Power supplies to avoid/generics

Well seeing another thread here gave me an idea as to a guide as to what psus are well known for being generic/crap, feel free to add to the list :)

Crappy generics that i've come across:


A-Power
AcBel Polytech
Achieve
Aerocool
Allied
Andyson Nuclear 850
Antec HCG-900 (High Current Gamer 900W) OEM: Delta Electronics Inc.
Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK
Apevia Warlock Power 900W
Bestec
Chiefmax
Cleverpower
Codegen
Cooler Master *Higher percentage of junk than decent
Cooler Master Elite Power 350 *OEM: Solytech
Cooler Master Elite Power 460 *OEM: FSP
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 400 *OEM: AcBel Polytech
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 *OEM: AcBel Polytech
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 600 *OEM: Seventeam
Cooler Master GX 650W OEM: Seventeam Electronics
Cooler Master GX 750
Coolmax
Coolmax V-500
Cougar A-Series 560
Cougar RS 650
Cougar CMX 700
CWT
Deer
Demon
Devanni
Diablotek PHD650 650W
Duro
Dynapower
Dynex DX-400WPS *Bestbuy junk
E-power
Eagle
Enlight
FSP Everest 700w
FSP Everest 900W
FSP Everest 1010w
FSP Raider 750
FuturePower
Hairong
HiPro
Hyena
Hiper Type R 580W
Icute
Inwin
Kingwin
JSP
JustPC
L&C
Leadman
Linkworld
Lion
Logic Concept
Logisys PS350MA
Logisys PS600A12
Macron
MGE
Mustang
Novia
OCZ 700W ModXStream Pro *OEM: Sirtec
OCZ ProXStream 1000 W *FSP
OCZ ZT 650 *Great Wall, possibly quality control issues during manufacturing?
Olympic
Power-Up
Powmax
Q-TEC
Raidmax
Rhycom
Rocketfish RF-700WPS Skyhawk *Bestbuy junk
Seventeam
Super Talent Atomic Juice PS-700
Tagan BZ 1300W
Thame Star
Thermaltake Purepower 500
Thermaltake TR2 RX 750
Topower 1000W Gold
Turbo Links
Ultra
Ultra X4 850
Ultra X4 1050
Viomax
Xigmatek NRP-MC851 OEM: CWT
Xion PowerReal 700W
VisionTek 700W
Xigmatek NRP-MC1002 1000W
Yahoima



PSUs from reputable names that i've seen TOO much failures to be normal:

Antec Truepower :
430W version of this series, tens of failures in the last 2 or so years, not average imo

Antec Smartpower :
No matter wattage, i would immediately change this from any case i get with it. All of mine are dead and alot of my clients have been hurt from it as well, from simply not working to smoking up the place and carrying components with it or simply chirping to death.

Adding Antec NEO to the list of failures.
*Update: As of February 2008, still getting feedbacks of questionable Antec Neo HE 430 - Shinma

Adding Hiper Type R 580W Modular to the list, 4 dead of 6 purchased in client pcs and a few forums have actually had threads with polls asking how many have exploded :D

didnt leave much for addition there justin! good idea though, itll be nice to just throw a link out for the dreaded 'what psu' question

LOL :D

Justin, I was wondering when you would get around to posting something like this. With the past few psu threads we saw I figured it would be long. :D

Did some digging on the net, added a few more. Geez theres ALOT of crap out there!

Wow, that's a scary list of scary bits. Q-Tec are particularly horrifying since they are relatively commonplace and adverise ludicrous specs for the money. Check out the bottom of this page from a Hexus PSU roundup:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359&page=25

...a Q-Tec 650W PSU drawing over a kilowatt of power and still falling way short of it's rated output!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MuFu

...a Q-Tec 650W PSU drawing over a kilowatt of power and still falling way short of it's rated output!

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thats outright scary. all of that extra watts dont just sit there, thats straight heat. keep the batteries in the smoke alarms kids...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MuFu

Wow, that's a scary list of scary bits. Q-Tec are particularly horrifying since they are relatively commonplace and adverise ludicrous specs for the money. Check out the bottom of this page from a Hexus PSU roundup:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359&page=25

...a Q-Tec 650W PSU drawing over a kilowatt of power and still falling way short of it's rated output!

---

Ha cheap psu but i bet you pay more for it after a month on the electric bill :D Then to replace it :p

Plus the insurance excess after it starts a house fire.

Incidentally, Rys never did get any feedback from Q-Tec about it. :rolleyes:

just to defend enlight, as i noticed it on the list there.

i've been using enlight cases and their power supplies for many years; 300w and 350w and they are very good. they've handled anything i've thrown at them. i do however put in something more powerful if i'm putting in a high powered video card that requires the 6pin PCI-E connector, although i'm sure they could handle all but the extreme cards, like X850XT.

hi Justin,

I was just planning on buying an Antec Truepower TPII-550

Is this a good or bad one.

If its bad can you point me to atleast a good manufacturer. Whatabout Aspire and thermalake.

