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does a quality psu offer protections?

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noxiousvegeta

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Aug 13, 2014
hello ^_^ i have a brother that has an old rig, very old, like dual core ect...and i have a bonus corsair powersupply in my house now, and i was wondering, should i sell the powersupply or give it to him? he has an itek, would he get additional protections from a powersupply from corsair? like if a thunder strikes, or the eletricty goes off, would the corsair protect him ? thanks :thup:

(he's power draw is very little, so don't tell me a itek power supply gives less watts, i know that, i want to know what protections a quality power supply gives to the computer, not to the powersupply itself, like shutting off when overheated, if the psu itself blows up we don't really care lol)
 
basicly in some ways yes and in some no.
lightning, no
slight surges perhaps.
us just being just plane stupid, no.
frying stuff because our cheapie psu shorted , yes.
spilling our booze down into the psu, yes, and that one i can attest too.
 
You care if the PSU blows up, depending on the failure mode it can either die peacefully (the better the PSU, the more likely a death will be peaceful) or feed a ton of volts (>100v is possible) to the 12v/5v/3.3v rails.

Better PSUs have OPP/OCP/OVP/OTP as well as some built in surge suppression.
 
caddi daddi said:
basicly in some ways yes and in some no.
lightning, no
slight surges perhaps.
us just being just plane stupid, no.
frying stuff because our cheapie psu shorted , yes.
spilling our booze down into the psu, yes, and that one i can attest too.
Click to expand...

Bobnova said:
You care if the PSU blows up, depending on the failure mode it can either die peacefully (the better the PSU, the more likely a death will be peaceful) or feed a ton of volts (>100v is possible) to the 12v/5v/3.3v rails.

Better PSUs have OPP/OCP/OVP/OTP as well as some built in surge suppression.
Click to expand...



dosen't power supplys blow up because they overheat? how can his power supply overheat if he has a ultra-low power draw out of itek600 watt, hes like using a dual core 3.02 e6600 and gt 520 graphic card
 
Well PSUs cut out if the voltage is too low or high, but if that safety fails you can pop stuff pretty epically.

Safer ones can handle 400v typically, but after that it's a gamble, the basic filtering can't take a real HV surge. You need a proper arrestor or even better a plain-ol isolation transformer.

Not the PSUs fault if keeps powering a piece of hardware which caught fire, that's always fun, especially if the PSU can pump 60+ Amps on the 12v rail without breaking a sweat.
 
noxiousvegeta said:
dosen't power supplys blow up because they overheat? how can his power supply overheat if he has a ultra-low power draw out of itek600 watt, hes like using a dual core 3.02 e6600 and gt 520 graphic card
Click to expand...

They can blow up due to overheating.
They can also blow up due to a defective design.
They can also blow up due to capacitor or transistor failure, which may or may not have much to do with heat.
They can blow up due to overloading, hot or not.
They can blow up due to input spikes.
They can blow up because the $2/week assembly worker left a solder blob inside that happened to hit the gate and drain pins of a MOSFET.

Of those, I'd be worried about at least half (mostly the quality ones) on that Itek.
While your friend is probably only using 100-140w, that PSU is almost certainly not capable of anything close to 600w.

For bonus points, a quality PSU will be within ATX spec.
A cheap junk PSU can and probably will put out potentially damaging amounts of ripple even at low loads, leading to dead parts in the computer.
 
Bobnova said:
They can blow up due to overheating.
They can also blow up due to a defective design.
They can also blow up due to capacitor or transistor failure, which may or may not have much to do with heat.
They can blow up due to overloading, hot or not.
They can blow up due to input spikes.
They can blow up because the $2/week assembly worker left a solder blob inside that happened to hit the gate and drain pins of a MOSFET.

Of those, I'd be worried about at least half (mostly the quality ones) on that Itek.
While your friend is probably only using 100-140w, that PSU is almost certainly not capable of anything close to 600w.

