Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

[Newbie2]

Hey guys,

Do you have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

They have to be true, since I can't stand untrue posts.

Everybody knows the list from memory, but here are three I can name.

L&C (built by DEER)
DEER
Powmax (this also applies to Leadman, who makes Powmax PSUs)

This also applies to those cheap light-weight generic PSUs.

---------------------

My experience:

I have an L&C LC-B450 E 450W power supply powering a system with an Intel Pentium III 450MHz (slot 1) and 256MB of SDRAM. The motherboard is an AOpen AX6BC, and it has United-Chemicon or Rubycon (can't remember) capacitors on it.

It works great on that system. Voltages are within good limits (shown by my multimeter, since that motherboard doesn't have a voltage monitoring feature). I had to change the fan of that L&C to an EVERCOOL EC8025H12B 80MM ball-bearing fan (they are powerful and reliable, but noisy) because the stock cheap generic 80MM sleeve-bearing fan was really weak and I knew it wouldn't last very long. The heatsinks of that L&C were also sub-standard so a more powerful fan had to be installed or else the power supply would overheat.

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It's been running for one year flawlessy and I hope it will last.

That's my experience, so post yours if you have one.

[dood]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

A lab in the school where I work fell victim to electrical problems the one day.

Most of the systems still had their factory Powmax supplies installed. There were a few that had Aopen supplies. What happened was that a breaker began failing, and couldn't take the load of the machines. As it failed, the voltage dropped, and the computers began drawing more and more current to compensate. For whatever reason, the breaker didn't trip, but stayed live, and eventually all of the Powmax supplies overheated and caught fire. Several motherboards were ruined and many had to be cleaned off from all the PSU goo that was dripped on them.

The computers with the Aopen supplies? All were fine...

[Rainbow]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I see a lot of boards with fried chipsets, super I/O chips and VRM controllers - result of bad PSUs failing. Bad caps are dangerous - especially in auxiliary supply and +5VSB.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I built a complete "on the cheap" PC in a tight hot case for the wife after her good one passed away. PC's can't drink coffee real well! The new case had an Nspire NSP-300P48 300 watt PSU in it. She used it for about 3 months no problems then the strange errors started. I did a dust and clean, and put it all in another used case with PSU from RaidMax I had here because it had a few fans in it, and was larger.
Anyway I bought a used Dell for me with a blown PSU, "Dell# 079WPJ 200 watt. I figured I'd just use the Nspire PSU so I opened the PSU for a clean out. I found that it had four vented caps in it! This isn't the case that drank coffee, this is the three month old new one! I then went to my friends PC shop and found one of my old PSU's that I put in his junk box years ago. Its a dented up cigarette smoke filled Hiro or HiPro 280 watt ATX with God only knows howmany hours on it. The Dell is running great, and now, and her "on the cheap" is up, and kicking too! Old and dented, good! New, and painted silver with P4 ready stickers all over it, bad! I'm going to give this old PSU the water bath treatment soon. It stinks worse than a pile of blown caps with all the cigarette smoke in it.

[CAD4466HK]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

Hey guys,

Do you have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

They have to be true, since I can't stand untrue posts.

Everybody knows the list from memory, but here are three I can name.

L&C (built by DEER)
DEER
Powmax (this also applies to Leadman, who makes Powmax PSUs)

This also applies to those cheap light-weight generic PSUs.

---------------------

My experience:

I have an L&C LC-B450 E 450W power supply powering a system with an Intel Pentium III 450MHz (slot 1) and 256MB of SDRAM. The motherboard is an AOpen AX6BC, and it has United-Chemicon or Rubycon (can't remember) capacitors on it.

It works great on that system. Voltages are within good limits (shown by my multimeter, since that motherboard doesn't have a voltage monitoring feature). I had to change the fan of that L&C to an EVERCOOL EC8025H12B 80MM ball-bearing fan (they are powerful and reliable, but noisy) because the stock cheap generic 80MM sleeve-bearing fan was really weak and I knew it wouldn't last very long. The heatsinks of that L&C were also sub-standard so a more powerful fan had to be installed or else the power supply would overheat.

---------------------

It's been running for one year flawlessy and I hope it will last.

That's my experience, so post yours if you have one.

hey Newbie,check out my watts vs.heat thread about a Antec TP 430,dont know if thats what you mean by sub standard?