Thanks

Dominic

They're not all bad, i'd even say much better than average but its just that i've seen too many dead or dying units for my liking, more than other top tier psu makers. I'd feel safer with PC power and cooling, FSP or an Enermax in my rigs. Thermaltake are 'ok and better than generic", not the best, same for Aspire.

I would take Enlight off the list. Their supplies used to be made by Enhance, a very good manufacturer, and now they're by Delta, an even better one.

HiPro has long had decent quality.

MGE and Ultra have changed suppliers. Only a few years ago MGE was very bad, but now and Ultra they both get most of their products from Wintech, which produces adequate but not outstanding supplies.

CWT, Channel Well Technology, produces models of widely varying quality, and onliy those with part number suffixes of A/BS (AS or BS), A/BD, A/BSP, or A/BDP should be considered. These are, for all practical purposes, Antec Smartpowers and Truepowers.

The true manufacturer can often be found from the Underwriters Labs registration number, located under the backward "R" followed by the "U" (means Recognized by UL), and looking it up in the UL online certifications directory

Just ordered one of THESE. Anyone know anything about them?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The*Q*

Just ordered one of THESE. Anyone know anything about them?

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It's probably made by Topower, meaning it's adequate but not outstanding and not worth any high price.

Got it for $89.00 shipped. Running it now and it is very stable, voltages are well within spec to the high side, and it's very cool and quiet. Time will tell about the durability, but it runs very very well.

My Enermax 350W FMA that was bought in 2003 blew up 2 days ago.
Bought a new Enermax Noise Taker II 420W as a replacement.
Luckily all my hardware are still fine. :)

Good to hear, long time no see! :)

To find out who made that psu, get out our your magnifying glass, no not that one, the big one, and write down the Exxxxxx number on the label. That's a UL manufacturer registration number.
Then go here and type the Exxxxxx number in the File Number box. It will show you the actual manufacturer.

I bought a Rosewill 550W PSU off Newegg in february after my 2nd Antec TruePower died- no problems with it yet. Anyone else have any experience with Rosewill brand PSUs?

Another member who bought a Rosewill 550W looked up the UL cert #. It was made by Wintech.

Just to add to the opinion of Antec, I agree that they aren't all bad. In particular, I have an Antec Phantom 350W unit which has been running well for over a year with a very low speed case fan pulling air from other components and supplying that to the area enclosing the PSU. It gets fairly warm (like it should, the case is the heatsink), but it doesn't get burning hot and has never tripped the overheat sensor.

Just thought I'd chip in :)

Oh, and I used to have one of those Q-Tec PSUs. It was crazy how you get 550W for £15, back in 2004. I'm glad I threw it in the bin, after what you guys are saying! :eek:

Unfortunately,
I think the Antec brand will have to be added to the list.
Last month,
Encountered a NEO model from one of their P150 chassis,
Failed to start up system completely.
Reboot issues.
They supposedly had it fixed in the first quarter of 2006,
Not! :mad:

Same system had no issues with a decent Fortron and even a cheap Thermaltake PSU unit.

I have a few machines on Antec PSUs still and they work. :)

But I have been switching everything back to Enermax slowly. ;)

As for me,
I have been phasing in the Fortron/Sparkle brand...

May be of interest to some on a tight budget...

• $50 Power Supply Roundup

It's a month old, but I found it rather funny:

The Bargain Basement Power Supply Roundup

Nice link :D

Interesting link.
Was curious as to how, off the mark figures would be for number of those generics...

Yup, Blowed Up Good!

Great find equinoxe3d, thanks for posting it.

I found it very educational. The overrated and underbuilt units were as expected, as was too much capacity on the +5V and too little on the +12V from old designs. But what was most interesting was the huge ripple in the psu with bad caps. That tells me I should react quickly if I see bulging caps in either a motherboard or psu before the ripple destroys other components.

There's no doubt that Antec is still a lot more reliable than generics. At work, I was replacing a few power supplies per month a few years ago, when they were all generics.

I started introducing Antec chassis with SmartPower PSU's and a mixture of TruePower and SmartPower PSU's to replace busted generics. Now more recently, EarthWatts PSU's come with all the newest systems. We'd easily have at least 70-80 systems now running on Antec power supplies of various sorts and in all that time, I've only had to RMA one that I can recall.

That said, one of my own SmartPower PSU's popped after only a few months of use. I got it RMA'd with no hitch. The other two older Antec systems of mine (one TruePower, one SmartPower) are still running ok though.

The Antec Smartpowers and TruePowers are made by CWT, Channel Well Technology. The Earthwatts are made by Seasonic.

I wouldn't call CWT a generic. I came across one in an old PII tower and it was made with the same care as the CWT Antecs.

Corsair's VX550 is made by Channel Well and got very good reviews :)

Antec's CWT psu's have had reliability problems in recent years, but I'd expect them to have this sorted by now. Still, if I were buying new, I'd be inclined to choose another in this price range, like Fortron.

My Antec smartpower has been going for 3 years and still working. Thinking of buying a Antec or Silverstone for next psu.

