Dangerous PSU

[Silverbullet]

I know that cheap powersupplies can sometimes cause spontanous reboots or just die completely

But is there any damage it can do to the motherboard, cpu or videocard thats perment?

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Depends on the supply - some cheap ones, like the many different faces of Deer, lack the necessary protection circuitry to protect themselves and anything attached to them. These can kill a number of things in a system when they die.

[katka]

I heard that Aillied PSUs have a tendecy to catch fire when they die. I'd avoid those if I were you.

But if you need a cheap PSU get a Sparkle. There really good and cheap.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Allied/Foxconn/Austin/US-Can/L&C supplies are all Deer units - Foxconn is the parent company.

[katka]

Really? I didn't know that.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Unfortunately...

I'm assuming they keep marketing them under different names now because Deer got such a bad reputation for having such a high failure rate. But of course they still want to make a profit while selling them dirt cheap so they cut corners more than they should.

I really wish I could post pics of my old 250 Deer - it lasted a year, but there are obvious places inside where it overheated. The unit was powering my old Duron 700, and I am very lucky everything stayed working.

[Daemonfly]

I've had a L&C catch fire :)

I've also had one fail & take out the mobo.

So, yes, when el-cheapo PSUs fail ,they can do a lot more damage than just frying themselves.

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

a POWMAX killed my brother's ram and damaged his mobo so that it won't detect default voltages correctly and undervolts a lot

[vonkaar]

Yup... I had a 400w POWMAX that blew up on me... literally. I *so* wish I had a video camera when it happened... I was troubleshooting something with my HDD when it happened. I plugged everything back in and powered it on... nothing happened for 10-15 seconds and then I just started hearing a BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM popping... like a small firecracker. There were bright flashes showing through the slits of the PSU and it went on for about 5 seconds, then nothing. I was late for work, so I sorta panicked... unplugged everything and stuck the whole case in my bathtub... in case it caught fire in an empty house =p.

Came home to assess the damage. CPU was charred underneath. No visible damage on top, but the whole underside of the die was blackened. I haven't tried the motherboard again, but it was only an ECS k7s5a P.O.S. so I'm not too concerned. The PSU was WAY screwed up on the inside. There were black char marks around the large transformer looking things, as well as on the board where the capacitors connected. It was pretty awesome looking.

So yeah... a bad PSU can totally screw up your machine. Don't buy POWMAX!

[Zerileous]

thats scary, i had no idea that PSUs were made so cheeply.

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

funny thing is, the 400w POWMAX that damaged my brother's stuff is still alive and kickin! we just don't have the balls to put it in another machine, time for the trash POWMAX!

[huneycutt]

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html

Tom's article really amazed me and I am certain it will amaze you also. Please read it and get an education on PSU's.

I use one of the three best, FORTRON also known as FSP Group.
The more expensive hubba-hubba, dual fan, gold grills, shrink wrap wires, zippity-dee-doo-dah PSU's are not always the best in quality and certainly not price. Under stress tests a lot of the hot dog PSU's failed where the FORTRON took a licking and kept on ticking. Newegg has them for $37.00 including shipping and that's a darn good price on one of the top three PSU's. The FORTRON has a temp monitor that controls fan speed. Normal temps the fan runs slow, temps increase and and fan speed increases accordingly. Eliminate the guess work, read Tom's PSU stress test results and review.

Can a malfunctioning PSU wipe ot a MB and CPU? You bet'cha!
The importance of a high quality PSU is the most overlooked component in computers. Do you and your precious box a favor and do not settle for anything but the best. OldBird

[MameXP]

Hmm this thread make me to tell you about my generic psu300w...

