News Corsair shows why budget PSUs aren't so great

Spotted
Though I think its a bit too big for use as a PSU box, so not sure its a cooler master PSU.

 

It's just an auto-ism. I'm used to reading American Chemistry texts where they replace the correct (British) use of PH with an F, so I've always automatically replaced them back again.

 

I've only ever had one PSU go on me but it was my own fault, I didn't realize my SLI setup pulled almost 700w full load ( it was 60-something% efficient PSU which pulled 1kW from the mains) it was a OCZ Powerstream 520W PSU from the old setup, i was stress testing my water loop and overclocks on new kit, to be fair it ran for hours.

Fortunately it blew when I was there as after a few hours I actually went out and left it running not realizing what could happen if something blew.

My house could have caught fire any number of times I've done 24hr stress tests but until then it never crossed my mind, I always buy good quality kit but a simple slip up can be dangerous, something to consider.

 

If you would like to do a similar test on a 450W Winpower PSU I have here, let me know!
I would love to see the fireworks

edit: That video was brilliant and the music was so fitting

 

The company I work for used to buy elcheapo no name PC's with crappy PSU's (before I started there). One day a PSU exploded shooting flames out the back which didn't stop until someone extinguished it. The PC was under a desk next to the users legs. Luckily they weren't burnt, just very shocked. The scariest part was he used to leave the PC running all night. If it had done the same thing in the middle of the night, the building could have burnt down.

It's really not worth risking your home/business by buying shoddy electrical equipment, especially PSU's. They're one of the most likely things to die out of all electrical equipment based on my experience. CRT monitors are also prone to exploding.

 

Good vid. Can't say corsair are perfect though - my 750W was so loud I had to sell it. supposed to be silent!

 

The music is classic.

 

Fair enough... Awkward Americans..

 

You have to be careful here.

These supplies are designed with a certain amount of diversity in mind - as has already been alluded to, much of the load is now moving from the 12V to 5V rails. In each test there, transistors in the same area failed. If they put all 300 plus watts of load on one rail, they deserved to have it fail. Per rail maximums will be printed on the side of the box.

I presume they didn't make this mistake, but they should say so.

 

I've had a Zalman 400w fail, and 2 Enermax PSU's make computers unstable.. My Antec's are still going strong... thats all I have been buying now and I have been very happy.

I've been lucky none have sploded tho

 

Come on, Mr Naive, it's an advert. What are the chances of grabbing a handful of random supplies, even no-name, that will all fail when tested well below the rating?

 

lol, they blow like a bomb kickass.

But I think because they load it with 1000Watts hardware ( 3X GTX280 etc.. ) hehhehehe that budget work with crap computers better than fine

thanks for the link BT. Keep it flowing with new information

 

The video said the load they put on them. they did not put a 1000W load on them. They were all 75% of their rating.

I have a 430W Enermax that has served me well for almost 3 years. It currently has a C2D E6800 @2.3ghz, 4GB of DDR2 800, a Radeon 3870, 2 HDs, and 2 DVD drives. Never had an issue.

 

Evenin' all. I'm a Corsair bod so I thought I'd chip in with a couple of comments. Firstly...

Yes, that's a chassis box, not a PSU box (we use some CM cases for show PCs and so forth). We're certainly not trying to suggest that the PSU is made by CM! The PSU in that vid is a cheap (but not unbranded) PSU that cost about $25 from Newegg.

All six PSUs were the same model, and all six popped in a similar way. We actually tested another three prior to this (all with the case lids on too) and they also all popped in less than 2 mins at 75% load, so that's nine in total. That's why we thought about doing the video

Sure, this is marketing, and a bit of fun, but with a serious message too.

 

RE "What's a MOSFET?"

It stands for Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor, it tells you what the guts of it are made from and how it works. Its basically the big transistors attached to the heatsinks and they do get hot if you thrash them (hence the heatsinks) and the video show what happens if you thrash them too much.

I still think large electrolytic capacitors are more spectacular when they explode - don't try this one at home kids as some of them have some pretty nasty ingredients and you definitely don't want to inhale the fumes given off when they vapourise their contents. Just take my word for it - although I suppose some smart a£$€ will have a video on Youtube as they seem to have just about everything on there.

 

Excellent.

How was the load distributed between the various outputs?

 

hey that song was on a naltz video.

the psu that came with my cheapo hp computer is only 300 watts, and i kind of want to upgrade my graphics card. i looked on tigerdirect to upgrade my psu, and the budget ones are the only ones i could afford. i steered clear, though, because all the reviews said that they overheated. this just confirms my suspicions of budget/off brand psu's.

 

Ive been using semi no name powersuply manufacturer called Pro-Case for about 3 years hasn't failed me yet and in my newest rig Im using one of there 500Watts and at peak I run it at about 350+ watts(tested) lasted me for 2 years so far,not all of them are bad,allso its far more complex inside

 

I've only had one PSU blow out on me and it was the one that came with the fam's HP computer

 

wow is it me or did that video really suck, you think a company like Corsair could afford a decent tri pod to film their crappy short video ~_~