Why Cheap Power Supplies Explode
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2022
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Beware of buying a cheap PSU...it might just blow up!
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Short Circuit protection? Luckily this is Tech Quickie.
A knee slapper
Missed opportunity
@@peterwoods8299 exactly my thought. They could've done a shameless plug
Lol
Damn, what an opportunity 💪😅
Well, I used many Cheap power supplies for my DIY projects and I have a list of problems with them.
1, their power rating is overrated
2, they get very hot
3, some of them have no or very unreliable protections like short circuit protection or overload etc.
4, They make musical notes with heavy loads.
5, they have very bad electrical noise filters my amplifiers don't like them.
6, you don't know when will they fail or how will they fail.
7, they can shock you
8, your electricity bill is very high because of low efficiency.
Yes, agreed. And there are the "smart" people, who says: " - I used this "Cat.: Avoid" PSU for 8 years and it's good, nothing happend, why i need to buy a new one for triple price?!" I get this question on forums many-many times. (sorry, my english is bad, i know)
@@errordtp if you have a pc buy a good one . But for DIY projects Cheap ones work too.
@@Geniusinventor Sure. I only buy and recommend top tier PSU-s, like Seasonic.
They can shock you
With their electric leaks
And the electricity bill
Very hot thing is often a big sign for me. Some people complaining the pc is too hot for using a random ass brand psu and when i checked it , surely the psu will be the culprit. Cm elite 600w v4 for example.
The worst power supply failure I've ever seen was when I was working on a machine from my countys library. One of the capacitors inside had overheated so much that the excess solder Dell had left in actually shorted all the components on the board. Luckily, all it took was a new PSU to get the computer up and running again.
check the gigabyte psu that really explodes with flames and stuff ;) ..
its on gamers nexus
I've only had one PSU fail on me, it was a Dell, but this was back in like 07
@@z0phi3l personally i never had a psu fail on me .. .. always ppl around me .. even my 10 year old silverstone .. still going strong .. but next month .. its gonna get and upgrade :) to seasonic
Apevia/Logisys i think are the worst in the world. Many years ago they released a PSU with an acrylic housing and cool green UV reactive cable braiding. When tested at 100% of declared capacity it would literally melt the acrylic housing. Lucky for them this was during the era when nearly all PSU vendors lied about capacity and everyone would get a PSU double the actual wattage they would need.
@@Mr.Morden they make the prestige which is decent
I bought a Corsair CS550M about 10 years ago for my first budget gaming rig (AMD Athlon II X4 640 + GTX 460) and even to this day im using that same PSU just now it powers a AMD Ryzen 7 2600X + RTX 3060. and its still going on strong, just shows you what happens when you spend your money buying a decent power supply, the PSU can out live multiple pc builds (which in my case is 3)
That PSU is near its safe limit with those components. But yes it’s a great example of why to buy a quality PSU
@@cjmillsnun yeah you probably right, just built my pc on pcpartpicker and it estimates total wattage of 364W which is about right because if i have both the cpu and gpu maxed the power draw from the wall is 400W - 410W. thats still 80% of what the PSU is able to supply (well its a bit more that 80% because the PSU can supply a maximum of 516W on the 12v rails [12V at 43A] )
@@DTronicsUK In ideal scenarios you would want a head room of atleast 50% for best efficiency on your psu. I would highly recommend you to upgrade, get a seasonic power supply they are great quality
@@denniskarlsson6173 50% headroom just doesn't apply with modern quality PSUs any more. The hard bell curve of the efficiency graph has deformed at the higher end of utilisation as efficiency has increased. Some headroom is still a good idea, but not as much as the old times.
The components of your old psu probably degraded, that's the reason why old psu models are moved to avoid tier in psu tier list I'd change my psu if i were you just to be sure.
In late 90's my confuser was having nothing but random problems. Back then it was easy to just say "that's windows". But I thought i would just switch out the power supply and Bam no more problems. Lesson learned quality matters.
Same but as recently as a few years ago on a win 10 pc. Kept getting random occasional shutdowns for no reason. Replaced with a new psu, all good again 👍 Was a Cooler Master make too which are supposed to be good. 🤷♂
It seems like your confuser was... confused
I also experienced this effect but just from switching the wall plug to one on a different circuit. All of a sudden the random crashes stopped and even fps went up lol. Had me going nuts because I’d been putting up with it for years.
well win 3.1 was good, case psu unsafe, bough new 450 to 850 to new AT1200 that still works 12 years later to 2000w.
Nvidia drivers suck, you need new driver for the new game and old games stop working for 90+ days unless you went back and forward between drivers, my last Nvidia FX5200,
hello 5770HD 2 to 4 drivers pre year and no problems,
well outside of windows F-up driver installs and updates
Damn...you got me at "Thats Windows" 😅
I'm kind of surprised that PSUs can't tell rest of the computer "Hey, I'm near my limit, you need to ease off a bit". It would also be good if the computer then sent the user a notification of why it had to throttle back.
Well it does sort of by means of circuit protections as a "Dumb" method. Additionally you now have the 12volt HPWR connector which tells the GPU how much power it can draw on the new ATX 3.0 spec. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a similar ATX revision for CPUs or motherboards in the near future. CPUs aren't quite at the GPU levels of power draw, based on thermals sure.
But it comes down to costs, analog PSUs is a true and trust method and far cheaper to make compared to a digital PSU. The corsair AXi series costs $229 for the 800 watt and $610 for the 1.6kw. Why mention digital, because it is likely the method they will need to use for a "smart" PSU. Analog won't quite cut it, while not impossible the flexibility of digital power supplies especially with the use of programmable gate arrays or micro controller, makes it the obvious choice. You could technically have a hybrid system of analog/digital. But it still going to cost a pretty penny.
