Power supplies suck.

[brxndxn]

Power supply makers should be ashamed.. I've never seen so many complaints of failed power supplies. Five years ago, no one even thought about a power supply other than enthusiasts.. and even then, you could buy a top-of-the-line Enermax for $80.

Now, it's $130 to $250 for a halfway decent power supply.

In the 80's and early 90's, power supplies never seemed to fail. Any old-ass computer I've fixed up has worked fine. Then, in the past 5 years or so, the quality seems to have gone in the dumps while at the same time the prices are skyrocketing.

You used to be pretty damn safe even if you bought a generic power supply. Plug it in.. it would work. Now, you'll burn your fucking house down if you don't get a brand name. And, even the brand names have tons of complaints of DOAs or 'burned out in a few weeks'.

Bleh..

I just shelled out $130 for a PCP&C.. so I'm bitter. I wanted to buy Enermax again, but they're ridiculous as far as prices go now. My Ultra V-series 700watt works.. but it's scary so I'm going to replace it. I can hear capacitors make 'pop' sounds every now and then and I know eventually the whole thing will go up in flames and burn my building down.

/end rant.. screw power supplies

 

[SergeC]

I suspect part of it is the increased load power supplies have to handle now.....but yeah, it's seriously annoying.

 

[mpilchfamily]

The focus of power use to be on the 5V rail. Now its on the 12V rail do to the high power demands of system components. Back 5 pluss years ago having 30A to 40A on the 5V rail was easy to do. There is a big difference in pushing 40A at 5V then there is puching 40A at 12V. A basic 250W PSU could offer that 40A on the 5V rail. But you need allot more power to get 40A on the 12Vs. You need at least a 500W unit for that. As speed has increased so has the power needs. its also a bit harder to keep everything stable with a high load on a higher voltage. So more is required to maintain steady power.

 

[Aluvus]

The issue is more that average users are often placing much more demand on their supplies (especially if they are using certain Pentium 4s), yet often refuse to spend any significant amount of money on a supply, or do any research before buying one, or ensure that the supply is cooled adequately. Even those that try to do some research on forums are often told, "I've had a Brand X supply for a month that I bought for $10, and it hasn't exploded, so you should ignore what everyone says and buy the cheapest thing you can get."

The result? Pop!

People are willing to keep buying crap, so many companies give them crap. It is unfortunate, but that's where we are.

I have a suspicion/hope that at some point there will be a significant die-off of some of the worst offenders, resulting in an overall healthier market. This often happens as markets that are rapidly growing begin to cool and mature (the dot-com bust would be a notable example). But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Bosconian]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
I can hear capacitors make 'pop' sounds every now and then and I know eventually the whole thing will go up in flames and burn my building down.

You're not hearing "capacitors popping." If you heard one capacitor go "pop" once, they're done. Caps don't sit there making popping noises. If they buldge and blow their top, they pop, they're done.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I think it is silly really that the focus is on 12V so much. CPUs are well below 2V now, why must we feed 12V to them and then have to step it down from there? That makes more heat going from 12V to 1.4V than from 5V to 1.4V, meaning even more wasted energy. Same with video cards, almost everything on them runs well below 5V so again why are we feeding them 12V to turn into wasted heat and power?

I really do not understand it. Keep the 12V for motors and such, use the 5V for the circuitry.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
I think it is silly really that the focus is on 12V so much. CPUs are well below 2V now, why must we feed 12V to them and then have to step it down from there? That makes more heat going from 12V to 1.4V than from 5V to 1.4V, meaning even more wasted energy. Same with video cards, almost everything on them runs well below 5V so again why are we feeding them 12V to turn into wasted heat and power?

I really do not understand it. Keep the 12V for motors and such, use the 5V for the circuitry.

