the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

[c_hegge]

Wasn't brand new, but it was still fairly new (hardly a speck of dust on the fan) and the caps still looked OK. I think it is because it has no PI filter coils

[Rulycat]

Could have been substandard/unbranded silicon?

[c_hegge]

Considering that the 12V rectifier is only rated at 10A it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[Hemingray]

At least there's still ONE decent use for these: somewhat sturdy project boxes

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Somewhat sturdy... They're pretty useless even as project boxes IMO as most just tear themselves apart when you try to drill some extra holes.

[Agent24]

Then you're drilling too hard for the material, practice on some tinfoil or gold leaf if you can get it, neither are as thin as a bad PSU case but you'll get the idea

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

Somewhat sturdy... They're pretty useless even as project boxes IMO as most just tear themselves apart when you try to drill some extra holes.

Must be some big holes you're drilling ... Or wrong drill bit, perhaps?
I haven't haven't ran into that problem (yet).

[ben7]

Had TWO computers come in, of course silly e-machine crap, with "BESTEC" brand power supply. DOA In the end, a certain small capacitor had failed in both the power supply, and KILLED the mobos! both mobos are SHORTED-DEAD. So crappy Jamicon caps in a "Bestec ATX 250-12E" are bad for your computer!

Not only was it a Jamicon, but was next to the heatsink!

Might post a pic, its a pain to open the computer up after putting it back together.

Bestec ==

-Ben

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Originally Posted by momaka

Must be some big holes you're drilling ... Or wrong drill bit, perhaps?
I haven't haven't ran into that problem (yet).

Drilling into the case itself, works fine usually. Drilling into the vent area to screw on an extra fan... turns into disaster most of the time.

[Agent24]

Originally Posted by ben7

In the end, a certain small capacitor had failed in both the power supply, and KILLED the mobos! both mobos are SHORTED-DEAD. So crappy Jamicon caps in a "Bestec ATX 250-12E" are bad for your computer!

Yeah that model PSU is widely known to be a killer, because of bad capacitors in the 5vSB circuit.

[everell]

Originally Posted by Agent24

Yeah that model PSU is widely known to be a killer, because of bad capacitors in the 5vSB circuit.

So fix the 5vsb circuit. I have several Bestec 12E powered older computers that are running fine.

[everell]

Originally Posted by ben7

Had TWO computers come in, of course silly e-machine crap, with "BESTEC" brand power supply. DOA In the end, a certain small capacitor had failed in both the power supply, and KILLED the mobos! both mobos are SHORTED-DEAD. So crappy Jamicon caps in a "Bestec ATX 250-12E" are bad for your computer!

Not only was it a Jamicon, but was next to the heatsink!

Might post a pic, its a pain to open the computer up after putting it back together.

Bestec ==

-Ben

Go ahead and post the pictures of what the bad Bestec 12E power supplies look like, and I will post a picture of what a properly fixed Bestec 12E looks like!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

Drilling into the case itself, works fine usually. Drilling into the vent area to screw on an extra fan... turns into disaster most of the time.

I've already modded the cases of two PSUs by drilling 1 - 1.2 cm diameter holes in the vent area. No problem whatsoever. Their cases were only slightly thicker than the standard gutless wonder.
I also modded the back covers (the metal shields) of two LCD monitors with extra 4 mm diameter holes about 5 mm apart. One of them had a very thin shield (almost aluminium foil-like) - on that one, the area around 2 or 3 holes did get slightly twisted, but not that much. And I did something like 25 holes on that monitor, so not too bad I think.

[tom66]

This PSU was in a computer while my friend was demonstrating a game. It claimed 400W; from the layout, looks barely capable of 250W. (The silkscreen says 235W for the fuse installed.) Whilst the game was playing the game it suddenly went BANG and then was dead. The two primary transistors shorted (~20 ohms) very impressively (large explosion), and the resulting fireball charred quite a bit of the PSU. The on-board fuse blew, although the plug fuse did not.

Beforehand he had been reporting stability issues - his computer would crash or freeze during games. Seems to be a classic case of bad caps. Fortunately it is beyond repair, or I might actually have wasted time on this.

---

This other PSU claimed 800W and was dead. Had many bad caps. I tried to repair it but that was before I knew how to desolder properly, and I wrecked the PCB - lifted several traces.

The rectifiers were doubled up, including the bridge rectifier. But the caps were absolutely tiny for the output power and were no doubt a cause of the failure. The failure mode was that when turned on, a faint clicking is heard and the power supply does nothing. The 12V rail rises to 12V then shuts down, about three times a second.

The transformer is no bigger than the one in my 250W unit. Maybe it's improved technology, or maybe it's just a poor design.

---

A cheap PSU. This is a 250W unit. It's a cheapie. But it actually looks like it could put out 250W. Decent heatsinks, okay filter caps (good sizes), a very nice transformer and well sized power components. Took it apart and never got around to reassembling it. It also has a decent primary side filter. 2 X, 2 coils, 2 Y, plus if I remember another PCB with 1 X and 1 coil on it. It has a real bridge rectifier...

Tosin (Kyogo?) primaries, CapXon secondaries + 1 Jamicon, but none bulging or failed.

---

I had a nice 120W power supply a while ago, ELENCO if I remember correctly. Anyway it was a really superb design and was full of Chemicon capacitors, including the primaries. I modded that one to have a variable output voltage, which worked well. I don't have pics, but I do have video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK_rIs7uFlo

[I was young, and stupid... not much has changed!]

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Tosin isn't Toshin Kogyo (which is distributed by OST, but it's unclear who actually makes them). Yeah that looks like an honest 250 watter there.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

Took this one home from work today It's a Sun Pro, supposedly 550W, although I doubt it would be anywhere near that. The caps are either branded "CS", "GL", or "JEE". Two caps are bloated (although it may not be obvious in the pics) one is a 2200uF 10v JEE and the other is a 1000uF 10v CS. Note the discolouration around the middle of the PCB.

Looks like a Deer. Alarmingly similar to my Deer DR-250ATX!

And I was forced to use that PSU for my Athlon 900 Mhz in 2001!

[c_hegge]

Deer and sun pro did use similar heat sinks, although they are two completely separate companies.

[ratdude747]

Smells like a deer has been through these woods... looks like an "antlers" PSU to me.

[Agent24]

Probably they're in cahoots or it's industrial espionage - though why you'd want to copy a Deer I have no idea.

Then again, Solytech\Allied\Deer\Hyena (which one is the original?) must make a good profit off them, since they're _everywhere_

I guess perhaps copying isn't such a stupid idea at all...

[370forlife]

Deer is the original company, Solytech was a textiles manufacturer who bought out Deer not too long ago, around 2003ish.