If your expecting the new ATX 3.0 PSUs is going to be similar priced compared to the current ATX spec, you are in for a surprise. New PSUs wanting to comply with the new ATX spec will also require to be able to handle spike loads for example, which means PSUs will require higher rated capacitors in order to comply with the new specifications this will drive up the costs of the final product. This new spec is targeted at power supplies above 500 watt as far as I am aware.
The short of it, it ain't cheap, you would likely need, hardware support, PSU/motherboard and or CPU or any other connected hardware or something that can deal with the "dumb" hardware as well as operating system/bios support and it needs to be fool proof as well. But no doubt some thing we will see soon, if you can afford it. Digital power supplies haven't come down in price much if at all.
There is some advantages and some pitfalls of using digital over analog, digital does suffer from some latency issues, compared to analog with hard limits, it might take a moment longer for a digital supply to notice a brownout as a random example. It is a bit more involved process to get it to that point of being "smart".
@@WizardofidGameGuruMax I don't think it would be overly complicated to implement you could keep the PSU basically the same as it is now it just needs a sensor that tells the motherboard when it is being pushed to hard. Another option, would be to leave the power supply alone completely and just add a setting in the motherboard's bios to tell it how much power it has at its disposal and let the motherboard take care of it since it already has sensors that tell it how much each component is drawing and already has to manage that to some degree. Of course this option does leave room for people to enter stupid values but that just means they will ethier trip their PSUs without warning like it is now or they will be leaving free performance on the table.
The new 12 volt HPWR connector feature is nice I guess. not sure why they would limit it to just one power rail like that though. Sensors are cheap (like pennies cheap), even $10 cooling fans have them (meaning they also have a channel of communication with the system as well).
@@WizardofidGameGuruMax check how psu works, you will find all is digital, switching transistors controlled by ic chip which won't be hard to control it by safe option as usb, the only reason is there is many option need to be standard before developing, and no one will risk investing in it before atx3, also depends on consumer requests and problems that need to fixed
@@Ahmedhkad I think I deleted my reply explaining the whole spiel. No going to bother to write all of that again. But the short of it digital uses micro controllers or programmable gate arrays, and digitally control /input/output voltage. Power supplies are still predominantly analog unless expressly advertised as digital. Switching power supplies uses a regulator PWM, and only draws what it needs, this isn't digital in naturally it is still analog, even if it was digital it only pertains to input voltage. After that it is still analog unless expressly noted otherwise. Having a switching regulator doesn't make it digital.
A digital power supply deals with the primary and secondary side of the PSU, from input to output, all circuit protection even ripple. Hell not all digital power supplies is fully digital, some power supply minor rails is still analog. You really to brush up on what the difference is between digital and analog. Because it is switching doesn't mean digital, not by a long shot.
That’s actually what’s going to happen with the latest ATX spec (3.0) and GPUs.
this is really great and all, but this doesn't help me with what to do AFTER its already ON FIRE!!! SSERIOUSLY WHAT DO I DO
Remove power source, hit with powder or C02 extinguisher. Otherwise, walk away, raise alarm and call emergency services.
@@dzzope although it took you 10 minutes to respond
Just reboot the PC, always works
Honestly you cant do anything about it. Just let the fire burn your Insurance away.
Full throttle will suck the flames back in and suffocate the... Oh wait that's for performance carburators
From the thumbnail alone, Gigabyte comes to mind.
I ain’t going to forget how they responded and how they accused Gamer’s Nexus.
What was the story ?
@@webolabs When caught selling bad units, that Gamers Nexus proved were bad, Gigabyte accused Gamers Nexus of not testing right. Gamers Nexus then explained all about how their testing is obviously correct and how even without them testing, it was clear there was an issue.
Instead of owning up to their mistake, Gigabyte accused others of being wrong despite all the proof.
For a while, Gamers Nexus made a dig at Gigabyte every chance they got.
@@CoolJosh3k LMAO, this is exact same story when I reach out to Gigabyte support for warranty, they did not care that the motherboard fried 3 PSU, and told me there is no global warranty WTF ! So why the hell they put warranty in all their products worldwide, for fun ?!!!
It will be the aast time ever I will buy something from them or recommend them for sure
Could we get a video explaining the different manufacturers labeling schemes? Seems like every "reputable brand" has a dozen different models all made by different companies and its confusing to know which model is good and bad
Good point. Generally, EVGA, Corsair, Seasonic, and Thermaltake have been making PSUs for a long time and haven't suffered from quality issues. There are other manufacturers that can build good things, but that's the list of manufacturers who are reliable enough that you don't need to worry about them exploding and taking your components with them, even if they have a line that has some minor issues. (not meeting rated current/voltage, etc)
@@alexlowe2054 you're missing the point, Evga psu's aren't made by them lol they have a dozen different models of psu all by different manufacturers
@@ugatobekittenme
Most of them are made by High Wall, but I guess EVGA/Corsair give them specs to follow and they validate those specs as well... or I hope they do
Well that could make a good video... but mostly... its just rebranding and putting their own sticker on. All the big major brands does it with a few caveat For example, Corsair will "design" some of their own or make revisions to an existing stable and proven platform/model from one of the other OEM, but they make none of them as far as i know. One of their product line might be from CWT, or built to Corsair specs by CWT. Sometimes it will be from one of the other OEMs. And i seen Corsair PSU built by the best oems... and some from the not as good ones. At the same time, if Corsair has a psu from one of the not best OEMs... it's usually from still good/decent oems and the best psu platform from that OEM and they(Corsair) likely revised the design for Corsair uses/product lines. And then same goes for most of the reputable brands. Of that bunch... i think only Seasonic doesn't need other OEM. They are one.
For corsair, anything with CV, VS, or V in the name is for low efficiency, very budget low end/low priority builds and I generally avoid these for any type of build
CXM/TXM (avoid green label) are higher quality with low efficiency, semi modular, has better protections and can be used with semi power hungry parts
RM, RMX, RMi 2015/2018/2021 (along with HX and AX line) are very efficient, very high quality, very quiet and can be trusted totally for any type of build
Member of the Hiper TypeR 580W PSU here...
