This looks too good to be true...might want to add it to the crap list.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=61300

600w for £16.99
No specifications too.

I heard it only peaks at 270w.

Yeah if its too cheap to be true its usually crap, a good PSU is usually in the £30-90 range for the PSU unit itself. Im not sure who makes that Ebuyer PSU as they use various companies, if you bought it would say the name on it.

Lets face it if you want to take the risk buy the cheap psu's but if it messes up and takes everything with it in your PC you have only got yourself to blame for it.

Also PSU's which come with cases arent usually of high quality either because lets face it, if you pay £20 for a PC case about half of that is going to pay for the case and the other is for the PSU except if you know its a good brand. Jeantech gives good quality PSU's away with it pc cases (usually not a very high wattage but at least they are reliable) though you usually pay a bit more for the case and PSU, they make very good power supplies so thats why you pay the premium.

Another thing the high quality / higher cost Power supplies usually come with Active PFC(power factor correction) which means they are way more efficient which in turn saves you money on your electricity bill as they use all the power instead of wasting it. Most cheaper ones just come with PFC(power factor correction) and arent as effiecient as the Active PFC, you can read more on PFC and Active PFC by using google. Though even some high quality ones come with PFC because no everyone wants to pay around £50-60 for a PSU (Tagan 480Watt) and with Active PFC it makes them cheaper to make.

Magna - also available in other colours
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=61303
Reviews for the Gold model, one complaint of a low 12v

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=61302
Silver model...

And a user-report of the ratings
Treated as a 400W class PSU - and at 17A on the 12V, that's about all it's usable as, they seem to be fairly decent at that level.

The "through flow" dual fan layout is good for overall system cooling, but does not represent ideal airflow for the HSF.

In the meantime, the PSU Stress Test at Tom's Hardware is yielding some interesting results:


PC Power & Cooling Express/SLI 510W

Input/output: 647 W / 510 W
Efficiency and noise reading at full load: 78.8 %, 72 dB

PASSED the test



Antec TruePower 550W

I/O: 745 W / 550 W
Efficiency and noise reading at full load: 73.8 % / 60 dB

PASSED the test



Be Quiet's BQT B5-520W-S1.3

FAILED the test due to total failure.



EPower Silent Engine Xscale-470

I/O: 622 W / 470 W
Efficiency and noise reading at full load: 75.5 % / 65 dB

PASSED the test



PC Power & Cooling 850W SSI

I/O: 1058 W / 850 W
Efficiency and noise reading at full load: 80.4 % / 68.3 dB

PASSED the test



Hiper Type-R 580W

I/O: 759 W / 580 W
Efficiency noise reading under at full load: 76.4 % / 61.1 dB

FAILED the test because the voltage on the -12V line was much too high (out of spec).



Fortron Group (FSP) Zen (passively cooled!)

I/O: 358 W / 300 W
Efficiency and noise reading at full load: 83.5 % / none

PASSED the test



AcBel AC550

I/O: 716 W / 550 W
Efficiency and noise reading at full load: 76.8 % / 61.1 dB

FAILED the test because the 3.3V line was only 3.09 V.



Cooler Master RS-550-ACLY

FAILED the test due to total failure.



OCZ Power Stream 600 (according to manufacturer capable of 700W for very short times; also, with three dials on the PSU the voltages can be adjusted manually [what's the point of that?])

FAILED the test because the output was less than the specified 600W (not even close to 700W!)

Im very suprised that Hiper and Cool master failed the test as they are the high quality makers of PSU's. As for OCZ they are another good brand its quite suprising. Though the Hiper can be let off due to the fact that the minus -12v rail isnt really used by anything so its not going to affect system stability or anything important.

im surprised at the OCZ result as well...contradicts virtually 99% of the reviews out there (yes, some which do stress testing as part of the battery of tests...i.e. the driverheaven.net review - http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/...re%20tests.htm)...

Hi
I've been using Hiper 480 / 580 for several months without any probs
Used to use FSP as well but stopped due to too many problems due to instability with voltage
The problem when comparison tests are made is that usually only one model per manufactor is provided & whilst I appreciate such tests they're only really rough guides to what you may experience in practice
Hiper 580 shouldn't be pushed beyond 630 ideally & for most 500 is more than is needed typically

Personally, I wouldn't not buy a Cooler Master PSU, since they started producing PSUs not too long ago. I'd rather go with a PSU from a manufacturer who has more experience with producing such devices and also who got a good reputation in this field. Not that I think that Cooler Master PSUs are total crap, but I'm just reluctant to buy a PSU from a manufacturer who is well-known for producing something completely different (cooling solutions).

Totally true, but if a PSU manufacturer has to send one of their PSUs to THG for a stress test, then I would expect them to send one from a batch of good quality. And if the one from that good batch fails, then I'm starting to wonder about the quality of their other batches.

My favorite PSU is Zippy. This is very strong and reliable PSU but noise level is much high. Furthermore, Zippy is expensive. Caz Zippy is server quality PSU builder.

I also use Topower (TOP520-Xeon). This is powerful and silent PSU. But reliability is questionable. Some review says that PSU burned up after high load.

I'll never use animal PSU (Eagle, Deer, etc)....

