100E. US certificate QQGQ2.E107407 for earlier models.

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.

Re:Phony/UL-uncertified power supplies

[Animats]

No, it's not legal. You can't print your own UL sticker; only a UL-authorized label printer can do that for you. On authorized stickers, all the data has to match the database. Beyond this, many UL-listed items made in China (including most electrical products) require a special hologram UL label with a "floating UL", due to previous label counterfeiting problems. US Customs spot-checks for this, and seizes tons of counterfeit merchandise each year.

So some of those power supply labels probably are phony.

Interesting miss

[Ilgaz]

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.

Re:Can we get a big "Don't try this at home"

[Ilgaz]

This is flamebait? People, see this as a reason why you should metamoderate.

power coefficient?

[Merlin42]

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'

Re:don't you think?

[Reziac]

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.