I am familiar with many ways a PSU can die - I had 2 of those before the warranties run out :D
I built my nephew a computer a while back that used a cheap power supply. It got hot enough that some solder melted and connected the 12V rail to the 5V rail, and sent too much voltage through every component. It fried everything in the box, absolutely everything. Don't cheap out on power supplies.
Damn that sounds like a hardware nuke. My condolence 🙏
That's why you never skimp on the PSU, that and the MOBO are the most important things to be built right else your computer might shit itself later on. Plus alot more room to upgrade
I had a scetchy china psu up until recently and as I found out later it was also very old (2010). To be fair it worked without issues with my old PC configuration (apart from sounding like a jet fan when starting). It was "rated" for 730 Watts, so I upraded my PC from a gtx1660s to a RTX 3060ti (240W TDP). Well when the Card started boosting in games the power supply immeadiatly turned off. Which is to be fair pretty good. It turned off and did not just exploded. Well on 42% Power (~100W) the card ran just fine (and still faster than my old 1660s). I then upraded to a corsair 750m and now everything runs fine. Turns out the chinese psu only supported 450W on the the 12V Rail and they simply added up the power of the other Rails to 730W.
my psu is from 2009 (750 watts) and it still works with components from ~2017 (2-3 of my harddrives might be from 2016 or earlier, the case fan is pretty old and was making little noise for a while)
it used to have old everything in the case, but that has gone somewhere now
The timing of this video scares me, I know that Facebook and Google are always listening to what I do, but LTT surprised me. I bought a Seasonic power supply today, I was going to cheap out a bit, but the lady at the counter advised me otherwise. Glad to see Riley gave the same advice.
I had a cheap power supply shoot out sparks and stop working because it melted through the solder on the live terminal on the power switch. (diablotek, if anyone was wondering, not that they exist anymore, as far as I know) I re-soldered it (didn't think it was *possible* for someone to do a worse solder job than me, but apparently so...) and replaced it just as soon as I could afford to. Fortunately, it didn't take any components out with it...
0:00 The first ATX 3.0 PSU came out last month. The ATX 12VO spec was published 2019 and the first of those came out 2020. I am guessing they change as power needs change.
I had this cheap PSU that a capacitor blew up so hard it left a dent on the metal case. It almost sounded like a gunshot
Sorry bro, I laughed on your comment. Damn capacitors, those thingies are little grenades 😂
Goddamit! Sorry for your loss. But luckily that thing didnt shoot you 💪😅
@@fridaycaliforniaa236 I seen people do guns that shoot em on youtube
The thing that I certainly was surprised when I got my own 80 plus PSU was the Weight. Using a generic PSU and switching to an actually decent PSU shock me.
like, How heavy is this PSU compare to the generic one?
The weight factor does not mean it is a good power supply anymore these days. Many years ago, PSU were very heavy because of the weight of the heatsinks inside the PSU. These days, higher-tier PSU has gotten much more efficient due to improvements in manufacturing, they generate much less heat than before, therefore need less use of heatsinks, reducing the overall weight. Even the famous Gigabyte P750/850 80+Gold PSU is prone to explosion. That thing is fairly heavy.
The only time my PSU has exploded was back in the day when we had those nasty 230/115V switches on the PSUs. As a child, I just had to try... My ears ringed for a while after that and the smell was absolutely horrible.
I bought a "NorthQ" power supply in 2013. After a few years it went with an insanely loud bang... Luckily without killing other components...
Lucky. I've fixed some systems with board, cpu and even hdd damage over the years. All from cheap psus.
Fk is north q lol
Welp, good timing LTT. My PSU literally exploded yesterday... And I had the same model as the EVGA one at 0:00 (the 600w version though)
One thing I always know and always tell people when building PCs, is NEVER CHEAP OUT ON A PSU. Not worth having your PC components be potentially destroyed just because you wanted to save a few dollars..
I've had a Fractal Design Newton R3 1000W PSU in my PC for years and it was even second hand when I bought it (although, the previous owner didn't really use it much at all). Absolutely awesome power supply.
I have my Seasonic 700W (I think) in my 10+ hours daily on time for almost 5 years now. An ant colony once lived in it. It had been thrown from a car back seat to the floor because some idiot decided to jaywalk on a highway. It's still has some ants remains inside. It's still working. 10/10 would buy Seasonic again.
@@Alberos idk if jaywalking is illegal on west country tho
@@imanjx2914 I'm from asian country. Honestly I'm not even sure that it's illegal or not (it should). But the fact is everybody do it and cops seem not not care. If nothing happens it's normal to not cross on the zebra crossing here. Most road don't even has a zebra crossing anyway lol.
@@Alberos well if you're from asian country then i guess i don't need to explain it lul
Jaywalking is so common here so i don't think it is illegal since zebra cross is well....don't really exist unless it's on highway with traffic lights.
Video suggestion: cores vs threads. What's the difference?
Those Intel different-type cores are confusing too. I never looked it up, since the only thing Intel I have are a couple of old laptops, and a couple of old SSDs on a PCIe card.
Cores are physical parts in the cpu, imagine them like brains that you have. Each core contains a lot of parts that can do various types of instructions, because of that every instruction that run on a core only use a part of the core not all of it. to avoid having this waste of ressources they made each core work on 2 things at the same time, this is what is called HyperTreading for intel and SMT for AMD.
So a thread represent a workload that a core is working one.
Techquickie already has video on the topic, "What is Hyper Threading Technology as Fast As Possible"
Cores are physical things. Threads are programming instructions. They are only loosely related.
A core can actively work on one thread at a time. Windows handles thread switching. Check your task manager, performance tab, cpu section. It will say how many threads you are running, and its probably over a 1000. And you don't have a 1000 core CPU. Thus you can see why these things are only loosely related.
