PSU Fried

[Harrod200]

Throughout today there's been a slight burning smell in my room, playing tonight the smell suddenly got rather pungeant and the PC locked up. Taking it apart, the smell was emanating from the PSU.

I'm thinking the unit must be faulty, since there have been no problems with it running the same hardware at the same intensity for over a year now, and I'm REALLY hoping it sacrificed itself in time to save everything else in the comp (if not I'm fucked), so I'm looking at a few new ones.

The old one was 720W so I wanna stick with 650W+ really, but I dunno how much power it actually needs (AMD 64 X2 5000+, 4GB DDR2, SATA DVD+/-RW, SATA 250GB HDD, 8800GTX 768MB, 5 case fans). I've got my eye on these (and yes, I do always use eBuyer )

EZ Cool 700W Tornado PSU - Modded LED Grill, 12cm Fan, 2x SATA, PCI-E - Ebuyer

Hi-Power Black 700W 14cm Blue LED Fan PSU - 20+4pin 4x SATA 4x PCI-E - Ebuyer

Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed - Ebuyer

Anyone know about these three, or have suggestions for a similar PSU (able to run my system well) for around £45 max?

[[R-DEV]Masaq]

Yeah, don't get a cheap high-power PSU. Realistically you're only going to need 500W maximum as you're not running SLI/Crossfire and only have a single hard drive, single optical drive etc. 90% load calculation for your rig comes out at about 323W continuous operation. Another 180W+ to allow for an increase under peak load and 500-550W really is all you need to be aiming for.

Far more important is the amperage running out the +12V rails - it needs to be nice and high, and you won't get that on a cheap PSU.


You can get a 550W power supply for around £20. Don't.

If you can stretch to around £70, get something like this:
Antec TruePower Trio 550W PSU - With 3x 12v Rails and 120mm Fan - Ebuyer

Failing that, for £50 get the Antec basic:
Antec Basiq Power 550W PSU - 6x SATA 2x PCI-E 20+4pin ATX12V 4/8pin - Ebuyer



High wattage isn't the be-all and end-all. The power supply has to be stable and high quality or you get the kind of problem you're seeing - components gently frying themselves.

It's not worth skimping on the cost of a PSU because like you're clearly aware - a dying PSU can easily take out everything else with it when it blows.

It amazes me that people will do stuff like spend an extra £100-150 quid buying a NVidia GTX over a GTS/GT version, and yet will try and save 20-30 quid and go for basics when buying a PSU - which if it dies, will quite possibly kill the GPU, CPU, RAM and all your data.

[Sadist_Cain]

Efficiency, Amps, and Volts are the most important things in a PSU (Can you believe Dell OEM PSU comes with 18A on the 12v Rail? )

Efficiency mainly cos you can have a 700W PSU burn up 100W of that in heat if it's inefficient.

Several useful Power calculators here...

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite v2.5
Newegg - Power Supply Calculator
Power Supply Calculator - Journey Systems. LLC. Providing Custom PCs, Servers, Laptops, Workstations, Gaming PCs, Quality Custom Computers with 3 Year Warranty

They're never spot on so I use all 3 to get a good idea.

Hope that helps... not too much though...

[Harrod200]

Guess I was a bit naughty last time; Cheap Computer Power Supplies at Ebuyer - Huge Range In Stock Now! was just shy of £40.

Label on the old one;

+3.3v - 35A
+5v - 40A
+12v dc1 - 15A
+12v dc2 - 17A
-12v - 0.5A
+5vSB - 2.5A

£900 order, skimped a bit on the PSU

I'd still rather not break the £40 mark if possible cos I'm currently poor, any opinion on this one;
Hiper 530W Black Type M PSU - ATX v2.2, Silent/Temp Control, Active PFC, SLI/Crossfire Certified - Ebuyer

[Sadist_Cain]

Amazon.co.uk: Thermaltake W0061 PSU 420W TR2-420W: Electronics & Photo

Me need go sleep now talk more tomorrow

[Harrod200]

420 be enough to run that rig at full power (it does occasionally hit it in PR, and other times in SupCom etc)? I don't wanna have to upgrade again for a while. PC's a year and a half old and the bottleneck is still only the CPU, and that's not enough of a bottleneck to be worth throwing the amount of money at that would be needed to get a substantial boost.

Would the overpowered PSU be one reason the damned thing is like a radiator at times? With door & window closed this room can turn into a sauna in about 1hr of gaming...

[[R-DEV]Masaq]

Do you even have to ask that question?! Yes!

[Sadist_Cain]

My old Dell PSU used to run my rig perfectly but I got a new one cos i had money burning a hole in my pocket, that was only a 305W and ran a P4 3.00GHZ HT, 3GB RAM, 7600GT-Z overclocked with Zalman fan, x2 L.E.D Fans, 160GB sata, x 2 DVD RW, sound blaster audigy.

Like I said before if you go for a cheapy PSU then the efficiency tends to go to shit something can be branded as a "Super xtreme mega performance 600W PSU" but if it generates 200W worth of heat then you're only getting 400W of that as actual power for your rig.

Best go for something like Thermaltake or antec as the brand stuff has higher efficiency ratings

Eclipse Computers - Product Details

Even that (which is perfect for you imho) has only 75% efficiency (which is good) so 25% of the power turns into heat etc. think just how much energy you lose with the cheaper stuff :P

Buy cheap, buy twice

[Harrod200]

OK shall order that thermaltake one. £65 onto my credit card...

[Harrod200]

OK, ordered that. Then I remember the salvaged parts I got downstairs, down I go and there lying in front of me is the cheapest, nastiest 500W PSU ever devised by man. Since I wanna check that the PSU was the only thing fried before, I plug it all in and power up. Woohoo! Everything boots fine, GFX, CPU, RAM, HDD and Sound card all seem fine!

Load up PR. Jump in game and squad up with cain. 10 minutes later BANG, screen dies and all fans stop, and another POP a few seconds later, accompanied by a flash from inside cheapo PSU. Power cable quickly removed, now it's lying there and I'm back wondering if the PSU has (for a second time) taken anything else with it.

One lasted 18 months, the other 18 minutes. Given the rather sudden death of the second one, I'm fearing the worst for the mobo etc but can't tell until the new PSU arrives in a day or two.

Moral of the story: Do not use cheap PSUs, even for a few minutes...