Most of the time I judge a power supply on it's weight. If it's as light as a feather then it go's in the scrap pile. The heaver ones I set aside and look at later. Someone once told me that's a good quick way to judge the build quitly .

coppercitymt wrote:

Most of the time I judge a power supply on it's weight. If it's as light as a feather then it go's in the scrap pile. The heaver ones I set aside and look at later. Someone once told me that's a good quick way to judge the build quitly .

Maybe, but technology is changing to where quality things can be build with less weight. I'm not sure about desktop PSUs, but "wall warts" are now generally much lighter due to the use of PWM circuits in place of transformers to step the voltage down.

coppercitymt wrote:

Most of the time I judge a power supply on it's weight. If it's as light as a feather then it go's in the scrap pile. The heaver ones I set aside and look at later. Someone once told me that's a good quick way to judge the build quitly .

It's a default method of judging most devices. Heavy device means more material and more modules, while lighter device is usually fragile and has mostly basic functions.

When me and my Mom were looking for an electric meat-chopper, we judged mostly by weight. Heavier meat-choppers had metal gears inside and lighter ones had only plastic mechanisms inside.

Things are getting lighter, but that doesn't so much apply to PC PSUs... those already use PWM circuits, but they still require transformers, filter chokes and high-current rectifiers (which in turn require beefy heatsinks). Until there's some big breakthrough in technology, the good quality ones are pretty much already as light as they can be for any given power output (counting also a bit of headroom)... the only way to make 'em lighter is to cut corners, and that's exactly what a lot of the shadier companies are doing.

However, there's another problem... some of these shady companies have picked up on the fact that a lot of people judge by weight, and have started adding dead weight and fake PFC transformers and such.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

The ones I was talking about were things more along the lines of Apevia, Powmax (hell, anything ending with 'max' really), Logisys, and all the zillions of unbranded ones out there.

Yes, those are terrible. Generally the only use those cheap PSU's have to me are to pull the fan. They're usually made so cheaply, they don't even come with a fan grill 😵 so theres little one can salvage from them (maybe except for the fan and the cables or something 😜 )

One brand comes to mind thats total crap.... Sparkle. Its like they knew what the power supply would do when it decided to call it quits. Plus they used crap fans. OEMs love them, and its likely because they are cheap.

I can't speak about newer ones, since I haven't seen one made after 2004 or so, but Sparkle used to be pretty good quality. They were (and maybe still are?) a subsidiary of Fortron (FSP) and were more of a budget consumer-level line than an OEM supplier. The designs were solid, and they were honestly rated... yeah, the fans weren't great but the ones in lower-end PSUs never were. However, they had the same issues as a lot of other manufacturers with the 'capacitor plague', and they used some of the worst culprits... I'm not sure if they ever recovered from that or not.

coppercitymt wrote:

Most of the time I judge a power supply on it's weight. If it's as light as a feather then it go's in the scrap pile. The heaver ones I set aside and look at later. Someone once told me that's a good quick way to judge the build quitly .

That used to be very true for older psus, but some of the newer ones these days are light and high quality. I was surprised how light my Corsair TX650 was when I bought it- yet it's one of the best psus around.

Still, if I'm picking old ones of the scrap pile the weight test is my lithmus test as well. 😉

sgt76 wrote:

coppercitymt wrote:

Most of the time I judge a power supply on it's weight. If it's as light as a feather then it go's in the scrap pile. The heaver ones I set aside and look at later. Someone once told me that's a good quick way to judge the build quitly .

That used to be very true for older psus, but some of the newer ones these days are light and high quality. I was surprised how light my Corsair TX650 was when I bought it- yet it's one of the best psus around.

Still, if I'm picking old ones of the scrap pile the weight test is my lithmus test as well. 😉

Stares at my 1KW NZXT 90+ gold rated unit. It takes a lot to keep two power hogs (gtx 280) happy in sli.

Older PSUs if they still work and aren't noisy I'm fine using them looks like theirs an AT PSU from 96 thats just sitting there that I use sometimes.
Newer PSUs though if its new hardware I always use corsair or equivalently good PSU.

But even for P3/P4 I often use generic looking stuff just as long as its not SHAW or any other tri-fan shaw like design, since I don't want the house to burn down.

I think the weight thing still applies somewhat If it has tiny heatsinks and cheap thing metal then its probably going to be much lighter then a well built PSU.
Whenever I think about cheap PSUs my mind comes to this http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDR … p=Story&reid=71

I have a Corsair PSU in my newest desktop because I got a good deal on it from Newegg. Otherwise I've sworn them off as just a company that re-brands decent stuff and charges a premium for the Corsair brand name. I guess that's what most "brands" are, though.

I also have a Corsair PSU in my main desktop too. Been a very good PSU( going on a year and half old), I think I read somewhere they are made by sea sonic?

HunterZ wrote:

I have a Corsair PSU in my newest desktop because I got a good deal on it from Newegg. Otherwise I've sworn them off as just a company that re-brands decent stuff and charges a premium for the Corsair brand name. I guess that's what most "brands" are, though.

I see white box case's all the time, with these feather light cheap PSU's in them, and 9 times out of 10 the motherboard will have bad caps. I have also plugged a few up and get treated to a fireball or spark show, and the very few that do pass all that might just run. I have yet to see any make it.

awergh wrote:

Whenever I think about cheap PSUs my mind comes to this http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDR … p=Story&reid=71

Components lose efficiency over time; their overall impedance can change from heating for instance, etc. Regular cleaning will help keep dust from building up and stressing out the components from heat. Monitor your power rails from time to time too; when your power supply's load regulation starts getting really high (i.e. your voltage levels drop more than normal when running a CPU-intensive task, for instance - these tend to result in system freezes and reboots) that's when you know your supply could be on its way out.

Cheaper caps tend to have higher equivalent series resistance (ESR) and lower max. operation temperature ratings, and using one of the fundamental power equations P = I²×R (also V²/R), a lot of ESR can result in lot of power (heat) dissipation across the cap and reduce its operation life. Usually these are one source of failure, but other failing components can cause magnetic devices (e.g. inductors) to saturate by requiring more current from the input to maintain output voltage levels with a given load. This saturation in turn causes greater stress on semiconductor devices such as power transistors and diodes, reducing their operation life as well. In short, supplies that use cheap or electrically-underrated components can result in disaster.

If you do end up wanting to open up the supply and replace components, just make sure the caps are discharged first (namely the large electrolytic ones at the supply's input and ouput). Also, just visually inspect any electrolytic caps to make sure they're not bulging.

As far as selecting power supplies go, check the current ratings on each voltage rail - the more the merrier, but then again, be cautious about ones with cheap prices.