Slashdot Mirror
Brand Names Take On Generics In PSU Showdown
The Raindog writes "The power supply is perhaps the most overlooked element of a modern PC, and yet it's the one component that can irreparably damage the rest of a system. The market is littered with generic PSUs that are often much cheaper than name-brand alternatives, but can you trust them? The Tech Report aims to find out in its latest power supply round-up, which compares the performance, efficiency, and noise levels of a collection of reputable PSUs with some budget, no-name competition. As it turns out, any money you save on a generic PSU purchase will likely cost you more in the long run."
And before you think that all your PSUs are failing because you bought them on the cheap, you should also check your UPS. I had 13 PSUs die at Suso and thought it was just horrible luck with power supplies, until I realized that the 5 year old UPS that those servers were on was having issues. Since I replaced it, haven't had any problems since. *knock* *knock*
Generic power supplies are an awful plague upon our fair world. Why, just last week I was using my homebrew PSU rack to power my uncle's hospice life support system. Now I'm going to his funeral this weekend. Tragic, just tragic...
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Actually, some friends of mine had a no-name PSU explode, literally. One of the electrolytic caps decided it had had enough. I replaced it with an Antec and no problems for as long as they used it.
Oh, and the Antec PSU in my personal machine died one day, possibly because it was plugged into an 11-year-old surge protector. I got a free replacement (minus shipping), and the replacement is a nicer unit and handles more power.
Say what you will, but their service is nothing to complain about.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They should have checked each power supply for a UL marking, and an entry in the UL Certification Database. Things seem to be getting better, though; the power supplies tested did not blow up or catch fire at full load. That's a big improvement from a few years ago.
The basic UL requirements are 1) no overload problems at full load, 2) no explosion or fire under output overload/short conditions, and 3) no single component failure can cause a fire (i.e. there should be a fuse of some kind in there.) It's permitted for an overloaded unit to fail and never work again; that's not a safety issue. Some no-name power supplies had real problems meeting those basic conditions.
Right. Bose is one of the best brands of speakers, and neon lights make your computer go faster. Sorry, but Antec is all marketing and no quality. All the ricer overclockers want to believe that Antec PSUs make their computers +0.2% faster, but the truth is, Antec uses some of the lowest quality parts in their PSUs and if you check something like badcaps.net, you'll realize that Antec is one of the most commonly reported brands in the PSU category, and most widely complained about brand in the forums.
Except, of course, for the Antec EarthWatts. And the TruePower series. Both of which are... made by Seasonic.
Google may use cheap shit, but they can do so because their reliability comes in the form of redundancy. When you have a lot of systems, you can set them up so that no one failure has any real impact on your service. It's like a RAID-5 array. The disks themselves may not be that reliable but the overall array is because if one fails, you lose nothing you just replace it. Likewise a RAID-6 is more reliable since two can fail, and so on.
However, people at home don't have that luxury. I have one main computer. If it fails, I'm SOL until I get replacement parts. If a bad PSU takes out other components, I'm more screwed. So I have to go through reliability of the components themselves, get better components so they fail less often.
jonnyguru.com is probably the best site for power supply reviews. the guy does FULL disassembly, even removing rectifiers and diodes and stuff. Because of this he is able to determine what OEM manufactured every power supply he tests, and also gives you comments that, if you payed enough attention, would allow YOU to determine the layouts typical of each OEM. He's also the guy that started using an actual load tester to test power supplies, instead of testing them by placing them in systems. The ORIGINAL hard core power supply test site!
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
Taking an old 300 watt atx power supply apart to make a variable 0-5v and 0-12v bench power supply for electronics projects will teach you what you will need to know about quality of components if you have a decent DMM, or better a USB scope to see the difference when you switch out caps and other components. An often overlooked problem with cheap power supplies is that bad soldering and cheap PCBs cause the capacitors to work harder to move the same amount of charge. This effects voltage as it relates to capacitance's formula C = Q/V and its integral (dammit give me MathML) sigh read Wikipedia's definition. Doesn't matter how good your caps are if the circuit was soldered by someone being paid slave wages working 14 hour shifts. The real cost of the plenitude of cheap electronics is going to be an interesting story. Besides the obvious horrors of the places of manufacture in Asia and the dumping grounds in Africa where similar autoimmune disorders, cancers and genetic abnormalities are rampant is the story of what happens between those two places. It is not just the disposable aspect that technology plays in our culture that fascinates me but how little knowledge of the design and manufacture of technology is present in the people that purchase it, sell it or even repair it. PC techs without any electronics understanding are the worse, "Who needs an anti-static work area when I can use any flat surface including a pizza box?" and than wonder why they have half a dozen motherboards laying around the house that won't work. /rant
If I have the time before Xmas I will post my pics and schematics on my blog. Did it for an EE project. Working on LCDs and circuitry to display voltage and amperage (currently have 4 lobotomized dmm pcb w/ attached backlit lcd doing a reading each.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Funny.