@@oldguyreal9681 it is actually simple with the 12th gen core series, they have a certain number of performance cores which have hyperthreading, and a certain amount of efficiency cores which do not. for example the Core i5 12600K has 6 hyperthreaded cores and 4 non-hyperthreaded ones, the total is 10 cores. 12 threads on the performance cores +4 threads on the efficient cores = 16 total threads.
Hi Gigabyte.
I have only ever used Seasonic power supplies in my builds. I even have one that's been going for over 12 years almost nonstop in my media center PC. They have never done me wrong.
Seasonic is a manufacturer, that way they have direct control over their products from design to manufacture. Most of the brands you hear about are however just that, brands. They buy their PSU's from manufacturers like Seasonic or any of the other PSU manufacturers around. The brands input on the products can vary from just buying "white box" PSU's and slap a brand label on them to actually partake in designing circuitry and deciding on parts used. In general those who go the later route tend to have better products, but some manufacturers do sell generic designs that are pretty good.
Now it's usually not recommended that you just choose by brand or make, but Seasonic does have a pretty good track record. Personally there are a few makes I tend to trust, and Seasonic is on that short list. Others are FSP, Delta, LiteOn and Zippy - EMACS. I sort these into three categories. Seasonic is very good at making PSU's for workstations and personal PC's. FSP is a cheaper alternative that's typically is not quite up there with Seasonic but tend to be perfectly good enough for most use and at a decent price. Delta and LiteOn sell a lot of PSU's to the large computer manufacturers and they both tend to be reliable but not exiting for those who build their own computers as they are just bare boxes with little to no regard for aesthetics. Zippy-EMACS may have a strange name but their PSU's are rock solid. If Delta and LiteOn are dependable then Zippy is what you get when failure is not an option. They are expensive, tend to have loud fans and are bare steel and have the dreaded "Ketchup and Mustard" cables. But if you build a server or critical workstation they are well worth the price.
Now as for brands I think all of them has had some duds. But generally brands like Corsair, EVGA and several others are generally quite good at ensuring the PSU's they sell under their brand doesn't damage their image by crapping out. And they also are pretty good at handling support when something does go wrong. That and generous warranties give you some peace of mind. Remember that a single RMA return for a PSU will eat up the profit they make form the sale of probably ten of those PSU's. That give them incentive to keep the quality control on top of things making sure the return rate is as low as possible.
So it's not that these manufacturers or brands are your friends, they just want to make as much money as possible and if that means selling good products then so be it...
The more obscure brands and manufacturers can get away with selling low quality products and have higher failure rates as they don't have an image to protect and might be hard to get to replace failed units.
I only had one Seasoning unit and it blew up the first time I plugged it in...at least it didn't take rest of the computer with it. Got a warranty replacement and it's working fine since.
The only PSUs I bought were from Corsair and SuperFlower. Both have not failed me. Seasonic and EVGA are also good choices
I had seasomic psu fan start to fail after 3 years, made big coil whine type of sound. Contacted seasonic and they sent me a new one super fast
Only ever use seasonic or Evga psus definitely cant go wrong with either.
Problem is it's almost impossible to tell which power supply is reliable. Seen good name brands sell bad power supplies. Hell if I just raise the price 40 bucks on a bad PSU you'll think it's good. We need to require a better rating then 80 gold.
My very first home DIY NAS was taken out by a cheap PSU, including all of the drives and the mainboard. One of the drives had unbackuped data, which needed to be rescued by changing the PCB of the drive. So i got two lessons learned for the price of a bunch of IDE drives and a new good PSU. Interestingly the PSU itself continued to work just as nothing ever happened, although it had popped loud AF and smelled horrible afterwards. Didn't save it from trash though
The "kaputt" at 3:17 got me laughing hard
Same ;-)
While all this is true, I bought a brand new EVGA G2 1000w PSU for my then new PC a few years ago. Built the system very carefully, come time to power on, flipped the power switch on the back of the PSU and it went with a bright blue flash and smoke. Took out a 6 month old Samsung Pro 256gb SSD. Convinced I'd done something wrong I checked everything in the system and no error on building. Sent the G2 PSU back under warranty, and the replacement several weeks later worked fine. In the meantime I used a different PSU and no issues.
So even buying a fancy, well regarded brand and model PSU they can still fail.
the saskatchewan joke was my fav part of this video lmao🤣🤣🤣
I remember working on a desktop at an office. I plugged it in and turned it on, and a jet of flames came out of the back of the power supply, kinda like fireworks, with a rapid clicking noise. I luckily was able to pull the plug before it damaged anything else in the office, or burn the place down.
Thanks for this video, guys. I need as much help as I can get to weed out these cheap power supplies from reputable ones.
👆👆congratulations🎊you have been randomly selected among my shortlisted winners you just won a prize🎁🎁🎁...
Nearly every power supply that has ever failed on me was from bad caps, using under-rated caps or not having enough of them to handle the ripple current.
0:03 oh, Riley ABSOLUTELY said mid 19th-90s. He was about to say mid 19th century and fixed himself and they left that take in. 😂
« Buy from renown sellers »
Buys a PSU from Gigabyte
Dies in the middle of a burning house...
Bomb has been planted 🤣
well.. my Chinese 500W power supply brand is on a 2 year streak of not exploding 🥳
How much load are you pulling from it? ;)
@@SrApathy33 I think k at 440w
>keeping in mind to stock up on cheap PSUs for makeshift grenades in the cyberpunk doomsday scenario
Those cheap, high-wattage PSUs also frequently have crappy 12V rails. If your PSU should have enough wattage to power your gaming rig but you keep getting spontaneous resets in-game, that could be why.
Yes i have cheap psu 900w 45e 3 year ago and in Batttlefield game crash reset after 1 hour gaming, also the vrm of Motherboard up to 100c , i think could be due to no stable 12 V ...
