Power Supply Reference Guide

[JTH]

Could someone tell me if Dragon Technologies are good are bad?

[i486]

Are cyberzone PSUs any good? I bought a ****ty $30 case and it came with a 400w cyberzone psu with 4 molex connectors.

[Hi Ho]

Are cyberzone PSUs any good? I bought a ****ty $30 case and it came with a 400w cyberzone psu with 4 molex connectors.

Most likely not. One sign is that it came with a case, an inexpensive case and claims 400 watts. Another sign is that it only has 4 molex connectors. My 360w Enlight has 7. I would replace it.

[i486]

It can't be that bad. The voltages show:
5vsb: 4.5v
3.3v:3.1v
5v: 5.3v
12v: 12.4v
vcore:1.1v

[Hi Ho]

What are the amp ratings for each rail?

[i486]

+5v:25a
+3.3v: 20a
+12v: 15a
-12v: 1a
-5v: 1a
+5vsb: 2a

The model number is kc400

[bigandy]

i486: A lot of times on the lesser PSU's, they put those ratings on there, but rarely do they produce them.

I'm with Hi Ho, if the case costed $30, and the PSU claims 400W, it's time to replace it.

[Hi Ho]

The amp ratings, which are probably over rated already, are low. In a good power supply the +12v will be AT LEAST 16 amps. 30 is the bare minimum on the +5v rail and 40 is recommended. The +3.3v rail is 5 amps below the minimum as well. Why risk your entire system to save $30?

[thorlo6]

Hey bigandy, HIHO, would somebody bother to answer my question back on page 1? What about Startech PSU's? Are they any good or not?thorlo6

[bigandy]

They seem a little iffy to me. Take a look at the reviews linked to by AMDMB for Startech (scroll down a bit). The 480W Slient PSU seemed to be the best of the bunch, but the others seemed to be borderline. Not to mention they also look a little too expensive for what you're getting. You can get a great power supply for much less than what these sell for.

[thorlo6]

Actually, you can get one from CompUSA fairly inexpensively. They have them under their name, but, when you open the box it is a startech PSU. Any way, go figure.thorlo6

[mystvearn]

Are voltage fluctuations ok? Like for the 12V rail, keep changing between 12V then 11.94V. For the 5V, its 5.08V, then 5.13V. The 3.3V rail is static at 3.34V. Changes occur, but not too fast, like 10 seconds per change.

[Richolmes72]

Anyone heard of JSP-Tech? I bought it seperately from the Case, its 550w, silent, dual fan with blue leds, 6 molex and an acrylic top, is working really well for me so far.

Superflower also sells under the ATLAS brand so i guess you can add that to the good list, which i think they use for their cheaper PSU's. Mine made a racket but never packed up when it had a lot of swapping around when a generic psu in another computer packed in.

[bigandy]

Only 6 Molex Connectors on a 550W PSU?!?! There should be way more than that.

Originally posted by Hi Ho My 360w Enlight has 7.

[TwoRails]

Originally posted by bigandy Only 6 Molex Connectors on a 550W PSU?!?! There should be way more than that.

Ya, but the 6th one will start your car! LOL - j/k. I didn't research it, but it looks like they may have other attachments to sell, like maybe double / triple headers?

[Berethorn]

Has anyone heard of "Ultra" power supplies? Tigerdirect sells alot of them...

[Hi Ho]

They are most likely generic. Generally names with "Ultra" or "Max" (except Enermax) are generic and should be avoided. Cheesy names usually go with cheesy products.

[kev7555]

OK, I've been reading here to see if I got taken for a ride on this cheap $19 ATX case.

It's got an MGE P.S. www.mge-usa.com (didn't see that listed here as good, bad or unknown).
It's light (bad, I'm told) but at 350 watts the +12 shows 16 amps, the +5 is 35 amps and the +3.3 shows 28 amps.


I'ts powering an ABIT V-12 MBoard, AMD Athlon XP 2500+ barton core, 512 meg RAM, no pc cards installed, one MSI burner, one floppy, all on-board graphics and sound.
The case came with an aux front-mounted 80MM cooling fan also.

Am I cool or am I fool?

Anyone want to chime in and let me know if I should replace this guy?

Thanks in advance,

-Kev

[Hi Ho]

I would replace it simply for peace of mind. A lightweight power supply in a nineteen dollar case is not very reassuring. I was in the same situation as you. I had a cheap PowMax case with a cheap PowMax power supply though it was causing many problems that I would never have attributed to a power supply. It also killed two video cards in three months. Since I replaced it with an Enlight 360w everything has been fine.

[kev7555]

Dats all I wanted to know. Thanks Pard. (and thanks for the quick response).

Power supplys are cheap.

-Kev

[mrthoirs]

The list is great it helped out alot but do you know if chieftec make good PSU ?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by mrthoirs The list is great it helped out alot but do you know if chieftec make good PSU ?

I heard Chieftec power supplies are rebadged ChannelWell PSUs...they aren't too bad.

