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

[Agent24]

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

I have never heard of Seacon or Saturn capacitors. Are you sure they are any good?

[Dan81]

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

I have never heard of Seacon or Saturn capacitors. Are you sure they are any good?

Seacon primaries and Yang Chun secondary (Saturn) caps are quite common in Sun Pro units (though not all of them) and Yang Chun secondaries can also be found in 2006 Deer units (which can be easily detected by the 2005Z PWM chip and X-2006 PCB).

[Agent24]

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

And you would trust capacitors used by Deer?

[Dan81]

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

And you would trust capacitors used by Deer?

They're the same as my Sun Pro unit,so yes. It's Deer anyways,so it could be worse. (like Don and Jun Fu)

BTW,that Deer PCB was really half decent.

[c_hegge]

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

http://hardwareinsights.com/wp/the-2...upply-roundup/

Here's a few more.

[lti]

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

I haven't seen thermal pads fail like that.

The Macron wasn't great, but it looks good for an older computer. I still don't think G-Luxon caps are that bad. Most of the ones I've seen fail were the green ones used on motherboards. They last longer than CapXon, but that isn't saying much.

[Wester547]

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

^ I have seen plenty of black G-Luxon HMs (with white stripes) pop in Hipros (they have a tendency to fail in older Sirtecs/High Powers as well in places where the Teapo SX capacitors are still fine). That being said, the ones that I did see pop were on +5VSB or +3.3V (very close to the heatsink and even the massive heatsink on the secondary does get somewhat hot), and sometimes on +5V, though the fan was still working fine. Their HM series is still technically considered low ESR as with their black (with gold stripes) and green (with white or gold stripes) sleeved capacitors so I would say they are eventually prone to drastic failure, and of course that can happen without any signs unless great measures have been taken to prevent any sort of thermal duress. Their general purpose series (such as "SM") I have seen fail with much less frequency but that does not mean G-Luxon is a brand I'd ever esteem. I suppose it doesn't matter as much since G-Luxon merged with Teapo many moons ago.

This year's cheapo round up was interesting to say the least. As per usual, the cheapo power supplies perform with great spectacle, and of course great failure.

[goodpsusearch]

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

http://hardwareinsights.com/wp/the-2...upply-roundup/

Here's a few more.

That was a great new year's present, thank you

[Dan81]

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

^ I have seen plenty of black G-Luxon HMs (with white stripes) pop in Hipros (they have a tendency to fail in older Sirtecs/High Powers as well in places where the Teapo SX capacitors are still fine). That being said, the ones that I did see pop were on +5VSB or +3.3V (very close to the heatsink and even the massive heatsink on the secondary does get somewhat hot), and sometimes on +5V, though the fan was still working fine. Their HM series is still technically considered low ESR as with their black (with gold stripes) and green (with white or gold stripes) sleeved capacitors so I would say they are eventually prone to drastic failure, and of course that can happen without any signs unless great measures have been taken to prevent any sort of thermal duress. Their general purpose series (such as "SM") I have seen fail with much less frequency but that does not mean G-Luxon is a brand I'd ever esteem. I suppose it doesn't matter as much since G-Luxon merged with Teapo many moons ago.

This year's cheapo round up was interesting to say the least. As per usual, the cheapo power supplies perform with great spectacle, and of course great failure.

G-Luxon being total crap IMO,I wouldn't be surprised if it would fail even on Slot 1 systems (Pentium II/early Pentium 3/Celeron).

If it merged with Teapo,let's pray they are better (at least like KZE) otherwise they are still crap to me.

BTW what about OST and TK?

[Wester547]

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

TK (Toshin Kogyo) is resleeved OST. Or rather, OST is their Taiwan distributor, but I think TK contract OST to build capacitors for them. Needless to say, TK capacitors are very bad and have a very high failure rate. Teapo acquired G-Luxon in 2005. I have not seen an improvement in either brand since.

[lti]

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

I don't understand why caps don't fail for me unless they're really bad, like CapXon or United Chemi-Con KZG.

My old desktop computer still has its original G-Luxon, Su'scon, Teapo, and I.Q (resleeved OST, just like TK) caps from 1998. It doesn't boot reliably in a cold room (and it hasn't for a few years), so I think some of those caps have failed. I think they failed from old age and heat (I replaced the PSU fan with a higher airflow version because the case got warm around the PSU, and it was the only fan in the computer).

[goontron]

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

I don't understand why caps don't fail for me unless they're really bad, like CapXon or United Chemi-Con KZG.

My old desktop computer still has its original G-Luxon, Su'scon, Teapo, and I.Q (resleeved OST, just like TK) caps from 1998. It doesn't boot reliably in a cold room (and it hasn't for a few years), so I think some of those caps have failed. I think they failed from old age and heat (I replaced the PSU fan with a higher airflow version because the case got warm around the PSU, and it was the only fan in the computer).

seems to be a Colorado thing? i have yet to come across bad caps that did not fail from other reasons than electrolyte formula. maybe the altitude?

[Wester547]

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

I don't understand why caps don't fail for me unless they're really bad, like CapXon or United Chemi-Con KZG.

In the case of KZGs, it seems to be only a matter of time until they fail whether in storage or in use. Same goes for KZJs. I think it's a combination of an ultimately problematic formula and water based electrolyte attacking the aluminum oxide layer without the proper inhibitors and passivating mechanisms, causing hydrogen gas to form (or just complete dry outs). And CapXon is just bottom of the barrel tripe.

