How they die..
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDR … =Story&reid=123

Seriously though, many junk brand power supplies just do not have the guts to deliver what it says on their label!

Causes of failure:
Fan fail, resulting in severe overheating.
Capacitor fail - aggravated by overheating and poor quality components.
Transistor/diode fail - a common failure in "gutless wonder" units which do not use sufficiently rated components - in decent units, this sort of failure is less common.

The component that fails, will often result in damage to other components, especially if something fries spectacularly.

That was a great read! Thanks.

Do you have anything on getting the best voltage?
Also, how to tell that this is glue or capacitor (electrolyte) fluid?

http://puu.sh/9QYlY/95339a358a.jpg
http://puu.sh/9QYns/526fbfa505.jpg
http://puu.sh/9QYoD/86b3df2b82.jpg

Glue. In the last picture the capacitor with goo is not even an electrolyte.

I know, thats the fuse 😀

I have seen this residue multiple times, even next to blown capacitors so i wasn't sure. I even seen similar actual electrolyte that is pitch black.

While we're at it, may I ask you folks a question? Is Zalman PSU any good? Like, Zalman ZM700 GLX?

On voltages, most of the older designs, poor quality and many lower power units are "group regulated".

In a Group regulated power supply, The voltage regulation operates on an average of the +12, +5 and +3.3, relying on the tendency of them to track. On a cross-load test (JohnnyGuru's CL1/CL2), the loaded rail will drop, and the others will rise.

There are two alternatives to group - independent regulation, where each output has it's own control.

The other is "12V master", VRM or voltage conversion - with the emphasis on 12V these days, the main power supply is 12V, and the 5V and 3.3V are downconverted from the 12V - these show good crossload voltages, but can be spotted by the drop in efficiency on the 5V and 3.3V heavy crossload test

Stojke wrote:

I know, thats the fuse 😀

I think you misunderstood. I really did mean the white rectangular mains filter capacitor that says 0.22uF, which is right next to the fuse, behind the inrush current limiting thermistor.

As it is not an electrolytic capacitor, it thus cannot leak goo that is identical to the goo on the base of the capacitors that are electrolytic caps.

So you don't have leaking capacitors, which is good. It's all glue to keep the components firmly in place instead of just hanging from the conductors.