PSU Quality?

[digitalfreedom64]

This is a pretty straight foward question and I fell kinda stupid asking it but i was always told the only stupid question is the question not asked. How do you know when you really have a good power supply.

[roomwithamoose]

The psu is probably one of the most important components of the computer. A bad psu can result in instability, tons of wierd little problems and in the worst case, burning out some or all of your other components.

Check out this thread. It's great, it lets you know all the good brands, all the not so good brands, and what to look for in a psu.

[Vigo]

Originally Posted by crashoverride How do you know when you really have a good power supply.

Truly? When its been a reliable working unit for more than 12 years and when it finally does die it goes quietly and doesnt take anything with it.

Short of reaching the 12 year mark though, the above suggestion is a good way to guesstimate the value of your psu.

[flanzig1]

Aside from the brand of PSU; some physical things to check for:
1: Does the PSU fell heavy for it's size, if yes, that means the heatsinks are of bigger and heavier material. Heavy is good.
2: Look at the wiring harness, good PSU will have heavy gage wire, wires will be neatly in a wire loom or ty-rapped, long enough to work in a full tower case, 5 or more 4 pin molex plugs.
3: Look at the power plug area. There should be a little red switch for 110v or 220v. Cheap ones will leave this switch off.

[mrmister1]

The best way is to look at the list that rwam gave. Other than that, the weight is also a good way to check.

[piasabird]

Power supplies do several things. One thing they do is they convert the power to different voltages for the comptuer like 12v and 5v. This process actually causes some power to be spent during the process and it is released as heat. The electricity wasted the more heat produced the better the heat dissapation has to be. Lets call this an Efficiency rating.

Some power supply create a good supply of power and in the process they put off a lot of heat due to inefficient processes.

I have found that Antec Power Supplies Run Really cool and really quiet.

Power is important but you also want the power supply to run cool and quiet. All three things make a great power supply. Of course you dont want to use a power supply that will blow up and take half your hardware with it either. Look for the power supply list.

Some things on your motherboard require more power in small amounts. For instance if you have a modem or a network card you may want the comptuter to wake up or turn on when you get a call or the network is making a request. This takes power to send signals to your power supply. Even when you power down a computer with windows, the power supply is still actually supplying enough power to do these things. Also affected is power on for keypress, and poweron for mouse activity. All these things affect the power supply.

I always recommend Antec Power Supplies.

Also look at the the wattage amounts on the individual power lines. A power supply creates different voltages and each voltage has its own wattage amount. The total wattage of all the power lines added up make the total wattage of the power supply. This is in theory. Some power supplies do not even make enough wattage to reach their rating. The closer you get to the highest rated voltage for a given power supply the more likely it will blow up or quit working on you. If any wattage on any of the main lines like 12v+-, 5v+-, or 3.3v+- are exceeded, the power supply may quit on you.

Having enough plugs is a good thing also. If the plugs can not reach your drives when you are using a full sized tower that can cause problems. They do make extensions for server towers to solve this problem but ideally it is better to just have a longer set of wires.

[digitalfreedom64]

Ok I was looking at a powersupply a friend of mine has. I notice the voltages and everything on the side.
+3.3v +5v +12v -5v -12v +5Vsb
40A 40A 20A 0.5A 0.8A 3A
Idealy, what should the bottom row of numbers look like. I think that power supply was supposed to be a 600W.

[Yuanji]

that seems kinda low. it might be generic since the 5V and 3.3V rails are fairly pumped to increase rating but the 12V rail is low for a PSU of that high rating. a 500-600W good quality should have 25-35A on the 12V rail

[JPMiller]

Yuanji,... Do you have any idea how few PSU's have that kind of amperage on the +12V rail? (this is a common thing to hear so don't take it personally)
Even some of the highest quality, most respected, most expensive models (including the one in your own sig) have no more than 18Amps
Rarely you'll see higher, but from what Ive been able to see it is also RARELY needed...
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It definitely depends on what components, what platform, how many drives, fans, lights etc...
The supplies that are suspect are the ones with hugely inflated +5 and +3.3 rails and overly low +12V.
Its a no#'s race just like in everything else... Most of you would be amazed to find out how few of you or anyone else with even a heavily burdened system, needs more than a good 350watt PSU...
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I have a Sparkle 350Wtt That has been through 3 different systems, and is over 6 Yrs old... The rails are rock solid, its quiet, and basically never fluctuates under any conditions...
I have a decent system with allot of extras being powered...
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Granted newer generation systems use more power and commonly put in allot more power consuming "bling" extras, but realistically they will still not using as much power as most people seem to expect...
Ive built more than one current generation system for people, filling them with high speed, high capacity drives, power consumptive video cards, lots of lights and fans, etc... and as long as I use a good quality PSU, even the best stress testers fail to cause the voltages to dip or fluctuate...