My old desktop computer still has its original G-Luxon, Su'scon, Teapo, and I.Q (resleeved OST, just like TK) caps from 1998. It doesn't boot reliably in a cold room (and it hasn't for a few years), so I think some of those caps have failed. I think they failed from old age and heat (I replaced the PSU fan with a higher airflow version because the case got warm around the PSU, and it was the only fan in the computer).

If memory serves the PSU fan in that unit often goes to +12V with little encouragement, that might help them last coupled with the cold weather. I also remember you have a 250W Hipro that ran nine years 24/7 with all Asiacon capacitors and even when the thermistor fell out of the clip only one Asiacon actually bloated (doesn't mean the rest didn't fail without visible signs, though).

[Sparkey55]

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

In the case of KZGs, it seems to be only a matter of time until they fail whether in storage or in use. Same goes for KZJs. I think it's a combination of an ultimately problematic formula and water based electrolyte attacking the aluminum oxide layer without the proper inhibitors and passivating mechanisms, causing hydrogen gas to form (or just complete dry outs). And CapXon is just bottom of the barrel tripe.

Thank you very much. Someone needed to say it.

[lti]

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

I meant that the only bad caps I've seen were the lowest-quality crap (even worse than most bad cap brands), caps with flawed electrolyte (like KZG and KZJ), caps that were under extreme stress (high voltage, ripple, or temperature). Almost all of the bad cap brands seem to last at least a decade. CapXon caps last about five years, Fujicon caps lasted almost eight years in some computer speakers (based on a TDA1517), and Jackcon caps are inconsistent. I don't know why they last so much longer than they're supposed to.

If memory serves the PSU fan in that unit often goes to +12V with little encouragement, that might help them last coupled with the cold weather. I also remember you have a 250W Hipro that ran nine years 24/7 with all Asiacon capacitors and even when the thermistor fell out of the clip only one Asiacon actually bloated (doesn't mean the rest didn't fail without visible signs, though).

With the original fan, I felt almost no air blowing out the exhaust vent, even when the fan was running at 12V. The 250W Hipro came from my parents' computer it lasted eight years, and they're still using it with bad caps. The ripple killed two caps on the motherboard, and that motherboard had bad KZG caps for years before that. I don't know how it is still stable. I don't think it's worth recapping, and they wouldn't want it down long enough for me to recap it anyway.

[Wester547]

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

The 250W Hipro came from my parents' computer it lasted eight years, and they're still using it with bad caps. The ripple killed two caps on the motherboard, and that motherboard had bad KZG caps for years before that. I don't know how it is still stable. I don't think it's worth recapping, and they wouldn't want it down long enough for me to recap it anyway.

So those KZGs on that Dell Dimension 4550? motherboard in the VRM output lasted all those years of 24/7 use? That's something knowing KZG's failure rate. Maybe the motherboard is still stable with bad KZGs because the VRM output had a bunch of polymers in parallel with those KZGs IIRC (they probably failed open), fed by a two phase buck converter. I would guess the Hipro is still stable even with bad capacitors because Hipro has a very well designed control loop on the secondary (and +3.3V/-12V are linear regulated, ensuring clean output on those rails).

[lti]

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

One of the four KZGs failed after five years. The polymer caps are keeping it running. The other two caps were Nichicon VRs between the northbridge and RAM, and I noticed that they were leaking (along with the other three KZGs) the next time I opened the computer for cleaning (about a year after I noticed the bad cap in the PSU). I didn't get a chance to clean it until the fan was running full speed before Windows finished booting, which also contributed to the failure.

[cheapie]

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

Speaking of KZGs, I have two ASUS A8AE-LE motherboards from 2007, both have KZGs on the CPU VRM input, and while one board died back in 2013 (super I/O chip blew up) the other is still in use 24/7. No signs of bad caps anywhere, but then again, the CPU is only an AMD Athlon 64 3700+, which runs more or less completely cold.

[momaka]

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

http://hardwareinsights.com/wp/the-2...upply-roundup/

Here's a few more.

I really like the variety in your cheapo PSU roundup.

IMO, however, you shouldn't take off points from a PSU just because its label appears to favor a "5V heavy" system. I'm mentioning this specifically because of the Macron PSU (yeah, you got me hurt a bit for giving it 4/10, okay. ). It's an old PSU, so obviously you shouldn't expect it to be a 12V-based design. That said, it doesn't mean the PSU will do bad with a modern PC. As long as the PC has a mid-grade or lower CPU and GPU, then it will probably run just fine. Also, since it's an old PSU, you shouldn't really take off points for not having modern connectors. It's like taking a Pentium II -era PSU and complaining you can't use it with an i7 PC.

So all I am saying is, just try pulling what the label says and see what happens. That means don't pull more current than what a rail is rated for (again, I'm using the Macron review as a reference here).

Other than that, the cheap PSU roundup was a joy to read/see.

[c_hegge]

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

I score all PSUs equally, and based on how they stack up by today's standards, and today, there is absolutely no room on the market for a 5V-heavy PSU. If nothing else, the Macron's low score is an indication of far PSUs have come over the last decade. Besides, that PSU's manufacturing date is 2004 (I can't remember the month, though). P4s were well and truly out by that point, and most Socket A boards had 12V connectors by that point too. 5V heavy designs really should have died off even earlier.

I probably would have given that MPT-4012 I had a 7 if I had reviewed it (with all 3 points coming off for the caps).