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PSU or cheap lights?

1sikbITCH

1sikbITCH

Diamond Member
My 400 watt PSU is rated for 16a on +12volts. I have 4 80mm fans, a 120mm fan, and a UV light hooked up as well as 2 harddrives, a cd burner, and a dvd player.

Last week, one of my LED fans was blinking out (fan kept spinning, just lights going out). However, the fan is fine now. This fan was one of the SVC $1.99 Quad LED fans from 6 weeks ago or so. All the other fans always work fine, and this fan has been fine ever since. Let me add that it's the side fan and maybe could have had a loose connect from being pulled on when I take the side of the case off.

But now, my PC Toys 12" UV light (1 month old) has halfway burned out. Half lit, half not lit. Is this the PSU not handling the load, or just coincidence of a junk UV light and a poor connect on the fan?

 
Originally posted by: 1sikbITCH
My 400 watt PSU is rated for 16a on +12volts. I have 4 80mm fans, a 120mm fan, and a UV light hooked up as well as 2 harddrives, a cd burner, and a dvd player.

Last week, one of my LED fans was blinking out (fan kept spinning, just lights going out). However, the fan is fine now. This fan was one of the SVC $1.99 Quad LED fans from 6 weeks ago or so. All the other fans always work fine, and this fan has been fine ever since. Let me add that it's the side fan and maybe could have had a loose connect from being pulled on when I take the side of the case off.

But now, my PC Toys 12" UV light (1 month old) has halfway burned out. Half lit, half not lit. Is this the PSU not handling the load, or just coincidence of a junk UV light and a poor connect on the fan?
Click to expand...

What PSU brand is it? I really have no clue about specs of a PSu...

Also, it could be a combo of both things or just one. I think that if you have a brand name PSU, then its probably the stuff you bought. Otherwise it could very well be the PSU.
 
It's a generic CompUSA PSU that I've been using for a long time, just never with all the bells and whistles hooked up. I imagine it's under quite a strain.

If it is indeed bad, I have the PSU that came with my Enermax case. It's another generic PSU (PowerUp), but I might have to make do with it until I pay some other bills off.

This one is only 350 watts, but it's also rated for 16a on the +12v circuit. I know 16a is kind of weak, but I could kill the light until I can afford a better PSU.

 
"It's a generic CompUSA PSU" = Generic toast(er), POS, etc...

Please, for our safety, get a new one 🙂

ooops... Differant brand though, your choice, but research 😉
 
Originally posted by: 1sikbITCH
It's a generic CompUSA PSU that I've been using for a long time, just never with all the bells and whistles hooked up. I imagine it's under quite a strain.

If it is indeed bad, I have the PSU that came with my Enermax case. It's another generic PSU (PowerUp), but I might have to make do with it until I pay some other bills off.

This one is only 350 watts, but it's also rated for 16a on the +12v circuit. I know 16a is kind of weak, but I could kill the light until I can afford a better PSU.
Click to expand...


The Enermax case didn't come with an Enermax PSU? That's Odd...

You said it's only half way turned on? Are you running this off the
5V red line or the 12V Yellow Line?

The 480P TruePower Antec is a nice PSU.
 
Originally posted by: TronX
Click to expand...


The Enermax case didn't come with an Enermax PSU? That's Odd...

You said it's only half way turned on? Are you running this off the
5V red line or the 12V Yellow Line?

The 480P TruePower Antec is a nice PSU.[/quote]

If they put Enermax PSU's in the Enermax cases they would have to sell the unit for a lot more. Mine was only $60, although in retrospect I would have paid more for it to include a good PSU. I used the calculator someone posted on another thread and found that my system just about hits 16a, which explains why things are crapping out. I've turned off the UV light for now, and it's all running fine.

The UV light would sometimes come all the way on, and other times only half. So I know it's not burned out. As for which line it's on, I have no idea. It has a 4 pin molex and I just plugged it in like everything else.

I will go check out that Antec but I'm sure it'll be out of my price range at the moment.

 
Ok, I checked it out. Besides the fact that it's out of my price range, it doesn't even supply the same amps on the +12v line that the Enermax I looked at does, and the Enermax was 350W and $53 or so.

Antec Truepower 480W specs - 22a

Enermax EG365P-VE FMA 350W specs - 26a - notice it has both the 365 and 465 on the same chart so you have to read it right.

The Enermax EG465P-VE FMA is 460W and puts out 32a on the + 12v line. Seems that would be a better bang for the buck.

Obviously I am missing an important factor besides the 12v output, so someone please spread the knowledge 🙂
 
Something is odd, if you break it down by the individual rails the "460Watt" is 687Watts. I'm assuming that the 3.3 and 5V are on a shared rail but they don't list that....
 
The Enermax figures seem to be really inflated. I looked both 365 and 465 up on Alta-Vista and found lower numbers listed in their specs on other sites.

365

465

The spec sheet on the Enermax website has the 12a output at 26 and 32 respectively, but these sites have them both at 20.
 
To be honest, I suspect that your cheap lights are the problem. If your PSU was supplying such poor quality power your system would not be running.

The enclosed LEDs in cheap illuminated fans, can overheat and fail, or vibrations can damage the solder joints causing flickering. Similarly, the high voltage power supply for a cheap cold-cathode light is also a likely point of failure.

I'd recommend checking the voltages (either in the BIOS, or preferably with a calibrated voltmeter) - in order to cause the symptoms you describe, the +12V supply would have to be *way* off - like below 8 or 9V.

If you are looking for a new PSU, then I'd get one with the strongest +12V you can get. A couple of years ago, there was a lot of noise about combined +5 and +3.3V supplies, this was because graphics cards and CPUs were powered from these lines (in variable combinations). Nowadays, these devices have moved off the low voltage lines and are now powered by +12V. As a result, there is relatively little load on the +5 and +3.3V lines in a typical system (probably less than 50W combined), but the load on the 12V line can be very heavy (potentially 120W or more).

Some PSU manufacturers have modified their PSUs because of this - The new versions of the enermax supplies have reduced the power rating of the 5 and 3.3V lines, but increased that of the 12V line. [Enermax rather strangely, didn't change the model numbers when they made this change!]. In a modern system, the old supplies would be unbalanced, and you would not be able to use them to their full capability.
 
Thx, Mark. I'm going to tackle this from both ends. I'm ordering a good PSU with more amps on the 12v and also have ordered an SVC UV light. Hopefully between the two I solve the problem.
 
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