I'd be inclined to look for one built by Seasonic. Antec Earthwatts, Corsair VX450W, and many others are actually built by Seasonic. I just read a review on the Corsair mentioned. Silverstones have been well reviewed.

With the multiple manufacturers providing for Antec at different times and for different models,
I can't be bothered looking for the actual manufacturer anymore. :D

Another PSU to be avoided - 'Thame Star". When I looked up the UL Listing Numer E203196 I got DEER Computer Company - already listed as one to be avoided!

I took delivery of two DELTA power supplies, thinking they were by Delta Electronics (good). They were labelled Delta Power and while they had the RU and CSA symbols, there were no listing numbers. So two fake power supplies masquerading as the real deal. I returned them and will not patronize that seller again.

PowMax is definately trash. I had over a dozen of those go out.

Antec and Raidmax have always served me well. Never had a single one go out. Though just recently I had an issue with my Asus A7n8x-x board and Antec SL400 400Watt SmartPower unit. (http://discussions.hardwarecentral.c...=180313&page=2) Cant say which is the culprit yet.

I just purchased an Ultra X3 ULT40064 1000Watt unit for a build. I especially love the modular design and protection features. Ive read a lot of positive feedback on the unit so im hoping it works great.

I "restored" an older Athlon 2100+ computer for my step-sister last year. The system has a 350W Antec SmartPower in it.

Everything went fine until a few weeks ago, when she called me because the system was "making noise", without being more specific. Thinking it was simply a fan grinding, I went there to check and to my surprise, the noise was short chirping beeps and happened when the system was in standby. Then, I remembered that the GPU cooler was hooked to a fan speed control (a generic Fanmate knockoff) with a piezo in it, emitting a loud beep if the fan spins too slow.

Turned out that after a few seconds after entering standby, the system goes zombie and tries to restart, but with the fans slowly spinning and the HDD light blinking. Of course the piezo in the controller went wild, doing short loud beeps. I took it home, and at first it didn't do anything special, then after a few days (building up electricity in the PSU, I guess), it started to do it again. Whipped up the multimeter, measured the 12V rail of a molex connector, and it read close to 5V :confused: When the system was on, everything (voltages and stability) was fine.

Also, when trying the PSU in another system it didn't "zombie-restart" in standby, but the PSU started emitting a faint but clearly audible high-pitched squeal. It squealed ever since, always in standby.

Being an older CWT-based Antec, and remembering a standby squealing PSU from a JonnyGuru article, I was strongly expecting bad caps at this stage. I open it and of course, 3 bulging (but not leaking) Fuhjyyus stare back at me :( That's my first defective Antec ever, not counting a True 380S with a clicking fan that came with my Sonata. Hopefully nothing else is damaged...

I just ordered a 350W Fortron from DirectCanada as a replacement. I have an older fan-swapped FSP in my secondary system running 24/7, no problems at all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by equinoxe3d

I just ordered a 350W Fortron from DirectCanada as a replacement. I have an older fan-swapped FSP in my secondary system running 24/7, no problems at all.

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A small refresh: both of those still work fine in their respective systems, but you might want to steer clear of the higher-wattage Epsilon-based FSPs, at least for now ;)

Seasonic PSUs are very good PSUs. Our engineer hooked up the scope to measure the voltage between the Seasonic and the Seventeam PSUs, and the Seasonic PSUs delivered (more) stable voltage than the Seventeam. We're running proprietary hardware and switching PSUs made a huge difference.

PS: I haven't been around here in ages!

I have one you ought to add; the Chiefmax line are just overrated crap IMHO. The tests I've read say they cannot deliver anything close to what they advertise and the failure rate is phenomenal. They at least have never taken out any hardware with them that I have seen and I guess that is why my old boss likes them; cheap easy fix and at least the customers "safe", but it seems ethically questionable to me.

The Bestec 300W that so many OEMs used and that they still sell some places, might as well have been engineered to kill motherboards, I have seen so many dead ones, but from what I read the other models are not so bad and it is just some bad caps inside, but otherwise not a bad unit, but I don't think they sell any except the OEMs replacing ones for too much money with OEM stuff. I guess it's like a lot of things, just because a bad batch was mass produced doesn't necessarily indicate bad workmanship from the company, but I always replace those no matter what the model just out of paranoia.

Added FSP Raider 750 to the list.

I recently got a Coolermaster PSU (can't remember the model) and connected it to an Asus P5G41T. The CPU fan would turn on for a couple of seconds, then off again (PSUvoltage set correclty). I then connected and old Powerman (Inwin) PSU, using a 20-pin to 24-pin power connector and the system booted. I had the bare minimum connected to the motherboard for troubleshooting.

I took it back to the store and they tested it and told me the PSU was good. I got an exchange for an Enermax PSU, which worked fine.

Please beware of incompatibility issues.

You're saying that aside from the fan momentarily starting, the CM psu did not boot the board?

Danceman:

Yes, The CM PSU would not boot the system. The Powerman PSU I tried right after had no issues booting. The exchange I got from the store was an Enermax, which booted as well. The store tested the CM PSU as "good." That puzzled me.