Hi
I however when a PSU is rated 580 con 630 peak over 759 con seems a bit much & worldwide I've read about 20 reviews on PSU's made by Hiper & Tom's is the first negative one I've seen
Other PSU that don't fair well here do a lot better elsewhere
The FSP that gets a good rating was almost being given away at computer fairs recently

Aren't you mixing up input and output wattage here? The output was indeed 580, so it's not that they asked more from it than it could give according to its specs.

After having some problems with the temperature sensors, the PSU test at tomshardware.com is again underway. At the moment they are testing a second sample of the OCZ Powerstream 600W to see how this one holds. The editors mention that they might test second samples of the other PSUs that failed the test.

BTW, I just saw that, contrary to what I posted realier, both Antec PSUs didn't pass but failed the test, due to fluctuations on the +12V line. It's remarkable that both PSUs had the same problem. No way to go, Antec.

Heres a list of problems that can be caused by a poor PSU from my own experince with a crappy PSU i had at one time. I dont know how many drives i returned till i figured out it was may rubbish power supply. Though remember software and hardware setup can sometimes also cause these problems but these are a few problems that can be caused when running your psu with too much on it.

- OPC errors
- Not reading discs when you insert them
- Drive starts writing a disc then stops and fails
- Drive powering down or turning off
- Computer crashes while burning the disc
- Computer system unstable / stalls
- Hard drives powering down even though not set to do so (looks like they are in sleep mode)

PS - A voltage monitor on your system will not always detect probelms in voltage. If in doubt try the drive in another system that has few things connected or try disconnecting a few devices in your current system like hard drives and other optical drives and then try. This may help identify power supply problems. And if your in the unfortunate position to have a Q-tec power supply its already in the super crap list and there is no need even trying to figure out whats wrong as these power supplies dont even run near their maximum.

What I like to add to that list:

- At startup, the computer doesn't even make it to the bios, though all the fans do start spinning and the hard drives seem to initialize.

Had it one time with a 350W PSU, which should have been sufficient for a Athlon 2600+ system. But it just couldn't supply enough juice at startup. I then bought a 360W Enhance PSU to replace it which had no troubles at all.

Well, most powersupplies are actually CRAP! I find VERY FEW powersupplies will actually do what they say, even the good ones! Antec PSUs are good, but the 12v rail does fluctuate quite a bit under load. It's not a big deal, because it's usually not enough to cause problems. I'd rather have a PSU that can actually crank out the current than puke, a little voltage flux is OK. Enermax PSUs are good, but they die pretty easy. It seems there are VERY FEW PSUs that can mantain a nice stable voltage, and handle the load they're supposed to. So far I'm VERY IMPRESSED with my fortron blue storm 500w, the rails DON"T BUDGE!!!

Some people dont always understand that PSU's are not like a power extension where even though there are spare connectors it doesnt mean it will work. And also due to the fact that there are some pretty crappy PSU's for such low prices im afraid price does make a big difference.

I'd just like to add that I recently purchased a RaidMax 500W PSU (before reading this thread ), after reading some very good reviews about them, that showed they met of exceeded their rating. It's also very quiet and runs very cool because of the 120mm fan positioned in the bottom of the PSU. The burn quality from my currently installed drives is excellent, so I guess it only comes down to how long the PSU will last now. Hopefully because it runs so cool it will be long time - in the past I lost a MOBO and Hard Drive because of a Hyena PSU

Has anyone ever heard of Delta Electronics PSU 266.2 Max. Is this even enough to run an optical drive. It came with my new Sony Vaio PCVRS 510 2.8 MHZ Processor. I am totally unaware of this brand.

A Dell 2U server I have has Delta redundant PSU. If I remember correctly, some Sun servers also use Delta redundant PSUs, but I'm not sure if it's the same Delta brand.

What about LC Power?

Is that a good firm for a PS.

Never heard of LC power. The problem is a lot of these unknown companies dont make their own power supplies but buy in bulk from some chinese oem manufacturer that makes power supplies on the cheap. The company then slaps its label on it and its sold under their own brand.

Qtec is another manufactuer that imports power supplies and labels them.

Tagan is another manufacturer that doesnt make its own power supplies but imports them, though they use a high quality OEM manufacturer ( www.topower.tw )

According to Tomshardware power supplies are a high profit item and can make triple digitit profit figures for sellers >> http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20...sstest-01.html

i had a buddy that was going through a drive about once every 75 discs and i went over there and he had a junk psu in his case and i measured the voltage rails and the 12v+ had over 13v on it i dont remember what the 3.3v and the 5v had i know the 5v was high to and they all had nasty spikes in them . told him to buy a sparkle psu even if it was small and he got a 350watt and has yet since gone through a drive cost was about 30 bucks after shipping

Bad power supplies will cause components to fail quicker as there 12v rails are usually weaker and are over or under specification putting extra load on components.

Here is another reason to keep away from q-tec psus efficency seems to be very poor when drawing anywhere near its maximum.

The review of the PSU can be read if you scroll down the page.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359&page=19

The Q-tec 650 Watt PSU was drawing in something like 1.1 Killowatts of power just at 500watt load thats like less than 50% effecient which is extremly poor.

They produce average PSUs, cheap, but not the best.