It all comes down to luck in the end.... I've had 29€ Chieftec GPA PSU 450W 12CM ATX2.3 80PLUS in my HTPC for 10 years and no problems at all.
Intel i5-2500S, 8GB DDR3, 1x SSD, 3x HDD, AMD R9 380... Power calculator says 440W and it's fine.
Nowadays, I use only Seasonic power supply. Prime TX for main computer and that HTPC is right now being rebuilt with Focus PX-550. That retiring Chieftec PSU was great value at 2,99€/year :D
After 6 years my Corsair HX1200i went bang, flash and a puff of smoke. Obviously even more expensive psu's can go bang. Thankfully no other part of the pc was damaged. Unfortunately my Belkin Surgemaster failed the experience and the main fusebox tripped.
Thankfully Corsair has great customer service and a replacement was sent out within a few weeks.
👆👆congratulations🎊you have been randomly selected among my shortlisted winners you just won a prize🎁🎁🎁...
High got a 1000w PSU for $10. It's great. 80Plus Platinum. Thought it'd be hella noisy being from a retired server. Nope. Hardly any noise below 500w. Using it for an induction heater. lols
Another sign to look for is a gigabyte logo
*LUL*
1:02 is not a good representation of how capacitors work. They do not "flow" like they're in series, they are in parallel to flatten voltage differences.
The explanation of bad ones is the same, but not the visuals.
From what I gathered regarding PSUs:
-Companies that actually design their PSUs: Seasonic, Corsair, Super Flower, FSP. Other companies might outsource the design, which doesn't necessarily mean it will be bad but possibly make it more hit or miss.
-Get one with Japanese capacitors so they aren't complete trash and will last more than a couple of years.
-80+ Gold or better generally have better components than bronze/white label.
-Look for a good warranty like 7-10 years, meaning the company has some faith in the product.
-Don't buy random "brands" that you never heard of before.
-Don't buy Gigabyte PSUs for the foreseeable future - they can explode.
I have been building computers since BEFORE ATX, I used the older AT standard. I have built computers out of used systems, trashed systems, recovered from landfills, bought at flee markets in the middle east, and just made out of crap.
I have had components fail in all sorts of ways, or, more specifically the only two ways they can, open or short.
In my years of accidentally running 220v systems on 110v and visa versa, of using parts that spent years in the rain, I have only seen 1 power supply ever fail in a manner that is actually explosive... and that was made by Gigabyte.
Don’t forget dry joints, loose solder balls and even the odd missed one, big chunky bits tend to be hand soldered leading to human error.
Switching power supplies have been around since the late 1960s. The computer industry began using them commonly with the Apple 2 and the IBM 5450, later known as the PC, in 1981. LTT only missed by 15 years or so. Par for the course for LTT accuracy.
I've had plenty of experience with power supply problems, including high quality ones like SeaSonic that react so fast they overcompensate for a momentary spike from my RTX 3090. I just threw a 1300W PSU in as an upgrade and there is now plenty of headroom to handle stuff like that. Keep in mind that your computer's power supply is not the only component with these protections: Your motherboard and GPU have some along with your UPS, all the way down to your circuit breakers and arc fault outlets in your home. You can get some seriously weird behavior from their interactions... I guess that's why the manufacturers tell you not to plug a surge protector into another surge protector.
👆👆congratulations🎊you have been randomly selected among my shortlisted winners you just won a prize🎁🎁🎁...
i had one for 10 years before it blew up 3months ago.
It was a 550w MSI
now i have a 650w Corsair :)
And neither of those 2 were made by the brand on the psu.
@@TheSjuris so? 95% of all electronic and mechanical devices you posses currently are not made by the brand that is selling them. Not even your car is made by that brand, it only assembles it.
You could compare them with games. You have developers and publishers. Similar concept here really.
@@malisa71 so if you buy a Ford you might get a Rolls not quite how that works. Sure some of the transmissions might be made by someone else, but that’s usually another actual car manufacturer. Not quite similar setup. You can buy 2 different PSUs with the same brand on it and have two different levels of quality. Which is what happened with the Gigablow PSU. Ford makes and assembles cars for Ford. There are a couple of rebranded models, but that’s rarer these days.
@@TheSjuris no, you are so wrong on so many levels that I do not have patients to prove anything to you. I always get surprised how some people can be so wrong about basically anything nowadays where the info about the topic is just few click away.
And what do you even mean by your first sentence in the answer??? Jesus brother...
@@malisa71 coming from someone who doesn’t even know how to spell only proves your ignorance. Fords aren’t made by Toyota. Chrysler doesn’t build Camaros. They might use some transmissions since only 3 manufacturers actually make CVTs, but that’s different. Most of the cars use their own engines use their own steel.
Seeing a secret lab sponsor makes me think you guys have not seen anything about the gaming chair industry. You guys should do a blind test video for office and gaming chairs. Kinda like gamers nexus, but you know, with LTT budget, cast, production value and writers.
That capacitor illustration frustrates me and probably anyone who knows how capacitors work
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I've got an omen prebuilt pc with 850W PSU. It is a Cooler Master psu but I could not find it in any of their line up, should I trust it, especially if I'm running a 4090 with 14900F?
The Slow Mo guys dad a video of exploding capacitors back in March that's a fun watch.
3:56, Senlifang, probably a Made in China product. No surprises here! 🤣
Bought a ibuy power pre built on Newegg and psu died within an hour on the original shipped one and the 3 replacements they sent. Ended up having to cough up $80 on a name brand psu
A few days ago I got a computer to fix. I'm in Europe, so we only have 230V AC here. The PSU was a "global" one, with a switch to select 115 or 230V. This computer came from an school, and I didn't check the switch before plugging and trying to power on the computer. Some prankster (I guess) set the switch to 115V.
