the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

[lti]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

This unit does have a thermal fan controller, and the thermistor for that fan controller wasn't touching the secondary side heatsink like it's supposed to.

I've seen that in two Hipro power supplies.

[Pentium4]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

I figured this unit would be a nice addition to the hall of shame. This is an Allied (Deer) AL-A300ATX unit (many different revisions carry that model number, I have an old pink labeled one kicking around). Decided to pop the cover off this power supply to inspect it. While these Allied/Deer power supplies are oftentimes known to have bad capacitors, this one was either

a. overloaded
b. improperly cooled, or
c. both

This unit does have a thermal fan controller, and the thermistor for that fan controller wasn't touching the secondary side heatsink like it's supposed to. I believe the fan never sped up to a fast enough speed to keep things cooled. As a result, many components, particularly diodes and resistors, got way too hot, causing massive burn marks and discoloration in the PCB. The fan is not seized, though I don't know if it was getting power or not. Almost all the capacitors on the secondary and 5vsb areas are bulging/leaking. It's a good thing my uncle took this unit out of service, because not only was it a risk for the attached hardware... this thing has become a fire hazard! My original plans were to replace the bad capacitors, but after seeing how things look with the cover removed, I'm just going to harvest the useable parts from it. Also, I noticed there was a 5 amp fuse installed. The PCB actually states that a 5A fuse should be installed in a 235W unit!

Man, that thing got HOT! It looks like those resistors on the secondary toasted the caps. What was it powering? And I'm curious what the brand is of those green caps with the Elna vent stamp.

At least this one has nice heatsinks compared to some other Deer PSU's, and it has a nice input filter

[cubecompmtdx]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

It was definitely powering a system it wasn't designed to handle... My uncle was short supplied on PSUs, so he was running his computer with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+, 2GB or 4GB RAM, multiple HDDs, onboard GeForce 8100 graphics, and Windows 7. Pushing that 15A 12v rail a bit too hard. I gave him a Dynex 400w unit to replace it with. Now that computer's much happier!

the green caps on the secondary side are Koshin. The black caps nearby have the saturn logo on 'em. I'm guessing that's Chicony? lol.

[ben7]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

^stress that puppy until she overheats xD

[Behemot]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

TBH I don't think Athlon X2 4200+ and GF 8100 draws some huge power. Most likely 65 W TDP, chipset some 15 W maybe…

[370forlife]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

the green caps on the secondary side are Koshin. The black caps nearby have the saturn logo on 'em. I'm guessing that's Chicony? lol.

YC or Yang-Chun. They are a common sight on Deer/Solytech units.

[Pentium4]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

It was definitely powering a system it wasn't designed to handle... My uncle was short supplied on PSUs, so he was running his computer with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+, 2GB or 4GB RAM, multiple HDDs, onboard GeForce 8100 graphics, and Windows 7. Pushing that 15A 12v rail a bit too hard. I gave him a Dynex 400w unit to replace it with. Now that computer's much happier!

the green caps on the secondary side are Koshin. The black caps nearby have the saturn logo on 'em. I'm guessing that's Chicony? lol.

15A would be plenty for that system, but that's just what the label says....Judging by the age and by Deer in general, it's probably a 10A or 12A fast recovery diode maybe 16, still should be enough but maybe running the computer hard on a hot summer day could have overheated it!

[bobcaygeon]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

It looks like this power supply jumped the shark...

Where to begin:

It looks like the wires to the 120/240v selector are just wedged between the primary caps and heatsink and the assembler bent the fins to make it work. One wire seemed to have escaped and got crushed flat by the fan. I cant explain why the fins on the other side of the primary heat sink were bent inward. The input filtering is a barren wasteland. The primaries are Fuhjyyu and the secondaries appear to be a sea of Canicons. It probably cant be seen in the pic, but one of the secondary caps has been nicked through the outer sheath. Even the "Pass B" sticker looks off ... I think its an attempt at the RoHS "no lead" type sticker, but to me it looks like its got no "P" but it has "b". Or maybe it didnt Pass "b"?? The transformers appear to have a stamped red Pb with the a more proper line through it. It looks like they didnt bother with an fake UL, CE, or any other logos on the sticker. Heck, they didnt even bother to stamp a serial number into the field they reserved for it!

This power supply definitely looks like a good example of overrating in its finest form. Definitely not a 1000W supply.

[370forlife]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

Copy of a now quite old (and quite good) ATNG power supply. Though I think the highest I ever saw that design rated was 600W, and I believe that was one of the Key Mouse copies of that design (it actually did 600W quite well). Key mouse does a bit better copying ATNG looking at this unit.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

Not sure if it's Key Mouse who made it. The transformers in their PSUs are typically marked Ever-power, and they make (or at least rebrand) their own fans.