[JPMiller]

I know alot of this has been covered in a similar thread here covering power supply info.. but Im cutting and pasting something I wrote for another forum.... feel free to point out mistakes or add info Ive missed...
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P.S.U.---- Power Supply Unit
ATX ---- being the most common... used for standard size, current generation, desktop configurations...
Micro-ATX / Also called UATX---- used in slim, micro, flex, and small form factor cases, commonly lower wattage due to the all-inclusive nature of smaller builds...
And then proprietary style PSU's --- specifically made for pre-built commercial names like Dell, Gateway, Compaq, and H.P....
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My first suggestion is to download EverestHome110 personal and install it. This utility not only gives more info than you could possibly want to know about your system, but also gives you real-time measurements of power levels and CPU temps. These can be found under the "Computer" tab, under "Sensor"... The right-hand measurements listed under "Voltage Values" should be VERY close to the first row of values....
+ or - .5 on the positive rails is acceptable, much more than that either way is considered unstable.
If not, you may have either an underpowered supply or a simply poor quality unit.
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Most of us consider the power supply to be an option we simply check off when ordering a case, the higher the supposed Wattage the better.
The truth of the matter is, that it is at the heart of our systems stability, and the one component that can literally destroy all other components in our systems....
It can be at the root of problems ranging from random reboots, to poor performance in general...
Most people are surprised at just how much a PSU can make or break a system...
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First thing to do is find out what power usage you will be working with....
The best way is to use This website to calculate the maximum wattage your system could conceivably use at full load.
Remember that this is ALL components, at peak, all at once... not something that will ever happen in real world conditions.
Then add a little to allow for future power consumption needs, upgrades, mods, etc.
Total Wattage is not the most important concern by any means, however... reliable brands, clean power, and Amp amounts on the main rails is much more important...
Your +12V rail is usually of the most concern for power users. It is what powers most CPU's and fans as well as drives...
lower end PSU's usually have high +5V and +3V rails and underpowered +12V rails...
A good basic list of Good/Bad brands can be found Here
It is not ALL inclusive but does give you some general direction in ruling out the worst options... (I think the Ultra X-Connects, and Seasonic line should be added to the list of good PSU's)
The following links will allow you to do more research and help you to comprehend Power Supplies and the role they play in your system....
Reviews...
http://www.techimo.com/articles/i58.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/
http://www20.tomshardware.com/column...012/index.html
General info...
http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/power_supply/
http://www.howstuffworks.com/power-supply.htm
http://www.greatoffers4u.com/articles/2546
http://www.woodsbas.demon.co.uk/calcs/ohmslaw.htm
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/faqpowersupply.html
http://www.datadepo.com/powerproblems.htm
http://www.leesspace.com/quiet_psu.htm
http://www.speedy3d.com/articles/case_mod_p3/01.shtml
http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/196/1
http://www.directron.com/psu.html
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I would personally like to hear some recommendations on the following brands not listed in the Good/Bad link above...
A GBP Athena
E-Power Tagan (From what I can gather, the Tagan line is considered good, but the basic E-powers are not)
Coolmax... (newer models seem to be better than in past...)
Inwin
Logisys
Rosewill
SilverStone... (has gotten good reviews... looks like it should be added to good list)
Zippy / Emacs
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I would really like to hear from anyone having an Ultra X-Connects PSU, or anyone knowing of a review link I dont already have linked... The modular design seems to be the future of PSU technology, IMO, the 1st real major change to PSU's in awhile...
( found these...)
ViperLair review
HardcoreWare Review
Bit-Tech review
Apocalypse review
Buy at PCPowerZone
buy at Computer Geeks
Buy from CrazyPC
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I would like to promote a deal I've recently found...
This is a ChannelWell/ Sparkle unit from Amamax, for $43 shipped...
This is a quality 420Wtt unit from a good vendor, and a great price...
Here is just one review...

[Yuanji]

wanna see a couple of PSUs with that kind of amperage? he said he had a 600W PSU so i'm going to compare a couple to those.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=273001 34 AMPs
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-918&depa=1 36 Amps
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-918&depa=1 420Watt 30 Amps.

now i'm not saying that you need that high but a 600Watt PSU should output at least 20 if it's good quality. now you don't need to spend 100 on a quality. the thermaltake and enlight 420s are just as good if you don't need the higher power.

[JPMiller]

But thats exactly my point... VERY few units have that kind of Amperage and very few if any are sub-$100.
only people with excessive numbers of drives, and components, and or "extras" have any use for anything like that.. no one normally touches anything close to 600 watts .. under any circumstances... and these companies are basically playing a numbers game like when CDRom drives kept upping the "X" speeds of their drives until disks started to shatter.
600Watts means nothing.... and anything over 18Amps on the +12V rail is overkill for anyone not having a server type application where multiple drives, and other components are being used on a constant basis...
If you do the math and look at it under real world circumstances, most people could easily use a quality 300Watt Fortron or Sparkle PSU with NO problem at all...
and they are one of the most reasonably priced units available...
most of them have between 16 and 18 Amps on the +12V.
2 thirds of the big name pre-builts in service right now are running on extremely low +12V rails... not saying its good.... just that its rarely ever needed.

[Yuanji]

ok but i believe that 600W PSUs should perform better on the 12V rail. if you paid money for a 600W, get your money's worth

[mountainking]

are aspire psus any good? im just wondering. i havent ever heard much about aspire ones. I personally think thermaltake makes the best ones but thats just an oppinion actually.

[JPMiller]

From what I can see, some of the more expensive, newer models arent that bad... but as a general rule they are considered low-end...
They used to be VERY common as "freebie" included PSU's with many different cases...

[Moose on the Loose]

I don't understand why Enermax is on the "bad" list though. I know many people who have Enermax PSU's, and they seem to have solid rails, they're pretty heavy, and I haven't read any computerburn stories.

[Yuanji]

Originally Posted by Moose on the Loose I don't understand why Enermax is on the "bad" list though. I know many people who have Enermax PSU's, and they seem to have solid rails, they're pretty heavy, and I haven't read any computerburn stories.

emermax isn't on the bad list. the ones they include with thier cases aren't enermax PSUs tho.