PSU's to Avoid

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No, not everything - the RAM, video card, and one of the drives (HDD I think) were ok, but the MB, CPU, and the other drive (which at the time were worth a couple of hundred $$$) bought it.

I could have called Antec and fought like hell,. but I suspect that in the end all they would have done is replaced the power supply. And to be honest with you, at that point I didn't want another of their power supplies anyway.

It would have been like that DFI motherboard with the BIOS bug that caused the processor to be overvolted at bootup. DFI replaced all the motherboards (with updated BIOSes), but that was of little consolation to all the people left holding toasted CPUs.

Please note that the last paragraph represents whatI've read to be the case regarding a particular DFI motherboard. If this is in fact incorrect, please let me know and I will edit the post.
 
AreEss said:
To be added; TGR

Fire hazard time!
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Pardon the poor focus on the second picture. It's bad in there as you can see. Blown capacitors all over, and they're all very tiny. Also note the exposed wires at the plug connection. And insult to injury, the uncovered toroids which are literally just about against the heatsink - which the VRegs are grounded to.

NFW this thing is UL listed as it claims.
(edit) Sadly, it is. Which defies belief. Improperly insulated toroids next to a ground, in high temperature and high voltage environment. I have lost all faith in UL's testing procedures.
http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/...n=versionless&parent_id=1073992443&sequence=1
Part number is FA-250N16.
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davidhammock200 said:
Sorry to have been away sooo long!

Dave
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Well now your back. Here's your baton. Please take over. ;)
 
I didn't read the whole thread, but just wanted to chime in.

Thermaltake is indeed crap, and I would not touch one with a 50 foot barge pole, would not even recommend the "pure power".

Just compare any of them to a REAL power supply like Enermax or Antec, you will see the difference.

I'm also a bit wary of Super flower, I had the 430Watt model and it couldn't handle a Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB with 1GB ram, an Abit AT7 MAX2, and an XP2500+ overclocked to 3000+ yet I have a Hyena (no name brand) 350W power supply running the EXACT SAME system (with a bit more ram) with no problems.
 
Deimos said:
Just compare any of them to a REAL power supply like Enermax or Antec, you will see the difference.
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:rolleyes:

Any of them?

So I can compare the newer Channelwell built models with the Channelwell built Antec models and I will see these obvious quality differences you speak of?
 
No no no no... This is a thread of blanket statements. ALL Thermaltakes suck. BEWAREZ!!!!!
 
My neighbor had a "pure power" and was getting random corruption while gaming, he has since changed to Antec and the problem went away.

Since I have yet to see ANY thermaltake PSU perform well, I will continue to give them the blanket statement of "all thermaltake PSUs are crap"

One thing I am curious about though, how can you tell who makes what PSU? the crappy Superflower I had was supposedly made by the same factory as Enermax, and does it actually mean anything? is it not the components that matter?
 
Not necisarily. I had a deer in a customer's machine (where i worked in the summer) that did just fine, stable power, but 3 Antec's, an enermax, and 2 Fortron's die. That doesn't mean the antec and enermax and fortron's are bad.

OH EM EEFF GEE ENEERMAXX R SUX THEY DIE ONM ME AN DNT RMA AFTA I VOIOD WARENTEEE

:rolleyes:
 
Deimos said:
My neighbor had a "pure power" and was getting random corruption while gaming, he has since changed to Antec and the problem went away.

Since I have yet to see ANY thermaltake PSU perform well, I will continue to give them the blanket statement of "all thermaltake PSUs are crap"

One thing I am curious about though, how can you tell who makes what PSU? the crappy Superflower I had was supposedly made by the same factory as Enermax, and does it actually mean anything? is it not the components that matter?
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http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1029306

:)
 
Deimos said:
My neighbor had a "pure power" and was getting random corruption while gaming, he has since changed to Antec and the problem went away.

Since I have yet to see ANY thermaltake PSU perform well, I will continue to give them the blanket statement of "all thermaltake PSUs are crap"
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Well then you will continue to be incorrect as some of those crappy Thermaltakes are made by the smae people who make Antec PSU's.