I got this long time ago (~1.5yrs) as i recall its in a Deer box. Anyway, what amaze me that its the best one i ever used. Well what i mean by saying best is that it ALWAYS OVERVOLTAGES a little. Yes i have tested it with Enermax 350w and Antec True 430w
Here is the spec:
1700+@2.2ghz , KX7-333, 1x 512mb kingmax, 2x 40g Maxtor 7.2k, Asus TI4200 8x 128mb, 1xLG CDBurner, 3x80mm fans, volcano 9 with SFII

Test results (after running prime for 5hrs):
Enermax 350w: vCore 1.69v, +3.3 : 3.2v, +5.0 : 4.78v; +12 : 11.84v

Antec True 430w: vCore 1.71v, +3.3 : 3.4v, +5.0 : 4.97v; +12 : 11.92v

Generic Deer 300w: vCore 1.72v, +3.3 : 3.5v, +5.0 : 5.02v; +12 : 12.34v

vCore was set to 1.7v in bios, rails are measured in MBM5

As you can see my generic psu showed the best voltage rails, and so i want to have pro ideas about this. IS it good or not?? will it harm my motherboard & components??
I'm totally confused, all my friend said i'm lucky b/c it shows the best voltage rails ever.

MameXP,

[huneycutt]

I'm afraid you're over my head here and I do not know specific answers to your questions. However, I do know that low voltage it as bad as high voltage and keeping the voltage constant and within accetable paramaters is a must for long life for your MB, CPU and other components. Perhaps someone else can tell you specifically what the acceptable voltage ranges high or low are.

My ASUS board has a voltage monitor and if the voltage is off to much one way or the other the alarm starts clicking. That's the only way I know to tell if the PSU is functioning properly.

Hey, for $37.00 the FORTRON is cheap insurance and I wouldn't take a chance on wiping out a CPU or MB. Hope you get it fixed.

[1-Man-Army]

hey im just wondering are turbo link power supplys good or they suck?

[huneycutt]

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html

I never went farther than reading Tom's tests because I if Tom blesses it that's good enough for me. I mean, he really rung those suckers out from stem to stern. If you read the article I think you'll have a good education on quality PSU's. Never heard power link but if I did I'd go back to square one and stick with what Tom suggests.

Again, for $37.00 the FORTRON FSP-350-60BN 350W is a hard bargain to beat. That is one of Tom's best three PSU's.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&manufactory=1919&catalog=58&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1

[TommyDee291]

Appearently, all those Foxconn/Allied units are all bad from what users here say. When I was building my PC last summer, I was on newegg ordering parts.... Got to the PSU part and I really did not think a PSU was such an important part of a computer till I read this forum. I bought an Allied 350 Watt because it was cheap and got decent reviews from the people on newegg. Well, Thankfully I haven't had any explosions or fires from my PSU. It runs fine expect for the fan which is making an annoying noise occasionally. My rails sometimes flucuate which is bad. Anyway, Im going to be buying a Fortron 350 Watt which can output 454 watts at newegg. Like everyone says here, cheap and I mean cheap insurance.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

The only Turbolink units I trust are those made by Channel Well (model number starts with CWT) - I've seen evidence they use other manufacturers as well. Also, some have complained about these not being up to par.

As for MameXP's 300w Deer that overvoltages everything, I would suggest taking the voltage readings with a multimeter - the BIOS and MBM are not accurate at all. While the readings on the Deer look good, it doesn't change the fact that it likely has no protection circuitry at all in it; and if it ever goes it will probably take other components in the system with it. I would put that Truepower back in the system asap ;)

[huneycutt]

You got it TommyDee. I read an article that said when people build a computer they give serious consideration and research to everything but quite often fail to give the PSU due credit and buy top notch. I made that error, you made the same error and thousands have done the same. Thanks to forums like this we can all learn together and share our knowledge. This internet is indeed a marvelous resource whereby we can be ignorant on most any subject and by doing research on the web be pretty well up to speed in a half hour or so.

Case in point; We needed a new dishwasher and wanted a ultra-quiet one that did a good job. I knew from diddley-squat about dishwashers but after an hour on the web I knew exactly what would fulfill our requirements. Bought one and it is a honey and thanks to the web we got it right the first time at an affordable price.

Really a pleasure hangin' with you good folks and ya'll have a fine week end. OldBird