[Pentium4]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

Obviously not even close to 1000W but that looks like a decent little power supply I think it would be fun to fix it up. Add some input filtering first of all, recap, replace the fan...I like the heatsinks and the transformer

[Behemot]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

Yea, may be good for some 400, maybe 500 W?

[PeteS in CA]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

I may have to split this over a couple of posts, but I'm pretty POed/frustrated with Dell at the moment. If it isn't incredibly obvious, I'm not a computers geekasoid life form. Mrs. S in CA and I have always bought name-brand PCs. Neither of us have the knowledge to build our own. Until the Dell I'm referring to, those name-brand machines have always lasted up to the point where we "needed" to so things the machines just couldn't due. The Sony we had before this Dell lasted 6 1/2 years.

Anyway, this Dell is but 4 years old. We powered it off to do something, and it never powered on again. Being as almost old as it is and it being impractical to do our own repairs, we are replacing it. Being here for so many years plus the really basic symptom told me that the problem is probably in the P/S. One thing we bought was a Thermaltake BlacX hard drive dock, so we could copy anything we wanted off the Dell's HDD. That things is so simple even I could figure it out (plug it into its wall wart, connect it to my laptop with a USB cable, plug in the hard drive, switch it on, let it "install" itself, find it in the "Computer" window) and use it. So I removed the hard drive, and while Mrs. S was doing her thing I removed the power supply. Using a flashlight and looking through the vent, its problem was pretty obvious.

So, here's what the P/S is and what I found inside:

It's a Liteon PS-6351-2, D/C R0836, rated for 350W:

* 5V@18A max and 3.3V@17A max, 160W max.

* 12VA@1AA max and 12VB@18A max, 300W max.

Visually it looks really solid, with nice beefy heatsinks. When I worked for Delta Products, Liteon was one of the brands for whom I had serious respect, so this did not surprise me.

The AC PLF was nice: two common mode inductors wound so as to have significant differential mode inductance; an X-cap between the inductors; small Y-caps on the inlet; somewhat larger Y-caps near the bridge rectifier (I didn't look for safety agency marks, but the parts look like agency-approved types - it's Liteon and Dell)

The bridge rectifier is a Liteon GBU808 (I assume it's rated for 8A, 800V PIV). The input 'lytics are 820uF, 200 V - nice capacitance - made by Ltec. The brand isn't so good, but the caps are not vented or swollen.

The switch device is a single TO-3P part (not a TO-247; can't see the vendor or P/N in-case), so it's a single-switch forward converter. The PWM is a ST Micro UC3843B, a current mode part (which is goodness!). The Stby regulator is a Power Integrations TNY267PN, another reputable semiconductor company.

I cannot see the vendor(s) or P/Ns of the O/P rectifiers in-case, but there are 6 such TO-220 devices. The cores of the O/P inductors are Micrometals -52 material, which suggest a switch frequency in the 100KHz range (or a bit higher), which would mean the TO-3P switch device is a MOSFET.

Now for the part everyone anticipated, the O/P caps. There are 2 or 3 12.5mm Taicons that look fine. There are several Ltec LZP series parts in 12.5mm, 10mm and 8mm diameter. A 12.5mm 1500uF, 10V Ltec is swollen and spilling its guts. A 10mm Ltec is in similar condition, and a 10mm Ltec 220uF, 25V is swollen. There is also a 10mm OST RLE series part that looks very tilted (vented off its bung). The vented and swollen Ltecs were what I saw with the flashlight before removing the P/S cover.

As bad as all those O/P caps are, I think the immediate failure cause was a swollen Ltec LZP 220uF, 25V located between the PWM and Stby regulator. I'm guessing that is the filter for the +5V Stby or the start-up cap for the PWM, either of which could probably keep the P/S from turning on.

Why am I POed at Dell? Companies like Dell or HP or Apple usually control what kinds of parts are used in critical functions like O/P capacitors. Dell either outright approved the use of Ltec or decided not to control those O/P caps and "forced" the use of Ltec-grade "quality" through the price they paid for the P/Ss. This Dell was a medium-high end machine, with Win Vista (never a problem, as the machine was built-for), 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive! There are polymers all over that mobo! That machine should have lasted another 2-4 years at least! By choosing/allowing cheap crap P/S O/P caps, Dell - knowingly or unknowingly - pre-"programmed" for it a ~4 year life!

This wasn't the first straw, but it's the last. Dell has a long-term place of dishonor on the S in CA household's $#!? list!

[Behemot]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

I can only tell you this: get used to it, it is not going better in recent years.

[kc8adu]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

so replace the caps already.easy job.

[Wester547]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

I wouldn't deem a Lite-on power supply gutless, but... if it was used 24/7 that might have been just a bit more that the chosen capacitors could handle. If any of those capacitors were close to any coils, that could have expedited their failure too.