[gonzo0815]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I personally have had no problems, but i have got two machines for repair wich are from trusty persons (my brothr and my neigbor, both boxes are build with my assistance, but the PSu choice are not my faulth...ok the codeggen was my. I have swaped it against a FSP350w model in my rig):

Neigbor: Asus NF2 Board (duno which it was, but it was expensive) Barton 2500+, Seagate 80gb, Cd Burner (duno wich brand anymore) &512MB ram. GF4M440. PSU: Qtec.
Failure: PSU failed catastrophically, killed everything except CPU and DVD.
Lukily the HDD was replaced due to warranty, Asus has refused to cover it.

Brother: PSu Codegen 350w, ECS K7s6a, T-bred 2000+, Maxtor Dimaond Max 9 80gb,
Seagat 80gb, 512MB ddr333 memory, DVD-CD-RW combo drive.
As he upgraded the GF2mx with an GF5600 the PSU fried the whole System. Evrything except Memory and CD /DVD was burnt.

From a Friend of my Brother: AMD Athlon XP box, i don`t know the details, but everything in it was fried due to bad PSU, i have got the Fujitsu HDD`s to chek them, but as usuall the elektronic was burnt.

Another brother of mine: a Maxtor Diamond Max 9 80gb hdd burtn, not shure if it was only PSu related, as those Maxtors chips are running very hot, but i think it was a simple surge on the 12v line, wich killed the maxtor chip. I have a 120gb model from same series. And i have had no problems with my Fortron PSu`S yet.

At a friends server cabinet: a Antec 19`case with one of those 350w Antec PSu`S literally burnt down untill the UPS was empty. I have seen the thin, the maintransformer and the primary caps are burnt beyond recognition.

May be there are more burned systems, but those are i remember on.

[UraBahn]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

For countless years I used a cheap Ever 200W AT power supply, and it actually worked nicely. One day it just shut down in the middle of Master System emulation, and that was the end of that (for me, anyway). Nothing was damaged, thankfully.

I worked with an older-model 300W PowMax for 3-4 years. Actually worked fairly well, though it became less and less stable over the years. One day I heard a loud 'pop!' come from my WIP P3 server, and sure enough, the Jees inside the PowMax finally blew open. I first started to recap it, but I figured that a 200W Hipro I got from Goodwill was better anyway. (Hipro are *good* after a recap, btw.) Besides, in its current state it's only got one 4GB Maxtor Galaxy V HDD, 160MB of RAM, 550MHz P3 Katmai Slot1 processor and a weak AGP video card, so 200W should be more than good enough.

My ma had a 250W Bestec in her eMachines T1150 for years. The fan failed and overheated the supply, causing her machine to crash in strange and unpredictable ways. Come to find out I didn't properly re-splice the fan lead when I replaced her old failed sleeve-bearing fan . Fortunately nothing was damaged, except my pride.

I'm too chicken to run any L&C/Deer supplies on any of my equipment for longer than 5 minutes. Those things are so awful, they'll cause random crashes even when the capacitors haven't failed!

And finally, what about that cheap '230W' KME thing I rebuilt? Still workin' in my 386sx, last I checked. Nichicon PL/PM 4 Life!!!

[Shroomie]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

A friend of mine runs a 3.2 P4 Presshot on a fairly expensive Abit motherboard (915 something Intel chipset, interestingly the box to it proudly advertises that it has "all Japanese capacitors". Guess they didn't want another lawsuit?), with a gF 6600, three old IDE hard drives, one USB hard drive, and a DVD-ROM. Somehow, it's running fine with a cheap came-with-the-case PSU, a '400w' Codegen I believe, and has been for, oh, at least a year now. (And yes, I've told him to replace it, but he won't listen. I'm taking the remains when [not if] it blows up. )

[JEDIYoda]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I don`t know if you could call this a bad experience but at one time on my gaming rigg I was running a Intel 3.2EE with ASUS mobo and 4 harddrives along with a geforce 7900 and 7 fans total.....3-120mm and 3 - 80mm...
Plus I had the 3.2EE mildly ovr clocked to 4.0...lol

My PSU was an OKIA 420!!
So one day I decided to add another 120mm fan to the front of my Case.....

When I did that all hell broke lose....
The computer would boot up and then reboot over and over.
Then it wouldn`t boot up at all.
We`ll I was lloking at getting a new PSU anyways.
I had narrowed the choice betwen 3 PSU.