If that PSU was a good one, nothing would have happened, or at least an internal fuse would have blown up. Instead, there was a loud bang inside the PSU, electrical crackles and lots and lots of smoke that escaped from all the holes in the PSU and computer case. Ah, and the awful smell of burnt electronics.
It's a miracle that the rest of the components survived.
Weight is no longer an indication whether or not a PSU is good, especially with the recent addition of new PSU topologies, which uses less components compared to older ones. The opposite is true these days, in that a heavier PSU might indicate older topology in use. In older topologies it was more common to find multiple 12 volt rails either dual or quad, single rail weren't as common. CPU and GPU power draws of yester year were a lot lower compared to now, and as such single rail PSU out number, multi rail PSU.
as such there is an additional weight reduction with the use of single rail, compared to multi rail PSU, where each rail added having components as well a rail protections in place. Additional weight reductions can be done by forgoing the switching aspect of the PSU if released in a specific market, 120v and countries that use 230 volt. It keeps the costs down.
Lastly while capacitors from Japan is considered the best when compared to Chinese counterpart, however while Japanese capacitors is still better, Chinese capacitors have improved a lot from the late 90s early 2000s stigma it once had due to having issues with the materials used in their capacitors. It is pretty hard to penalize a PSU for using tier 2 capacitors on less important bits like on modular ic board(s). where the use of teapo capacitors would be perfectly acceptable. You want tier 1 capacitors where it matters for example on the secondary side once the voltage has been stepped down.
While capacitors attribute to the efficiency rating of the PSU, the topology of PSU plays the most important part with regards to efficiency, Corsair for example is known to use teapo capacitors in their low end and some mid range PSUs. Is it a bad thing? Not at all, an all teapo PSU is perfectly fine albeit it won't be winning any efficiency races, granted you aren't trying to run a 4090 of it, it isn't any less reliable when compared to more expensive one's. Finally warranty is also worth considering usually 3, 5 and 10 year warrantied PSUs is always a consideration anything less than 3 years should be avoided as a rule of thumb.
I've personally blown a mid size cap 470uF 250VDC. Sounded like a shotgun blast
On purpose? 🫣😱
The SFX PSU that came with my Aerocool Playa case, has damaged an old MOBO so badly that I cannot output image with integrated graphics nor with a dedicated GPU, it was only used for about a year...
one time my father had a friend over,his friend put a completely normal disk in the system,the power supply LITERALLY EXPLODED and still continued working afterward,
Should've brought in a guest from Gigabyte.
I had two PSU's from a known brand with bad capacitors. They where digital, but not cheap. Two became 4 under warranty in about 2 years. They did all go bad and lasted less than 2 years. They drove other not cheap devices, who is still in good working order. Tired of it, now is 12 year warranty PSU's running perfect at 6'th year in the desktops.
My PC has recently started triggering anti-surge under high load events. This video is just more evidence it's probably my power supply at the end of its life.
When are the PSU testing videos coming? You guys bought that test equipment for your lab, right? I want to see how efficient PSU's are during system idle. Who's the most efficient really? Hard to tell since the 80+ ratings aren't actually that descriptive of the overall efficiency curve of a PSU's power band.
We have lot's of such reviews on our website if you are still searching.
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In high school we had a kid electrocute himself after taking a Mac apart. It was common knowledge not to back then because of the capacitors. He still did it.
Common sense isn't common.
The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity, though possibly not in that order.
@@tiladx hydrogen? debatable
Even expensive PSU's go BOOM. Gigabyte.
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My question is here in india i never heard a problem of 8$ psu (except abnormal shut down once a month). but 100$ + psu got every problem US or EUROPE base channel mentioned (like it Stop working after 3month or it got fried other components etc.)
Why is that?
Back in the 2000's, PC shops in the Philippines tend to put in cheap PSUs in their pre-built systems and package it with cheap automatic voltage regulators and surge protectors just to keep the prices down. It wasn't until the 2010's when internet became more accessible to more people. Since then, more people found out that PSUs are worth spending for and people stopped buying those pre-built systems with cheap PSUs, AVRs and surge protectors.
The first question I’d ask is “did I receive a Gigabyte PSU from a Newegg Shuffle from last year?” If so, use something different.
Was repairing an old build from 2004, had a codegen power supply that came with the case. I believe the case was a codegen superpower 6000 something. Finally got it working, before it was just a black screen I got to the bios and the power supply started crackling and emitting smoke so I just ripped the plug out.
My no name PSU (HKC 650W) has OCP, OPP, OVP & SCP, a reasonable weight, somewhat bad efficiency, decent cables & a good price. It works 4 years now without any problems. I think over these 4 years I got 20 Gigabyte PSU's worth of reliability 10/10 😂
Depends on components u use with it
HKC is a major OEM, I wouldn't say their home brand stuff is the greatest, but they're good enough.
My PSU has been been running since 2009 pretty much 24/7.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 I paid $105 for it in 2009 kind of expensive at the time, but I wanted a quality Power Supply so I did not cheap out. It has served me and continue to server me well.
I did buy a Corsair HXi 850 to swap to in 2018, but have not needed to do so as of yet.
I do keep my PC on a semi decent UPS that helps filter any major power fluctuations.
It is now 4 years past my expected replacement need lol. I will swap it out once I upgrade and switch to my new case which I bought that same year. I am waiting to upgrade my Intel 7700k system that has a RX 580. Now that things have calmed down a bit I might actually get to do some sort of upgrade.
My current system has been meeting my needs so I am in no real rush to upgrade.
I'm still confused what does the wattage rating mean? If I limit my system to have sustained and spike power draws of 640 watts on a 650w 80 plus bronze CX650M, why shouldn't it handle it? Like even with a 4090 and a 150cpu, all you need is 850watts. 600 for gpu and 100 for motherboard/fans.