Visually it looks really solid, with nice beefy heatsinks. When I worked for Delta Products, Liteon was one of the brands for whom I had serious respect, so this did not surprise me.

Even so, I don't think any make is (or was?) as good as Delta (or Newton Power) at making bad capacitors last long in a PSU.

The bridge rectifier is a Liteon GBU808 (I assume it's rated for 8A, 800V PIV). The input 'lytics are 820uF, 200 V - nice capacitance - made by Ltec. The brand isn't so good, but the caps are not vented or swollen.

Well, they're in the voltage doubler, even shoddy brands last a very long time there assuming the fan isn't seized or something alike.

The switch device is a single TO-3P part (not a TO-247; can't see the vendor or P/N in-case), so it's a single-switch forward converter. The PWM is a ST Micro UC3843B, a current mode part (which is goodness!). The Stby regulator is a Power Integrations TNY267PN, another reputable semiconductor company.

A TO-3P part may be either from Fairchild, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics, Fuji electric, etc... so definitely a quality part.

Now for the part everyone anticipated, the O/P caps. There are 2 or 3 12.5mm Taicons that look fine. There are several Ltec LZP series parts in 12.5mm, 10mm and 8mm diameter. A 12.5mm 1500uF, 10V Ltec is swollen and spilling its guts. A 10mm Ltec is in similar condition, and a 10mm Ltec 220uF, 25V is swollen. There is also a 10mm OST RLE series part that looks very tilted (vented off its bung). The vented and swollen Ltecs were what I saw with the flashlight before removing the P/S cover.

LZP I believe is rated for no more than 4,000 hours at 105*C and that's the 12.5mm capacitors, 10mm and below are rated at 3,000 hours at 105*C. Of course, I know that isn't really an accurate way to gauge how long capacitors will last since those ratings are only stated with 60% confidence on the datasheets. That, and the fact that the biggest problem with Taiwan/Chinese capacitors is their aluminum foil whose impurities eventually leech into the electrolyte which is caused by heat, irrespective of the load life the capacitors are rated at (I believe that more regards the electrolyte). That being said, the Ltec LZGs I see in Deltas have a higher ripple rating and lower ESR rating (though not too low of course for SMPS) and are rated as high as 7,000 hours @ 105*C (12.5mm) and 6,000 hours @ 105*C for the 10mm ones. This also kinda suggests to me that Ltec is worse than Teapo...

As bad as all those O/P caps are, I think the immediate failure cause was a swollen Ltec LZP 220uF, 25V located between the PWM and Stby regulator. I'm guessing that is the filter for the +5V Stby or the start-up cap for the PWM, either of which could probably keep the P/S from turning on.

I don't really think there's a more stressful and inefficient part of the PSU than the +5VSB circuit, especially given the lack of airflow there, so not surprised to see that fail either. If that capacitor instead drives UC384x that too is stressful.

Why am I POed at Dell? Companies like Dell or HP or Apple usually control what kinds of parts are used in critical functions like O/P capacitors. Dell either outright approved the use of Ltec or decided not to control those O/P caps and "forced" the use of Ltec-grade "quality" through the price they paid for the P/Ss. This Dell was a medium-high end machine, with Win Vista (never a problem, as the machine was built-for), 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive! There are polymers all over that mobo! That machine should have lasted another 2-4 years at least! By choosing/allowing cheap crap P/S O/P caps, Dell - knowingly or unknowingly - pre-"programmed" for it a ~4 year life!

Dell have used power supplies with Taiwanese capacitors for a very long time now, from Hipro, Lite-on, Delta/Newton Power, Bestec, etc... their older power supplies (at least the Hipros and Newton Powers) were extremely overbuilt and held up a very long time even with those brands, though. The only Dell PSUs I recollect seeing with all Japanese capacitors are the proprietary ones (excepting a 700W Hipro)...

[tleu8472]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

2theMax SV350. Appears to be very similar in design and components to the VP350R of the same brand (see my earlier post #325) except this one has two fans. 1 bulged + 1 leaking Teapo caps. Is this causing the high-pitched squeal emitted by the unit when it is in standby?

[lti]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

That looks a lot like the Thermaltake TR2 430W.

Those bad caps are probably the cause of the squealing.

[Pentium4]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

Definitely an HEC build. Replace those caps and you've got a pretty good power supply

[Pentium4]

Re: the gutless, bloated, and fried power supply hall of shame

I refuse to put any Leadman unit in the build quality pictoral so I'm putting it here Although it isn't as bad as some...It has what I think are fake 1000uF NCC KMG input caps. It only has one part on the primary heatsink and it is an ST W12NK90Z MOSFET rated at 11A 900V, how many watts would this thing be good for? The secondary has a 40A schottky for 12V and 30A for 3.3V and 5V. On the 12V filtering it only has a 1500uF 25V cap

Is this a two transistor forward design? Would this thing have ridiculous ripple?