No problems since I bought my current PSU!

[Topcat]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I had a Powmax self-destruct in the middle of a game of starcraft. Smoke started pouring out of the fan port (it was actually still running), and the PC finally powered down. There were so many incinerated components in it, I never did discover the true cause of its failure...... Deer PSU's? Any time I got a system in for repair that had one, before I even powered the system up, I yanked that piece of crap and installed a new PSU, and would then troubleshoot from there. Most had no troubles after a new PSU...

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

So one day I decided to add another 120mm fan to the front of my Case.....

When I did that all hell broke lose....
The computer would boot up and then reboot over and over.
Then it wouldn`t boot up at all.

DC fans don't draw a smooth DC current. They draw current in fairly large pulses as the circuit inside switches the voltage to each pole of the motor in sequence. So that fan had your P/S bouncing in and out of current limit.

[Newbie2]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I had a Powmax self-destruct in the middle of a game of starcraft. Smoke started pouring out of the fan port (it was actually still running), and the PC finally powered down. There were so many incinerated components in it, I never did discover the true cause of its failure...... Deer PSU's? Any time I got a system in for repair that had one, before I even powered the system up, I yanked that piece of crap and installed a new PSU, and would then troubleshoot from there. Most had no troubles after a new PSU...

Do you put the Deer back in after you're done troubleshooting?

I don`t know if you could call this a bad experience but at one time on my gaming rigg I was running a Intel 3.2EE with ASUS mobo and 4 harddrives along with a geforce 7900 and 7 fans total.....3-120mm and 3 - 80mm...
Plus I had the 3.2EE mildly ovr clocked to 4.0...lol

My PSU was an OKIA 420!!
So one day I decided to add another 120mm fan to the front of my Case.....

When I did that all hell broke lose....
The computer would boot up and then reboot over and over.
Then it wouldn`t boot up at all.
We`ll I was lloking at getting a new PSU anyways.
I had narrowed the choice betwen 3 PSU.

No problems since I bought my current PSU!

I can't believe a cheap OKIA can stand all that without problems, until the 120MM fan came in!

[JEDIYoda]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

Do you put the Deer back in after you're done troubleshooting?



I can't believe a cheap OKIA can stand all that without problems, until the 120MM fan came in!

Believe what you will...
A lot of people use the word cheap not realizing that there truly are people who use these cheap generic PSU`s to power a computer with way more hardware than should be powered by these PSU`s.....

Probably not on these forums because leetness just reeks all over......hehehee

[gonzo0815]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

Yes, that is probabely the reason of those problems. But how people should realiz that 300w psu from 1999 is not the same as 300w in 2003? If those cheap PSu`s would have ben rated in a more honest way, i think most people would have upgraded them too with the other components.

[CAD4466HK]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

Believe what you will...
A lot of people use the word cheap not realizing that there truly are people who use these cheap generic PSU`s to power a computer with way more hardware than should be powered by these PSU`s.....

Probably not on these forums because leetness just reeks all over......hehehee

I 100% agree,matter of fact,I'm typing this on my downloader,which has a 3000+Barton@2.2,gig of KVR PC3200,Gigabyte GA 7N400L NF2 motherboard,Thermalright XP-90,Leadtec 6800GT 420/1115,WD SE Caviar 160gb,Seagate 160gb,1xDVD combo,1xDVD burner,SB 128,4x80mm,1x92mm,all powered by a AG-520,which I think is made by Raidmax,dual 80mm's 28 amps @12v paid $20 for it at a Marketpro show!Runs 24/7 with Bearshare Pro and Limewire Pro and SETI@Home.My wife's Pc,3.o C Northwood,stock HSF,Abit VT7 2.0 which has the 4-30 minute timer for the PSU fan to stay running after shutdown.1 gig KVR,1x cd burner,1x DVD combo,9x1 cardreader,Gigabit LAN card,1xMaxtor Diamondmax Plus 60gb,1xSeagate 160 gb,1x WD SE Caviar 320gb SATA,BFG FX5500 OC,2x80mm,wireless mouse & keyboard,all powered by a Okia 450 17amps @ 12v that I got in a $40 case from a Marketpro show!Before that,she had a Okia 350,but I switched it out becouse she kept getting the ole Machine_Check_Exception erorros.Other then that,zero problems with either one ,except they both pump out mass amounts of very hot air even on lite loads and are both louder then the Delta fans on my server!Just goes to show that even with shitty Psu's,my good friend ,good airflow,can make them shine!God I hope I just didnt screw myself