Typically OCP is like 10-20% of the rated limit, but that's not always the case especially on cheap china PSUs a 650w might actually mean 500w sustained 650w peak. A 4090 will almost guaranteed trip a 650w PSU because although very brief, it may pull very close to that OCP limit, and as soon as you add on a CPU, board, and VRM inefficiency you're *well* over that limit.
Plus you don't want to be sitting near that limit all the time even if you could. Hotter components don't last as long. They're also less effecient. And louder to cool them. And no upgrade room. The list goes on.
I have some no name psu in my system that I’m pretty sure I bought used. It’s been in there for about 3 years and every time I see videos like this I fear it will blow up soon
I just want to say that we have some decent size lakes in Saskatchewan. You could be perfectly happy with a lake view lot here 😆
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You don't know how dangerous is a capacitor until your work on a military radar. I dropped a big floppy brick when that thing exploded next to me during a test. 90 kW radar on a SAR chopper. I almost had a new haircut after this ! 😂
Damn! I never mess around with capacitors 🫣😱
Than what Power supply should you buy then would pc part picker help get you a good one there should be a list of each power supply would work on certain PC build to avoid a fire
How stop power suply from explode?
Had a water cooling accident take out a very good, very expensive PSU. I would be terrified if I heard what I heard while I was actually using my PC
The power supply is the one thing you should never cheap out on. It's not only a fire hazard but it's also a hazard to your other expensive components like CPU and GPU. Gold rating from a trusted manufacturer like EVGA, Seasonic, or Corsair should be the minimum in my opinion.
True words! 🙏
Efficiency rating doesn't necessarily directly correlate with the quality of the PSU. Efficiency only indicates the power draw from the wall socket. The rating system is also voluntary. Rating doesn't do much more than that. Cybernetics ETA certification improves a lot on the 80+ certification, but that also has a limited scope in the rating of a PSU.
You can still have a bad gold rated PSU. Corsair and EVGA make use of OEM's, like seasonic, FPS, CWT, andyson, superflower, HEC, ect. Many OEM PSU's manufactures sell their own PSU's as well. It's not like they will be selling all of their best designs they use to competitors.
Second problem is the testing practices of the rating doesn't always stack up to real world conditions. The average testing temperatures is lower, to real life conditions. Many PSU's will fail efficiency ratings in real world conditions. So the efficiency should NOT be used as a indication of quality, but in the same breath, plat and diamonds certified PSUs are likely to have much better components in general, as it is much harder to reach those efficiency ratings.
A perfect fire hazard can easily get a 80+ gold rating, it isn't that hard to get, compared to the plat and diamond rating. EVGA has made use of superflower as an example, it is a decent OEM from Taiwan with manufacturing plant in china as do many OEMs. Knowing that would you still recommend EVGA. or corsair that on the entry and mid range side, have used OEM's ranging from CWT to FSP. Two oem's who had notoriously bad PSU's from the Pentium 4 days, also OEMs you will find in gigabyte, raidmax and other branded companies who have pretty bad entry PSU's in general.
It allures to, because it is corsair or EVGA or MSI or Asus, it doesn't actually mean their PSU's are of exceptional quality. So you don't base a recommendation on the brand name but rather the OEM they use. I would rather buy directly from the OEM, like seasonic, FSP, superflower and andyson. To the point I am still using a raidmax 850watt AE (andyson OEM) PSU from 10 years ago in a secondary system, only replaced it recently because of the old topology design (double forward design) and the quad rail wasn't good for newer GPU's. The oem is good, however in real life conditions fails the gold rating and is more a silver rated PSU.
Is it a bad PSU because it fails the gold rating, not at all, it is actually one of the best raidmax PSU's you will find from that era, ripple and protections and general performance was up there with the Corsair GS700watt(CWT or FSP pending the year). Gigabyte makes exceptional PSUs at the top end, but their entry psu's even some mid range PSU's are fire hazards. So it isn't necessarily the brand name I look for but the OEM they are using. I wouldn't recommend a corsair entry, just based on the premium you pay, when for the same money you can buy some thing a little better directly from the OEM whose design corsair is using.
@@WizardofidGameGuruMax Efficiency rating usually comes at a higher price though, and from what I've seen brands like Corsair or bequiet give much longer warranties on platinum/titanium rated PSUs compared to gold or bronze ones, usually 10 vs 5 years. Doesn't mean that it affects quality, but I think it somewhat makes sense for them to only grant longer warranties if they can expect said products to last longer too
@@anthrazite 80+ Efficiency rating tests efficiency and not much else, It test at low medium, and high loads. It doesn't inspect, dissemble or otherwise test individual components. There is very few that can get the high efficiency ratings, in fact there is only ONE topology that can get titanium efficiency and two for plat.
80+, bronze, silver, and gold ratings aren't hard to get, with these ratings quality isn't a guarantee, besides there are many unscrupulous manufactures that simply fake the 80+.
There is no legal requirement that PSU needs to be rated, the efficiency rating is optional.
Another problem is that efficiency rating os done in preset conditions and doesn't take into account all weather conditions or case designs. While it might have a gold rating in lab conditions, there have been many instances of PSU's failing in real world conditions to meet their rated efficiency.
To the point efficiency IS NOT an indication of quality, the whole efficiency rating is a farce. Again efficiency ONLY accounts for how much power it draws from the wall socket. You can have the most craptastic PSU and have it with gold rating.
Corsair uses OEMs as do many brand names, corsair has used FSP and CWT in past and still do now.
But won't touch an OEM PSU like FSP. I personally have a 80+ FSP psu in my system, which you wouldn't touch but it is the same OEM that leading brands use.
Corsair uses more than just seasonic for their OEM, their early units in the budget and mid range section where either CWT or great wall with the occasional FSP in the mix.
I suggest you read up on what efficiency rating actually is and how it doesn't correlate to quality
@@anthrazite Also warranty on offer, if you assume it is because of quality and your not paying for it. Your a even bigger fool and I have time share to sell you on the moon.
