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PC hardware: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best?
- 10/16/09 3:27 PM
POWER SUPPLY UNIT.
by estefan202 - 10/12/09 10:35 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
google kill-a-watt. my local library has one to rent, thay are in larger hardware stores. You plug this unit in your wall recepticle, and plug your computer in it, and hard drive video games or video intensive applications. Then measure the watts used by the computer. use that number and times it by 2, and find the next size psu for the computer. This will insure that you will not overtax the new PSU. keep in mind when picking a powersupply unit the fan if it has one, most gamers have 120mm or multifan psu. with this you should be able to find the correct wattage for you.
Power supplies...
by Jeshimon - 10/12/09 1:43 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have had good luck with Antec EA 80 power supplies. They are rated at 80% efficiency and are power factor corrected. The fans are good quality and quiet. I don't know what else to say here, I'm satisfied with the three I have in house. Just check them periodically for dust accumulation and observe the case temperature on a regular basis. Heat is the enemy here.
Power supplies for PCs How much is enough?
by bob cooley - 10/12/09 1:53 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Why don't you buy a $25. watt meter (like a "Kill A Watt")
and find out how much power you are really using.
hard disk takes 2.8GB for local disk
by sai venkat - 10/14/09 12:11 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
i have local disk H which is using 2.8 GB and when i open it its showing disk is empty what might have gone wrong plzzzzzzzzz fix this
This has nothing to do with power supplies.
by Kees Bakker - 10/14/09 12:17 AM
In reply to: hard disk takes 2.8GB for local disk by sai venkat
Please start a new thread in stead of burying your question inside a big and totally unrelated one.
Kees
Power Supply Issues
by scorpion2k7 - 10/14/09 3:51 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Try to check to see if your motherboard setting are set to the proper setting, also if your CPU is overclocked undo that and see if the PSU still has problems...
power supply problems
by barryl2 - 10/16/09 8:01 PM In reply to: Power Supply Issues by scorpion2k7just one i have been caught with do replace your own power supply or your computor tech .i was having simiarlar problems went to another shop what the other guy was doing was not pushing the connector in properly then slowly vibrate out .which made it look as if your p/s had failed sneaky and cost a bit of money before an honest techie found the cause
I'm going to recommend to disregard the advice from others..
by Forked_Tongue - 10/15/09 10:24 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I would recommend buying a power supply tester (usually about $20-30) when buying your next power supply. I've worked on a lot of computers and one of the things that happens when a power supply goes out is that it may have sent a surge thru your system and those components may now have an an intermittent short. A power supply tester will tell you where your old supply failed so you'll know which components to replace when you replace the supply. Dirty power can damage your power supply like what the rest of the posters claimed, but so can other electrically damaged hardware, you need to find out what went wrong with the power supply (if you still have the old one in the garage, test it too) because for all we know you may have used a surge protector or ups but even those items aren't foolproof and your defect chain may have started there in the first place.
PSU
by tswoodruff - 10/16/09 7:25 PM In reply to: I'm going to recommend to disregard the advice from others.. by Forked_TongueHi, I agree with checking for the problum. I would also talk about something called "ESD" I found most people don't know about ESD. How it might not show a sign now, but it will fail later. All computer parts Should be ESD from the maker to the bilder and anyone that opens the case too. If a company is not ESD compilant, go some where that is.
Tim
Bad Science.
by Jelly Baby - 10/18/09 3:10 AM In reply to: I'm going to recommend to disregard the advice from others.. by Forked_TongueWhat a lot of useless information.....
I'd guess (because that's all I can do without much more information) that either you had been very unlucky and have had a series of duff power supplies (are they not still in warranty?)
OR - more likely - there is a faulty motherboard / graphics card / etc. etc. which is breaking the power suplies.
Fans sucking all the air out of a case.... interesting - but very wrong (even if all the fans were blowing out, which they often are, there are still enough gaps in the case to let plenty of fresh air back in again.
"A power supply is one of the simpler components we use" Try that one on someone who designs them.
"Even a few minutes of this DC "pollution" will burn any transformer.." A power supply is NOT a transformer - it's a switch mode PSU and will reject DC offset (if one was present).
Faulty power - how long does your TV last? If you don't need to buy a new TV every year (it also uses switch mode power) then it's not your supply
Suggestions for "testing" a power supply with a $30 gizmo --- wow - that's an interesting prposition - if only it was that easy! ;¬) -- it could also be just a little bit lethal... Unless you REALLY know what you are doing don't try to test or work on an exposed switch mode power supply. It's one of the few "do not remove this cover" warnings which is actually worth paying attention to!
"Most of the newer motherboards require a specific power supply and will not work unless they meet the motherboard spec's" -- which almost all of them will..... if the plugs are compatable. If you have to look for an addaptor (or you have to "custom wire" the PSU to your mother board then that's a different story.
"If you continue to add more power to a system that has problems unrelated to too little power, you may just be setting up conditions to fry your whole system, or worse yet, start a fire or something.
" or worse - be ready to upgrade your components in the future.
Symptoms of an underpowered PSU are usually random system hangs (often when you plug in yet another USB device...) or in extreme cases - the system just won't start at all or will cycle endlessly through the BIOS start-up screen. If the supply just fails completely then it's not usually because it was short of power.