For bonus points, a quality PSU will be within ATX spec.
A cheap junk PSU can and probably will put out potentially damaging amounts of ripple even at low loads, leading to dead parts in the computer.
Click to expand...

Shell said:
Well PSUs cut out if the voltage is too low or high, but if that safety fails you can pop stuff pretty epically.

Safer ones can handle 400v typically, but after that it's a gamble, the basic filtering can't take a real HV surge. You need a proper arrestor or even better a plain-ol isolation transformer.

Not the PSUs fault if keeps powering a piece of hardware which caught fire, that's always fun, especially if the PSU can pump 60+ Amps on the 12v rail without breaking a sweat.
Click to expand...

Bobnova said:
You care if the PSU blows up, depending on the failure mode it can either die peacefully (the better the PSU, the more likely a death will be peaceful) or feed a ton of volts (>100v is possible) to the 12v/5v/3.3v rails.

Better PSUs have OPP/OCP/OVP/OTP as well as some built in surge suppression.
Click to expand...

caddi daddi said:
basicly in some ways yes and in some no.
lightning, no
slight surges perhaps.
us just being just plane stupid, no.
frying stuff because our cheapie psu shorted , yes.
spilling our booze down into the psu, yes, and that one i can attest too.
Click to expand...

how much power would he save (approximatly) going from itek to 80+bronze?
 
Well, let's follow logical steps... If that unit is 70% (at what load is another question, but for simplicity sake we will leave it at 70%), and the bronze is 85% (again load matters but let's continue to be simple). It would use 15% less power from the wall at the same load (since bronze is 85% @ 50% load).

Unless you are running the PC 24/7 its really not a lot of money at all... $1 /month?
 
Last edited:
EarthDog said:
Well, let's follow logical steps... If that unit is 70% (at what load is another question, but for simplicity sake we will leave it at 70%), and the bronze is 85% (again load matters but let's continue to be simple). It would use 15% less power from the wall at the same load (since bronze is 85% @ 50% load).

Unless you are running the PC 24/7 its really not a lot of money at all... $1 /month?
Click to expand...

the last question is ... since this old pc has no fans at all, except of course cpu and graphic card, the power supply being the only exhaust, is that dangerous? and if it overheat, will it just blow up, or start smelling and aka emitting unhealthy smells?
 
That depends on if it gets warm enough. Again, a QUALITY PSU should shut off it gets too warm. There no telling what a garbage PSU will do if it overheats...
 
EarthDog said:
That depends on if it gets warm enough. Again, a QUALITY PSU should shut off it gets too warm. There no telling what a garbage PSU will do if it overheats...
Click to expand...

do you suggest me to plug the quality one in the chasis without any exhaust fans or wait for a new chasis that has some exhaust fan and plug it into there?
 
I am well aware you just mentioned without exhaust... Modern QUALITY PSU's should be able to handle it. If you are worried, don't do it.
 
EarthDog said:
I am well aware you just mentioned without exhaust... Modern QUALITY PSU's should be able to handle it. If you are worried, don't do it.
Click to expand...

one more question is...since the case is old, i used some sheet (the sheet you print on) to close the case holes with some scotch tape to hold the sheets (mainly to avoid dust getting in)...could this be dangerous, like, bad smells-unhealthy smells?

the last question is, my motherboard has

24-pin EPS12V Power connector
4-pin ATX 12V Power connector

while the power supply has

1X ATX CABLE 24PIN
1X EPS/ATX12V CABLE 8PIN

will the 8 pin fit into the 4 pin?

http://www.asus.com/it/Motherboards/P5LD2X1333/specifications/
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/builder-series-cx600
 
Last edited:
"the sheet" - I have no idea what you mean by this...

The 8 pin is actually a 4+4 pin, so yes.
 
That is what I thought... but the surrounding wording took me away from that (the smells, etc).

Paper is what I call that, not a sheet. I consider a sheet something that goes on my bed or it is preceded by or followed by another descriptive word telling me what kind of sheet it is...sheet of paper...bed sheet... holy sheet. You know? :p
 
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