One thing I am curious about though, how can you tell who makes what PSU? the crappy Superflower I had was supposedly made by the same factory as Enermax, and does it actually mean anything? is it not the components that matter?
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A number of ways including UL numbers, build, layout, PCB, etc.

And Enermax has never made SuperFLower that I am aware of. They have always been Topower and now SuperFlower makes their own. They are generally very good units for their price point and aren't an issue unless misapplied.
 
Deimos said:
I didn't read the whole thread, but just wanted to chime in.

Just compare any of them to a REAL power supply like Enermax or Antec, you will see the difference.
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I guess I am the only one here to remember,way back,when this happened to one of HardOCP's finest...

Tue 11.13.01 -Steve
We are giving away the WORLDS FIRST 2GHz Pentium4 Keychain....that's right folks...I said Keychain. Due to an Enermax PSU that burned up from the inside out, we were very close to not having a Killer Gaming Rig #5!!! Whoa!! But we are back on track ( with NO HELP from Enermax...they haven't even replaced their brand new bad PSU, and they haven't offered to replace anything their PS

http://****************************/nov01.html

The search feature is a wonderful thing... :p
 
Well, there's 5 years of evolution between there and here. I never, never in my wildest dreams would've imagined I would be recommending Highpoint in 2006 if you asked me in 2001.

Of course, none of my wildest dreams involve computer hardware... :eek:

 
It's important to put "Sparkle" on there. Thus far I've witness one explode at a LAN party (black marks on the wall and everything) and just the other night another friend of mine had one catch fire and smoke up the room.
 
velusip said:
It's important to put "Sparkle" on there. Thus far I've witness one explode at a LAN party (black marks on the wall and everything) and just the other night another friend of mine had one catch fire and smoke up the room.
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I'd disagree. Sparkle is a decent manufacturer. It's not PCP&C, but it's still pretty decent.It would rank at least above all the supplies on the list in terms of quality.
 
jonnyGURU said:
No no no no... This is a thread of blanket statements. ALL Thermaltakes suck. BEWAREZ!!!!!
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This quote is worthy of a sig :)


and hiper is pretty decent. Not the best, but far from the worst.
 
velusip said:
It's important to put "Sparkle" on there. Thus far I've witness one explode at a LAN party (black marks on the wall and everything) and just the other night another friend of mine had one catch fire and smoke up the room.
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I call shens.

Oh, and Sparkle is a decent manufacturer...
 
Bbq said:
I'd disagree. Sparkle is a decent manufacturer. It's not PCP&C, but it's still pretty decent.It would rank at least above all the supplies on the list in terms of quality.
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I also have an older Sparkle that is junk (early P4 generation).

However, they seems to have straightend up under FSP rule.
 
According to newegg reviews, many people like the Aspire. That has to count for something.
 
Spectre said:
Not really. Do you know the old saying about people not being able to find a part of their body with two hands and a flashlight?

Well that describes most newegg reviews.....

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=954719&highlight=newegg
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Well, I'm not saying that every review on newegg is gospel, just that if a large number of reviews about a product are positive, that should be taken into consideration.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ENE&Subcategory=58&Description=aspire&Ntk=all
 
Slider19 said:
Well, I'm not saying that every review on newegg is gospel, just that if a large number of reviews about a product are positive, that should be taken into consideration.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ENE&Subcategory=58&Description=aspire&Ntk=all
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Again I would say no. Even good....and by good I mean real PSU reviewers can get snookered by questionable PSU's.

X-Connects had lot's of good reviews.....even by a couple good reviewers....but something wasn't right.

....And I owe it all to Badcaps!

As you may or may not know, I, among many other review sites, reviewed the Youngyear built Ultra X-Connect power supply and gave it a thumbs up. This was over a year ago.

Months after these reviews went up, there were many reports of failures. Outside of UV light failures, I thought I was pretty immune to this and arrogantly assumed that the reports of failures floating about were exaggerated by third and fourth hand accounts.

Since then, Ultra has hired me to do some R&D and some light customer service (smooth over where tech support screws up.)

Recently, Ultra had a few people that bought some new/old X-Connect product from Microcenter and had experienced less than warm and fuzzy experiences.

Concerned with the high RMA rate and wanting to put the bad rap of the X-Connect behind them, the powers-that-be at Ultra had three units shipped from Microcenter to my door.

