Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

[Behemot]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

I told ya there may be voltage problems and that it may be better to use two superfasts rather than single schottky.

Anyway, I still somehow don't understand how putting SO MUCH effort, time (=money), components (=money) and running such inefficient craps (=electricity=money) is better over buying new 350W 80+ (80+ Bronze) cheap units with 3year warranty. There are already shitloads of them in Europe and under competition pressure the warranties are getting longer even throughout mainstream and low-end. So I bet even in lower mainstream, by the end of 2016 there will be units with 5y warranty.

[momaka]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

I think I succeeded in finding it (that's the good news): at present the PSUs which have worked bad after fixing all have rail voltages, as measured by the program SpeedFan (v 4.51), which exceed 5% the nominal 12V, i.e. > 12.6V (+/-5% the nominal is it the specification you meant, right?).

Don't trust SpeedFan or any other software for your PSU voltages (including BIOS readings). Take a multimeter and measure the voltages of the PSU in the computer as it is running. That's by far the most accurate way.

SpeedFan mis-reports voltages on many of my computers, and I have quite a range of different computers, so the problem is not limited to one motherboard brand or model at all.

I think that may be due to the resistor R12 (470k) missing in some of the recapped PSUs (it has been factory cut, there are still soldered rheophores), probably to increase the then low 12V rail. Indeed, the recapping and replacement of the fast recovery diode with a Schottky one, have increased the voltage of about 200-300 mV, maybe going beyond tolerance. Since I got at home a tenth PSU to recapped and in this R12 is missing too, I measured 12V rail (under 21W load) before and after putting a 470k (still no recap) and found a lowering of 600 mV. Good!

Good work.
Check the resistors I circled in red above in one of the "good" PSU and see how they compare (resistance-wise) to the ones in the "bad" PSUs.

Next week I will check at work if the correlation between ATAPI error and the lacking of R12 holds and fix the PSUs accordingly.

Yes, let us know.

I told ya there may be voltage problems and that it may be better to use two superfasts rather than single schottky.

The problems (i.e. HDDs getting errors) were there in the first place even before he installed the schottky rectifiers.

Anyway, I still somehow don't understand how putting SO MUCH effort, time (=money), components (=money) and running such inefficient craps (=electricity=money) is better over buying new 350W 80+ (80+ Bronze) cheap units with 3year warranty. There are already shitloads of them in Europe and under competition pressure the warranties are getting longer even throughout mainstream and low-end.

I agree with you. But what applies to your locale may not apply to his. I've been to various places in Southeastern Europe, and I can tell you there are remote parts of the countries there that you literally have no choice - everyone is running crappy power supplies, and that's the norm. Getting parts is often cheaper than buying a reputable PSU. Not to mention gas prices - if you have to go to a city far away that sells those better PSUs, the cost of gas along is a big turn-off.

[omega]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

Don't trust SpeedFan or any other software for your PSU voltages (including BIOS readings). Take a multimeter and measure the voltages of the PSU in the computer as it is running. That's by far the most accurate way.

I see. I will. But in the meantime I could compare in terminal service the voltage curves of FAL501FS12 and VS450 (by means of SpeedFan). Even if the absolute values are nonsense, the latter is far more stable, even if it is full of CapXon caps!

Check the resistors I circled in red above in one of the "good" PSU and see how they compare (resistance-wise) to the ones in the "bad" PSUs.

I am almost sure that the resistors are of the same values except the R12 which is missing.

I agree with you. But what applies to your locale may not apply to his. I've been to various places in Southeastern Europe, and I can tell you there are remote parts of the countries there that you literally have no choice - everyone is running crappy power supplies, and that's the norm. Getting parts is often cheaper than buying a reputable PSU. Not to mention gas prices - if you have to go to a city far away that sells those better PSUs, the cost of gas along is a big turn-off.

Money is undoubtedly important, but it is not everything. From this experience I learned so much about PSU, and this is also important. Now I know that even new middle-level PSU from known brands are full of crap caps which have to be recapped soon or later, therefore it has been right time to begin to master the technique.

[Behemot]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

While crapacitors are always a risk, new platforms very often die because of another reasons than caps. And with warranty starting at 5 years for some platforms, it does not matter that much - not in this price range.

momaka: Italy is usually given as an example of the "best economics" in Europe so I somehow do not believe there are no good units in there. (however it is more like fascistic hell where you pay tax when you have two chickens on your own backyard, and we should also look at how much money flows from northern countries to southern countries, which only make more debts continuously). They may be expensive because taxation in there reaches 80-90 %, but that's their own problem…after all, they kept pigs as Berlusconi in power for decades. On their defense, situation is similar in all the other socialistic countries in Europe.

[falcontech]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

Hello everybody
I also have a problem with this power supply, unlike omega it just won't turn on and I don't have any output voltage, I replaced some capacitor that was open, I checked the shotty diodes on the secondary and I'm ok, try do you recommend me to do?

[stj]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

a new thread would have been good,
so is the 5v standby working?

[falcontech]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

No, I have no output voltage, plus I noticed that the voltage on one of the large capacitors is much lower than 200V, it signals me about 100 volts with the power supply running

[falcontech]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

with the power supply not turned on on the large capacitors I have the same voltage, theoretically it should be less or am I wrong in standby?

[momaka]

Re: Annoying heavy load-failure in Tecnoware Free Silent 500W

No, I have no output voltage, plus I noticed that the voltage on one of the large capacitors is much lower than 200V, it signals me about 100 volts with the power supply running

Since you are in Italy and you have 230V AC line voltage, the total *DC* voltage across the two big capacitors should be about 230 x 1.41421 = 325V DC. Thus, each cap should have about 160-170V DC across it, with or without the PSU turned On.

If you do, check 5VSB output (i.e. purple wire on ATX connector to ground.)

If no 5VSB, then the rest of the PSU won't work. Need to throubleshoot the 5VSB first. As stj suggested, it's probably a good idea to start a new thread and post pictures and any information there so that people don't get confused with the problems of the PSUs in this thread.

**EDIT**
I see you started a new thread here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=83829
Linking for anyone else that might be interested.
Will reply there too.