Using a higher voltage means a lower current for a given power draw, which means that I2R power losses in the wires are lower, and the voltage drop associated with them is lower (both in absolute terms and as a percentage of rail voltage). The difference in lost power is a factor of about 6 (=(12/5)^2); the difference in current through the wires, and also the voltage drop, is a factor of about 2.5 (=12/5). The reduced current also means fewer/thinner wires are needed, which reduces costs and makes life easier for builders.

I don't know what kind of efficiency difference there is in the regulation hardware.

This is the same reasoning that leads to power grids that transmit across long distances at very high voltages, and then step down to lower voltages (120 V, 220 V, etc.) before they hit your house.

Google is currently pushing to move everything to 12 V, for these and other (simpler, no wacky cross-loading concerns) reasons.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I suppose that does make sense, with the lower voltage (5V) efficiency would be better in terms of net power loss through the regulators and heat. But then what I neglected to consider (and what I remembered when you said "a higher voltage means a lower current for a given power draw") is that higher current would mean either much thicker wires (which would be a pain to route), or more of them (which also could be harder to route), plus the extra copper needed meaning more money there as well. Plus a small drop in voltage would be worse on 5V than 12V...

OK, I obviously wasn't thinking about it too much.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It does make sense that it is harder to build a reliable PSU capable of pushing out more power, especially when consumers also want other snazzy features like silence and modular cables.

One can hope that the trend towards beefier power supplies will end once die shrinks and other process innovations start to reduce overall system power draw. Unfortunately, the drive to introduce more CPU and GPU cores to systems along with the continued drive towards higher clock speeds seems to be driving system power consumption upwards slowly.

 

[MarcVenice]

Meh, 50$ buys you an antec earthwatts 500w, which will power most high-end rigs that don't have sli or crossfire. With some luck you can get a modular 520hx for 80$. I don't ever see myself spending more then 100$ on a PSU and you can get plenty of qaulity units for less then 100$.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Antec Earthwatts 500 is a very good PSU. Efficient design with plenty of space inside the PSU for cooling. Get in when they go on sale ($30 to $50). There's a huge markup in PSU. Even with the use 100% Japanese caps, the actual cost of the PSU would only increase by several dollars. A single "push" 80mm fan works best in a modern high-efficiency PSU. The hot electronics should be positioned in front of the fan for optimum cooling. There should be a clear path for air to enter the back and exit at the rear of the PSU.

The use of a 120 or 135mm fan requires that the intake air make a 90 degree turn to exit the PSU.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Antec Earthwatts 500 is a very good PSU. Efficient design with plenty of space inside the PSU for cooling. Get in when they go on sale ($30 to $50). There's a huge markup in PSU. Even with the use 100% Japanese caps, the actual cost of the PSU would only increase by several dollars. A single "push" 80mm fan works best in a modern high-efficiency PSU. The hot electronics should be positioned in front of the fan for optimum cooling. There should be a clear path for air to enter the back and exit at the rear of the PSU.

The use of a 120 or 135mm fan requires that the intake air make a 90 degree turn to exit the PSU.

I agree, lots of manufacturers are pulling our arms like there's some high-tech stuff in them. And building a decent PSU is not rocket science. They look like they did 5 yrs ago.

 

[mpilchfamily]

When you don't know what your looking at yeah the insides all look pretty much the same. But there has been many cahnges since the old ATX 1.3 specifications. Quality of components used in the PSUs has also imporved greatly.

 

[MrOblivious]

Power supplies have gotten much better than there were 5 years ago; the designs, components, and output levels have all changed a lot in that. I really don't know how you could spend much time around them and notice the differences.

 

[tomoyo]

I'd have to completely disagree. The high quality psu's have gotten MUCH better than the past. 80plus efficiency, APFC, good voltage regulation, Modular cabling, there's so many great improvements. That said, cheap crap psu's can no longer the higher power needs of today. That is your issue. And it's easy to fix, Earthwatts/Low end Seasonic/FSP psu's are still only $50-60. And I wouldn't even say that's halfway decent, earthwatts are quite decent. $100 is for an awesome psu, assuming you get the right stuff.