Some people like to spew crap facts without knowledge,
by Forked_Tongue - 11/6/09 6:41 AM In reply to: Bad Science. by Jelly Babypower supply testers are simply that easy and doesn't require you to get inside the case, literally you plug in your various connectors (20 pin, 24 pin, 4 pin, molex, etc) into in and then power on the supply. An led will glow green for all the parts that pass and will stay dark for all the fail points. This will give you base line on what components have failed on your build. Even a name brand powersupply won't save you if you have a short, you'll simply sacrifice it to stupidity as well. If you can plug pin connectors to the motherboard, hard drives, video cards, etc then you can easily operate a powersupply tester without even removing the powersupply from the case.
Luckily these testers are much cheaper now than when I bought mine a few years back. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=power%20supply%20tester&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE
The #1 truth about power supplies is...
by sircanegiem - 10/16/09 5:55 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
...that you get what you pay for.
To answer your question, the best power supply manufacturers, from my collective years of experience, are: OCZ, Antec, Enermax, Corsair, Seasonic, PC Power & Cooling, Cooler Master, and Thermaltake. Buying any power supply from one of these manufacturers within your price range will certainly produce the results you're looking for.
Now for the details:
Most people who are inexperienced with power supplies simply look at the power supply wattage and buy them based off that alone. The problem with the "the more watts the better" approach is that cheaply made power supplies claim to have a LOT of watts, but in reality can't even compete with a well-made 350 watt power supply.
The cheapo PSUs are priced extremely low because the manufacturer KNOWS they aren't going to deliver the wattage they claim to. They almost always have very poor energy efficiency (which makes the PSU waste power & run hot), so the manufacturer adds extra fans to try and cool it off, and then makes you believe the extra fans are a "feature".
THE CHEAPO POWER SUPPLIES PUT MOST OF THE POWER IN PLACES THAT YOUR COMPUTER DOESN'T WANT IT. Inside the power supply, there are 3.3, 5, and 12 volt "rails" that deliver the power to your PC. The majority of the power your computer consumes is 12 volt power. Therefore, high-quality power supplies will beef up their 12 volt rails to satisfy your computer's demands, and put less in the 3.3 and 5 volt rails accordingly.
On the other hand, low-quality power supplies pump up the 3.3 and 5 volt rails ridiculously high and skimp on the 12 volt. So, the manufacturer may claim that it's 600+ watts, but they're putting 400 watts of that 600 in the 3.3 and 5 volt rails that your computer barely uses! On top of that, because the manufacturing quality is so low, it will only realistically put out only a fraction of the power it claims to (making those 600 watt power supplies run more like 300 watt power supplies).
-------
So there you have it. To determine the minimum wattage that your new power supply should be, refer to the PSU Calculator in my link below. Buy your new power supply made by one of the above manufacturers with confidence, knowing you're buying a well-made product with enough power for your needs!
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
What a great answer!
by Mike Hallock - 10/26/09 4:32 PM In reply to: The #1 truth about power supplies is... by sircanegiemThis explains most everything what a computer user would want.
We need more people like you around CNET.
Thanks for the info.
must be other problems ... 3 psu in 2 yrs
by justchuck69 - 10/16/09 6:58 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
yes even if you kept getting the cheapish psu you should not have gone threw 3 psu in a 2 year time frame. if you can check maybe your whole computer is too hot or the power coming into your house is real bad .
if you added more fans it may not be helping as you need to remember that if you have more fans blowing out you also need some blowing into your case as if you have a negative pressure ( caused by too many fans blowing out and not enough fans blowing into it ) it will be hard for all your components to keep cool ( negative pressure will slow down the heat transfer on all your components so if you have added or your case came with a lot of fans make sure some are (usually the front fans ) blowing some air in ( and also keep your case clean of dust as that is a big heat collector too and sometimes it does not even take a lot of dust but a little dust in the wrong places can do it too)
and the one poster mentioned a ups and that will help if you have dirty power coming into your house ( like a rural farm house might have bad power coming into it ... ie they will go threw more bulbs and stuff then someone that lives in a city ...generally but not a hard and fast rule )
most ups will have one rail that goes threw the battery and then some other that just goes threw a surge protector so make sure you are plugging the computers main power cord into the right place on the ups too ( they should be clearly marked on the psu
yes more details as to what else you have in you case may have helped to but if you look into these two thing maybe your next power supply might be the last for that old computer
just my two cents on this matter but i hope this helps you
good luck and take
btw yes a good brand name is important too and the one guy that said maybe your (750 watt ) psu is too big too might be a factor too as a big power supply that is under utlized maybe causing some of the problem too
I agree - the issue must be heat
by cryogenius - 10/16/09 8:01 PM In reply to: must be other problems ... 3 psu in 2 yrs by justchuck69I had a couple of power supplies blow, and finally realized that I just had the case too close to the wall behind it. The hot air would leave the back of the unit and then be pulled back into the case. When I pulled the case away from the wall the PSU lasted for years and years.
I have also done stupid things with fans - like installing one backwards so all fans were trying to blow exhaust out of the case, and none were blowing in. This caused alarms to go off and auto shut down on high temperature. It took me a while to figure that one out, but putting the fan right again did wonders, d'oh!
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