I've been "doing" computers since the early 90s. I've never had much problem with power supplies. And I do mean *never*.
I took an ancient, generic 286 computer, and upgraded it through 386SX, 486 DX/2, Cx 6x86, and AMD Athlon motherboards before finally switching to ATX. It was a cheezy, god-only-knows-who-made it power supply that came from a 'not-quite-aluminum-foil' AT case.
And I've done plenty of computers since. I've *always* bought the cheapest, craptastic cases and power supplies, and generally had years of excellent service before dying. I'd say my average life expectancy for a power supply is over 5 years, and I say that because I generally give up on the computer before the power supply dies.
What makes a computer last a long, LONG time?
1) Under-clock the CPU. Really. 10-20% makes a significant difference in reliability because it runs cooler, but almost never makes enough difference to notice for real-world, day-to-day usability. As you approach the thermal limits of our CPU, the longevity drops off sharply. 10% makes a *huge* difference.
2) Dust out the computer every year or so. Dust is an insulator, which causes heat "hot spots" that play hell with components.
3) Replace the fans regularly. I keep servers running for years on years on years by replacing the fans every other year or so. Along with dusting out the server, they keep on ticking far longer than you ever thought possible. I've had systems last well over 10 years with decent reliability by doing this when performance simply wasn't an issue.
4) Don't turn it off! Computers that are turned on/off every day last a few years. Servers that are babysat, running 24x7 at a consistent temperature run damn near forever. This costs money, so run the numbers to see what uptimes vs power consumption really costs you.
I've never noticed power supplies (cheap, expensive) being much of an issue. I've seen craptastically cheap hardware run under heavy loads for a very long time without complaint, and I've seen plenty of expensive, "high end" hardware die well before it's expected life time. /shrug/
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I think most problems would be with older equipment made in the days when both the US and the EU countries were trying to make inroads in the Chinese suppliers. For a time the certification bodies seemed to go a little crazy and let the Chinese get away with murder because they all wanted to be the primary Chinese certification body. One of the best incidents I remember was an auditor going around a Chinese plant with ISO 9002 certification. All the documentation was there, all the procedures written up. In English. And no-one in the entire factory spoke English. I doubt this is the case with electricals any more.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
"You can hide a multitude of sins behind one of those "Warranty void if broken" paper seals. ;)"
Slashdot has one of those.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I've never underclocked a CPU, don't replace fans unless they break or get noisy and turn my computer off an average of two times a day. Never, ever has a computer broken even though I'm ignoring 3 of your rules.
The thing is my above observation means absolutely nothing as the sample is far to small to be of any statistical significance. I expect the same is true for your experience with PSUs. If someone has done testing on a reasonable scale, in monitored condition then it would be of real use to people buying 100s of units who want to minimise TCO.
I tend to buy reasonably good PSUs but mainly because I'm after energy efficiency (which is also why I power down twice a day).
Here's a partial list:
I've seen companies use components rated at or just below their stated current rating in order to save money (using 8 amp transistors in a 10 amp supply, for example). They'll often work right out of the box, but, since there's no margin built in they will run hot and eventually fail. As to component quality, take it from someone who designs and manufactures precision instrumentation, I can tell you that there can be an enormous difference in quality from one manufacturer to another. "considering all the parts are mass manufactured, anyway" is not a valid argument.
We've had the opposite experience of HP power supplies, we just had to replace 70 HP supplies. When machines started failing in the field, I found that there was massive amounts of ripple on the 12v and 5v lines. When I disassembled the PSU it wasn't hard to tell why - bulging and leaking capacitors.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Among other things granted to the Chinese during the Clinton administration was the relaxation of having to meet FCC part 15 subpart B for electronics. Some Chinese power supplies put out tremendous amounts of RF all across the spectrum. Might check that too if you are having problems with radio reception. When I can get them I always buy Taiwan made power supplies because #1 they are better engineered and built, and #2 they do not radiate RF. They have to meet the RF emissions requirements. So far I've had a large failure rate of Chinese power supplies because of being under engineered and the poorly made components. Electronics are like everything else being made in China today. They cut corners and mismanage and put out crap clothes, electronics, baby food, pet food, toys, medicines, and every body just keeps letting them get by with it. Most of my Chinese made shirts don't come with pockets anymore, the thread count of the cloth is lower, the sewing thread is smaller diameter and of poorer quality. The seams are sewn right up against the edges so they rip out in the washing machine and buttons disappear after a few washings too. And if you take medicines ask your pharmacist what the country of origin is. It might surprise the hell out of you. Almost everything I take now (blood pressure and kidney meds) are made in India. That scares the bejesus out of me too but not nearly as much as Chinese made meds.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Yes, I agree that jonnyguru.com is the best review source for PSU stability (noise and transients are measured with oscilloscope and compared with ATX specs) and build quality (inside pics and commentary on components used). If you additionally care about the noise your PSU is making at various loads, silentpcreview.com has those measurements. I bought a couple of power supplies based on the review on to those two sites, and never had issues stability or noise wise.