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A new SFX PSU with 30 A 5V - Tooq Tqep-500S-Sfx

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First post, by Lynxman

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I found this PSU on Ebay and ordered it. It arrived yesterday and looks like the listing with current spec sheet matching. I immediately saw one big problem though. The wires to the ATX connector are extremely thin. I intended to try it in my AthlonXP 3200+ system with a Radeon 9800 Pro and that will draw 22 A through the 5V lines of the ATX connector and anticipated a problem with the thin wires.

I was right. The voltage drop is extreme. At idle the voltage at the motherboard is around 4,6 V and any load like benchmarking instantly crashes. The voltage at the PSU is 4,85-4,95 so it's capable of supplying the current at the heardware end and the drop is purely due to the thin wires.

I took it apart and soldered an extra 14AWG red wire in parallell with the wires to the ATX connector and joined all the red wires near the ATX connector. I also added solder tot he relevant tracks under the PCB. Then I did the same with a black wire to the ground end of the connector. Ideally I should make a new connector with thicker gauge all the way into the connector but it worked now. Voltage at idle is now 4,75 at the motherboard end according to the motherboard sensor. Under Cinebench load it drops to 4,57-4,65 V ( 4,83 V at the motherboard ended measured with a multimeter). I should order a new connector but this is about the same as I got with the old 5V30A ATX power supply I used. I wanted a smaller and new one.

The capacitors on the low voltage side of the PCB looks like the typical cheap green ones so aren't ideal. Sorry,. I didn't take photos when I had it open.

This is the one I bought. Trust it at your own discretion. https://www.ebay.com/itm/357642589355

Might be a spanish company:
https://tooq.com/product.php?id=1592&lang=2

Reply 1 of 5, by Deunan

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The quality aside, for an Athlon system you want a PSU with strong 5V line that's regulated independently from 12V one. Unless your mobo has 12V CPU connector already, most do not. Modern PSUs are geared towards maximum load on 12V line and the 5V is usually underutilized and kinda neglected in the design. Smaller form factor also doesn't help because it's more likely to have a simplified regulation system rather than independent rails.

Reply 2 of 5, by Lynxman

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30A 5V line.

Reply 3 of 5, by Deunan

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You can put anything on a sticker, but if it delivers anywhere close to 30A then it would be enough. There is still the regulation issue (other than thin wires). Measure the 12V and 3.3V outputs at the same time as 5V is sagging. If you see either 12V or 3.3V way up, but 5V too low, it would suggest these have common regulation and the PSU is unable to balance it out. In that case that 30A rating is not worth much to you.

Reply 4 of 5, by HwAoRrDk

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Lynxman wrote on 2025-12-06, 14:36:

I intended to try it in my AthlonXP 3200+ system with a Radeon 9800 Pro and that will draw 22 A through the 5V lines of the ATX connector and anticipated a problem with the thin wires.

Good luck with that, even with a good PSU. I had an XP 3200+ and a Radeon 9800 All-In-Wonder back in the day and never got it working with any decent stability at 400MHz FSB. I suspect it was just the nVidia nForce 2 chipset was flawed and wasn't stable at those speeds, because I went through 3 different motherboards (two Asus and one DFI) with no luck. In retrospect, I should've tried one with a VIA chipset. I ended up down-clocking it to 333MHz FSB and running it like an XP 2700+.

If you need a PSU with beefy 5V supply, you might be better off getting an older, contemporary PSU (ATX v1.x, pre-PCIe, etc.) and re-capping it.

Reply 5 of 5, by Lynxman

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Just happy to find a SFF PSU that can power an AthlonXP, or any new PSU for that matter.

And it holds about 4,9 V at the PSU end under full load so it's doing well. Current is the same at the PSU as the motherboard. The AMD design is the problem where they demand 22 A through four little ketchup wires to the 20 pin ATX plug. No amount of 5V regulation will help the voltage at the motherboard end.

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