Cricket

[jcrocker7]

Hi, everyone. Got a question about a power supply for my Sony Vaio desktop PC. The model of the PC is PCV-RS530G. The power supply is from Delta Electronics, it's only a 266 watt unit. I am concerned that this may not be adequate for the computer since my wife and I have made several improvements to the components of the system since buying it.

Unfortunately, upon examining the power supply we discovered that it is not a standard size. Its dimensions are 4"(l) x 7"(w) x 3.5"(h).

My question is how important is it to find a unit that is an exact match for these dimensions? I understand that Sony uses proprietary hardware for their systems and when I contacted them they told me that they do not carry a higher supply than what we currently have.

Thanks all, and I would appreciate any help you could offer.

[GForce64]

Anybody know if Orion PSU's are good or bad? A 420w Orion comes with the NZXT Guardian.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by jcrocker7 Hi, everyone. Got a question about a power supply for my Sony Vaio desktop PC. The model of the PC is PCV-RS530G. The power supply is from Delta Electronics, it's only a 266 watt unit. I am concerned that this may not be adequate for the computer since my wife and I have made several improvements to the components of the system since buying it. Unfortunately, upon examining the power supply we discovered that it is not a standard size. Its dimensions are 4"(l) x 7"(w) x 3.5"(h). My question is how important is it to find a unit that is an exact match for these dimensions? I understand that Sony uses proprietary hardware for their systems and when I contacted them they told me that they do not carry a higher supply than what we currently have. Thanks all, and I would appreciate any help you could offer.

Most name brand computers uses very high quality power supplies in them. After you did the upgrades, did the computer run fine or is it unstable (rebooting or shutting down)? If it's running well, don't worry about the power supply.

Cricket

[IronMentality]

A local PC shop installed a "PowerAge" fan in my PC. Ever since then, I've experienced freezing constantly. I definitely advise people stay away from this one...

My old 250W PSU powered a 1.2 Ghz AMD T-Bird system fine. This 300W POS has caused nothing but trouble.

[parimal]

I have just made one PC for my friend, the configuration goes somewhat like this
1.Pentium 4 2.8E GHz with 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache (Prescott)
2.Asus P4P800-VM motherboard with 865G chipset
3.Kingston ValueRAM 512MB DDR at 400MHz (PC3200) in dual channel (model- KVR400x64C3A)
4.His old Samsung 40GB 5400rpm hard drive (model-SV4002H)
5.Sony 52x32x52 CD-RW drive
6.Sony 1.44MB Floppy drive....etc etc

Now the problem is that I'm not getting desired performance on this system. Norton Antivirus 2003 takes ages to open, Nero also responding very slow, same story with the photoshop 7......also sometimes this system gets hang..! I have observed one thing, hard drive LED on cabinet gets constantly busy even when system is idlle....once this happened that I was just checking BIOS settings and at that time HDD LED on cabinet was red...constantly..!! I thought this may be becoz of bad HDD, so i just plugged my HDD which is of 40GB, 7200rpm (and of course in very good condition )...but the problem remains the same. The hard drive makes some kind of constant unusal sound. What should be the problem......Please help!
-Parimal.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by parimal I have just made one PC for my friend, the configuration goes somewhat like this 1.Pentium 4 2.8E GHz with 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache (Prescott) 2.Asus P4P800-VM motherboard with 865G chipset 3.Kingston ValueRAM 512MB DDR at 400MHz (PC3200) in dual channel (model- KVR400x64C3A) 4.His old Samsung 40GB 5400rpm hard drive (model-SV4002H) 5.Sony 52x32x52 CD-RW drive 6.Sony 1.44MB Floppy drive....etc etc Now the problem is that I'm not getting desired performance on this system. Norton Antivirus 2003 takes ages to open, Nero also responding very slow, same story with the photoshop 7......also sometimes this system gets hang..! I have observed one thing, hard drive LED on cabinet gets constantly busy even when system is idlle....once this happened that I was just checking BIOS settings and at that time HDD LED on cabinet was red...constantly..!! I thought this may be becoz of bad HDD, so i just plugged my HDD which is of 40GB, 7200rpm (and of course in very good condition )...but the problem remains the same. The hard drive makes some kind of constant unusal sound. What should be the problem......Please help! -Parimal.

Cross Post.

Why did you put this post in the power supply thread?

Cricket

[ComputerDragon79]

I have a question about Power Supply buying. How important a factor is PFC when buying a power supply?

[TwoRails]

Originally Posted by ComputerDragon79 I have a question about Power Supply buying. How important a factor is PFC when buying a power supply?

The following quote is taken from Here:

...But please note that the power factor has nothing to do with power efficiency. One should not be misled into thinking that PFC is a miracle feature that boosts a power supply's efficiency from 60% to 95%, thereby saving you a lot of money in electricity bills. It's just not going to happen. Right now, most, if not all, high-end power supplies come with PFC circuitry to meet EU standards, particularly if the manufacturer has a presence in Europe. Of course, there are still plenty of cheap, non-PFC power supplies in the market. But eventually, all power supplies will come with PFC circuitry. If not Active PFC, then the cheaper Passive PFC....