I loaded these up on the load tester and all three exhibited a .2V drop on the 12V rail with a mere 4A load increase (10A to 14A.) This was NOT the case with my own X-Connect reviewed a year prior. Furthermore, the crossload was much worse. When I dropped the 12V down to a mere 3A, the 12V rail shot up to 12.6V!

I then grabbed an X-Connect that was made by Wintech instead of Youngyear (you can tell the Wintechs because they don't have 115/230 switches. They're either 115V Only or 230V w/ APFC,) off the pile, threw it on the load tester and it was rock solid.

I then opened up the two and compared them with the photos from my 03/2005 review.

Now I'm not saying crappy capacitors is the reason why these power supplies suck. There's some differences that I notice like sloppy soldering on the modular interface, etc. But one thing I did notice that was in common between the good X-Connects and the crappy ones is that the good ones had Jee or Su'Scon capacitors....

....The X-Connects that performed miserably had Fuhjyyus!!!!
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http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1895

That coupled with the vast majority of people runing systems based sketchy PSU's.......a Newegg edited and filtered review is IMO and I am sure some others....worthless.
 
*Another codegen supporter*

Have bought about 20 codegen cases and used the included PSU and have never had a dead one... and all the ones in my possesion are still running strong to this day

... bare in mind they're low power rating... so I wouldnt recommend building a rig thats power hungry.. but these are great for budget builds and workstations. Their cases are relatively high quality for the price too.
 
stumbled across this thread and thought I would give my input. I have used and aspire PSU and it did great for my sig rig for awhile. I got to 2.6Ghz OC perfectly stable and the fluctuation of the rails was VERY minimal. I guess I just got a fluke. I was a noob when I got it but it served its puropose well. I dont think the caption is appropriate as I have never encountered other people with horrendous experiences with this brand on any platform. just my $.02
 
Willsonman said:
I dont think the caption is appropriate as I have never encountered other people with horrendous experiences with this brand on any platform. just my $.02
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The ATX spec is 5% load regulation. Aspire rates a number of it's PSU's with 10% regulation in order to meet their inflated output ratings that does not meet the spec.
 
Spectre said:
that doesn't not meet the spec.
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So your double negative makes it a positive? J/K Grammar correction is a habit...unless you meant something different entirely... but I see your point. I was unaware of that information. Thank you.
 
Willsonman said:
So your double negative makes it a positive? J/K Grammar correction is a habit...unless you meant something different entirely... but I see your point. I was unaware of that information. Thank you.
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It is corrected.
 
Hiltonizer said:
*Another codegen supporter*

Have bought about 20 codegen cases and used the included PSU and have never had a dead one... and all the ones in my possesion are still running strong to this day
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Are they better than the $15 PSUs I've been buying? ;)

My oldest PSU is 7-year-old Powmax that still runs fine and a couple of years ago was confirmed as able to put out its rated 300W.

... bare in mind they're low power rating...
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No thanks. Imagining PSUs being nekkid just doesn't do it for me...at least not any more, thanks to Dr. Zimbardo's aversion therapy.
 
I have a Raidmax 420 that came with my case. How bad is it? So far, I have had no problems with it and it seems to be a really good PSU.

What are some issues it has caused that qualify it for this list?
 
I just need to say that I have 2 Skyhawk/EagleTech PSU a 570Watt and a 520Watt. Both have been running perfectly for 10 / 8 months now respectively.
My Antec 550Watt Truecontrol 2.0 (Won it new in a Nvidia Contest) needed it's fan replaced becuase the one that came with it died almost as soon as the power was turned on.
 
Hows Mad Dog psu's? Who makes their power supplies?

I have a Mad Dog SurePower 400W BTX/ATX smart cable psu. The peak power is 450W.

Thanks

Sorry, should I have made its own thread? Wanted to hear if this a good or bad psu.
 
GAJ said:
Hows Mad Dog psu's? Who makes their power supplies?

I have a Mad Dog SurePower 400W BTX/ATX smart cable psu. The peak power is 450W.

Thanks
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Why is this in this thread?

Search reveals a number of hits relevant that state many Maddog units are made by SuperFlower.
 
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