[Newbie2]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I 100% agree,matter of fact,I'm typing this on my downloader,which has a 3000+Barton@2.2,gig of KVR PC3200,Gigabyte GA 7N400L NF2 motherboard,Thermalright XP-90,Leadtec 6800GT 420/1115,WD SE Caviar 160gb,Seagate 160gb,1xDVD combo,1xDVD burner,SB 128,4x80mm,1x92mm,all powered by a AG-520,which I think is made by Raidmax,dual 80mm's 28 amps @12v paid $20 for it at a Marketpro show!Runs 24/7 with Bearshare Pro and Limewire Pro and SETI@Home.My wife's Pc,3.o C Northwood,stock HSF,Abit VT7 2.0 which has the 4-30 minute timer for the PSU fan to stay running after shutdown.1 gig KVR,1x cd burner,1x DVD combo,9x1 cardreader,Gigabit LAN card,1xMaxtor Diamondmax Plus 60gb,1xSeagate 160 gb,1x WD SE Caviar 320gb SATA,BFG FX5500 OC,2x80mm,wireless mouse & keyboard,all powered by a Okia 450 17amps @ 12v that I got in a $40 case from a Marketpro show!Before that,she had a Okia 350,but I switched it out becouse she kept getting the ole Machine_Check_Exception erorros.Other then that,zero problems with either one ,except they both pump out mass amounts of very hot air even on lite loads and are both louder then the Delta fans on my server!Just goes to show that even with shitty Psu's,my good friend ,good airflow,can make them shine!God I hope I just didnt screw myself

You're right, good cooling makes even an L&C or OKIA run good!

[gonzo0815]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

Cooling is shure something wich will make caps and the other components in a psu last longer, but there are some situations, where this will not help. The 5v SB or AUX thing is on example for that. Usually in this rail there are that crappy sub standard caps used, that they fail regardles of temp or psu brand. Personally, i want a silent system. Thus there is not mutch fun with ultra cheap units. I even have lately replaced the 120mm fan from my Amacrox Free Earth 500w wit an Ac AF120 fan with hybrid ceramic bearing. Now my external 5 1/4" USB 2.0 case for my Lg DVD burner is far louder at my whole system. I think, a good PSu with high efficiancy will benefit in several areas on the long run. Considering 2 to 5 years of use, i can safe a significant ammount of Energy, thus money. This will be far more than the little premium tag i paid for this unit (considering 0,02€ /kw). My system is more silent due to less heat, components in the psu will last mutch longer and finally my hardware nd stored data are relatively safe, even if some problems will occure. And i safe some time if something went wrong with my system, as i can rulke out the psu ;-)

[CAD4466HK]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

You're right, good cooling makes even an L&C or OKIA run good!

It can do a thing or two for the crappy caps on damn near any Antec also,probably why the only reason my Neopower 480 is still alive,being that I have it in a P180

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

I went through a couple power supplies in my first Athlon Tbird system, but the one I'll never forget is when my $130 Enermax 350W power supply with 3 fans blew up in the middle of a game of Need For Speed 4. The screen went black, then smoke started coming through the fan, and the computer wouldn't respond to the power button. I had to turn it off at the back.

After that happened about 5 years ago, I bought my current Vantec Stealth 520W supply. Still going strong today, but I'm thinking of checking the caps just to be sure.

Also have had countless power supply problems in machines at work, and also encountered my first L&C power supply there. Scary thing is, I replaced the fan and put some cheap Nichicon VZ caps in it, and it is still running today. That was back before I knew how bad L&C was. All the caps on the motherboard were bad as well. This was from a Williams "Pinball 2000" Star Wars game.

[Chris1992]

Re: Have any TRUE experiences with sub-standard PSUs?

Wtf Maxxarcade, you live in the same county as I do! </offtopic>

Anyway, I ran an athlon-900 for 3 years on a generic sub-L&C quality ‘300w'. Any instability was caused solely by motherboard issues. I transferred it to a celeron-433 and it's still running strong. I don't have much experience with crap PSU since I like a quiet system, and crap PSUs aren't quiet.