Fools and their money is easily departed. A CWT PSU used in the same corsair PSU that offer 3 years, compared to the OEM that only offers the standard year. Spec for spec is exactly the same, but your paying a premium for the corsair. Because it is of a higher standard and better quality. It is made in the same factory, with the same hardware and same components just rebadged.
You better off buying OEM branded PSU, like seasonic, FSP, CWT, superflower, andyson in many cases you can save a few bucks and is in many cases the same PSU just with a brand name sticker.
Reputable brands like bequiet, Corsair or Seasonic will also give you 5 to 12 year warranties on their PSUs, which is a major trust thing since they wouldn't do that unless said manufacturers really expected them to last at least that long. Cheapo PSU brands don't do that, and they made their profit if it goes boom on you after 3 years.
03:27 At that precise moment I stopped receiving sound because my brain switched all its power to visual cortex and was overloaded with stimuli
Even *expensive Gigabyte* power suplies explodes!
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I had a cheap power supply blow up once it only killed the motherboard. Thankfully the motherboard which was a MSI motherbaord had protections that saved the rest of my components. I now have a good quality bequiet PSU
My AMD Athlon 3000G runs on a little 90W Pico PSU and everything works perfectly fine 💪😎
For example, I purchased a 100$ PSU slightly better than my old one and after some time, it started to suddenly shutdown my computer and restart itself but when I was about to reset my PC, I heard a suspicious sound and also it started to smoke, and had to replace it back. It was also supported by my hardware.
1:07 how much *current* they can handle, its important to differentiate.
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u showing a capacitator in line hurts my electrical engineer brain...
at 1:09
Another thing to watch out for is push power button switches. They're the type that push once to turn it on and once again to turn it off. They're not as durable as rocker switches (like a light switch). My last PSU was a well made gold rated Thermaltake brand, but the push button power switch failed after only a year and a half. It started crackling and arcing electricity whenever it was pushed. I nearly got electrocuted from it several times. I swapped it out for another Thermaltake PSU that has a rocker switch. Eight years later and I've never had the same issue.
Funny enough, the original PSU actually cost more than the replacement one, but the replacement one has a slightly greater wattage rating.
I'm not just basing my opinion about those switches from that one experience. By design, rocker switches are more durable than push buttons.
Edit. Don't forget to occasionally vacuum out the PSU (from the outside, of course). They have the potential to accumulate a lot of dust. I once took apart an old PSU to find it was filled with grey dust. It was a fireball waiting to happen.
I just put my PC back together after having 2 PSUs blow a cap. It's an iBuyPower with a 6700XT and 11700K. It came with a 600 watt, mystery manufacturer PSU. It lasted almost a year, but AMDs software would often have a notification saying that there was some kind of error with "wattman" and it set everything to default. All I had changed was the fan settings so it wasn't due to an OC. I replaced that PSU with an $85, 850 watt model that had good user reviews. It lasted 2 weeks. I tested my power strip and outlet and they're good. Now I've replaced the MOBO with an MSI model, and bought a modular 850 watt Corsair PSU. Hopefully these don't blow up too.
When you say tested the wall and power strip and they are good. Did you use an outlet tester or an actual DMM?
Typically only a DMM or the like can make sure not only that you have power but that it's a stable voltage and clean
4:30 I’m good, I got some ocean front property in Arizona
When he says "powerlifting" the lady in the clip is doing a clean&jerk which is an Olympic lift
I was about to comment the same. It's not an issue at all (gets the point across and most tech people won't care), but hey that's at least 2 people who've noticed.
I've been a massive fan of Corsair since a pipe came off my D5 pump and dumped almost 2L of coolant directly into the AX1200 PSU. That thing took the hit, powered off almost instantly, and not a single other device in my system was damaged.
Is the deepcool pk650d ok?
Looking at old late 90s/early 2000s Maximum PC issues and the PSUs featured there just makes me smile at how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.
USB power supplies are also sketchy. I only use Apple or Samsung supplies. When the 150 watt Anker supply is half the size of the Apple 140 watt, you have to wonder what they left out. Most USB power supplies are missing the voltage monitoring circuit.
Tell me more about this ocean-front cottage is Saskatchewan!
- American whose public school never taught him geography
1 - gotta love Riley, hes amazing as always!
2 - somehow, my 50 bucks PSU still works fine lol.
3 - i will definitely buy a real and more expensive unit, once I get a new PC lol. I don't wanna risk anything.. waking up everyday wondering if my house will catch a fire ain't fun ;p
I mean it was always about getting good quality products but some people has misinterpreted it as getting the most expensive product.
Actually there is some the most dangerous one, the one that doesn't blow up that is. Cheap PSU often have terrible ripple suppression that it can silently murder your PC components with it, and you think you just got a bad RAM/GPU/SSD/etc. I often seen these things kill all the USB ports in a motherboard as well. There are some good 50 bucks ones, like some by FSP, similar stuff you will find inside a Dell or HP prebuild PC actually, but make sure you know what you are buying.
I have capacitors. Can I use them to get more fading effrcts?
I mean,can I add some same voltage capacitors for my psu
Can't say I've ever had a PSU explode, knock on wood. Only one I ever killed was one I had re-wired to use as a bench supply. Just stopped working one day. Cheap supplies can be fine for low budget, low power builds. But the key to take away here is that they are a potential time bomb, and the ratings on the side are to be taken more as rough guidelines than gospel.
Hey there is a high pitched noise coming from my PC while its connected to power - only shutting of the PSU or pulling the power plug will remove this sound.
Is my PSU screwed or what is going on?
They shouldn't be able to use the label in the first place. It would be branded as un-labeled. It would still sell, just without the label. It's not like you can't sell a psu until it's labeled with a lie. That ruins the point of the label in the first place, to prove the testing.