Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

[tazwegion]

I recently collected enough components to build yet another A64 PC, the only items retained were the PSU & case (offerings from Honli), after sorting out a dud DDR stick the system has run happily till yesterday when it began shutting down (of it's own accord)


System Specifications

Athlon64 3000+ s754
Asus K8V/X-SE
512Mb Transcend DDR-333 (limited manually in BIOS)
Geforce4 Ti4200 64Mb
LG CD/RW
Generic 40x CD-rom
80Gb IDE
Realtek 10/100 NIC
4 x USB expansion card


Now to get it to attempt a power up, I needed to pull the AC mains cord out & reattach, powering up has really been a hit 'n' miss affair, with the BIOS hardware monitoring feature indicating a 11.985 ~ 12.305v fluctuating variance, with all other voltages remaining within 10% -/+ of tolerance, my trusty UNI-T multimeter is showing a variance but only of 12.06 ~ 12.32v measured @ the P4 motherboard connector.

So far the symptoms seem to indicate poor capacitance somewhere and as the motherboard is a brand-spanking-new Asus K8V/X - SE populated with what appear to be Panasonics, Rubycons & KZG caps... I'm leaning towards this being a PSU issue (despite the apparent perfect [see below] appearance of the caps )

Additionally, are those input capacitors (2 x KAC 250v 330uF) enough for a supposed 480w PSU? even the 'sinks' look a little light on in the mass dept. especially when compared to either my 430w Antec or 550w Codegen PSU's, would replacing them with my spare pair of Rubycons @ 250v 470uF have any real world benefit?

Any feedback would be appreciated, I know virtually zip about this PSU's specifications let alone whether it has any PFC componentry, I'm in a little over my head when it comes to PSU design/function/layout though I can identify most of the components



Thanks in advance!

[Rainbow]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

It's crap. 250W PSUs use 330uF caps. Better 300W PSUs use 680uF... This is no way 480W.

[kc8adu]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

its a steaming pile.
no way in hell it will hold up at it 480w "rating"

[starfury1]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

well two hi recommendations there dump it LOL

Yeah I had an old supply that would not fire up unless I unplugged it from the mains. (and left it for a few minutes)

Think from memory it turned out to be a 1K resistor or a dry joint on it ...don't ask me where or what it was for I don't have a clue
(Cant even recall what the supply was)

Anyway a noob guess would be startup circuit, some how some way and most probably
something that hangs off the constant +V thats suppose to be low or high when soft powered off but it dosen't happen.

only gets to that state with a total discharge of the unit.

Anyway sure someone here knows these unit and most likely components to check replace

BTW do you know the controller chip?

yeah caps....Humm well from my way NOT Expert opinion I cant see why not if you really want to put the rubys in

but as has been pointed out here the bridge rectifier or diodes used will be under more current stress, as in higher peak current as the caps charge

it is after all just an anolgue psu at the front mains end...
(yeah ok a bit more to it now days)

So you might want to check the diode specs,

In short just a slightly bigger bucket for the psu to pull from which itsn't such a bad idea...I think anyway

I would be looking for possible dry joints, I would check all the caps/replace around the chip too

Resistors do fail or go high and even if they look ok

From your pics it looks to be the standard type el cheapo that they throw half the components away with but not the expert on this

Maybe check Pete S and the others FAQ's on it

This link although a bit older psu may give you some ideas
here

Anyway sure some of the more experienced will give you better info

Cheers mate...... not of much help I know

Looks like its a TL494 controller chip but hard to tell

[tazwegion]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

its a steaming pile.
no way in hell it will hold up at it 480w "rating"

Perhaps in a liquid nitrogen atmosphere?

Yes I agree it's a steaming pile of processed foodstuff! but will upgrading the twin input caps increase performance, reliability, voltage stability etc? currently it's holding steady on 12.31v @ idle & 12.13v @ 100% load

I replaced the 1000uF KAC's with some SamXon 1200uF 10v's & a panasonic 1200uF 16v I had lying around... actually I killed one of the panny's as I was domestically distracted briefly, installing it reversed to it's polarity so during the power up test it went BOOM! (see pic below)


Stuff this...

During bench testing the PC rebooted... so in went the (formerly recapped) Antec TruePower380w... the difference was immediately obvious, 12.07v idle ~ 12.04v 100% load!

Back to running Prime95!

[gonzo0815]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

If a PSu has Sb power up problems, from my experience the 1000uF KAC's if there are the first i replace.
In many cases, this fixed all the problems. (but anyway, i usuak´lly changed both KAC).

My theory is, that the Topswitch will have problems to regulate it`s output voltage, thus it permanently keeps traped in an power on off loop (powering on, voltage to high or other problems due to to high ESR of first pi filter cap, shuting down and again).

Most PSu take the Vdd for the SMPS controler IC from the 5v Sb line. Thus the psu won`t start up.

Those KAC caps are very common in many psu, not only from the grey market vendors (e.g. Seasonic OEM SS300Fs -SS400FS, LC-Power nearly all series, etc.).

[linuxguru]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

If it's an EI-33 main transformer, it's not likely to be over 150W-180W max. - this unit is similar to a Deer or Powmax variant.

You can probably use it in a non-critical P1/P2 class machine after upgrading all the large secondary caps. The primary caps don't usually fail - there's not too much point in upgrading them, and it sometimes makes things worse, because the power factor worsens with a large capacitive load and higher peak/inrush currents may trigger overload shutdown on a UPS.

[tazwegion]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Thanks for all the technical information, but I have yet another question now... sitting out of the case (powered up) it hovers on 12.38v or there abouts, but once I fitted it into my RAID0 server the 12v line exceeded 13.0v at times, what gives with that? is it because I used 1200uF capacitors in place of the original 1000uF units? or because the previous system power requirements dragged the guts out of it?

I think I'll just 'gut' this PSU for it's fan & connectors (reclaiming my capacitors too!) 13.0v is just a little too high for my liking

BTW I believe I found the system fault too, the AGP port required some tweaking in the BIOS which has resulted in over 4.5 hours of Prime95 CPU torture testing error/warning free without reboots or freezes

[linuxguru]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

> the 12v line exceeded 13.0v at times, what gives with that?

Probably means that the +5v is overloaded, dropping it to (say) +4.5v. The regulation loop will compensate by increasing the +12v - the cross-regulation is usually not very good on these units.

The other possibility is that the rectifier on +12v is on its way out - these are usually a pair of FR302 3A units, but run at higher currents (and forward drops) than the rated maximum. One or both may eventually short out on high loads.

[Sparky]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Honestly I wouldn't even keep messing with that PSU. I'd gut it for the fan and caps, then ditch the rest. It doesn't seem worth the effort to do anything else.

[Rainbow]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Caps? You don't want to use caps like that to fix anything else. Sell it very cheap.

[Sparky]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Caps? You don't want to use caps like that to fix anything else. Sell it very cheap.

Well he put some SamXon and panasonic caps in it to try and fix it, so by pulling caps I meant retrieving those.

[tazwegion]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Honestly I wouldn't even keep messing with that PSU. I'd gut it for the fan and caps, then ditch the rest. It doesn't seem worth the effort to do anything else.

Yeah, that's what I'll end up doing tonight when it cools down (37c @ the moment) the Pannys & Samxons are too good to waste! dunno' about the 1000uF 10v KMEs AFAIK they're just GP caps

Thanks linuxguru that makes the whole output mess a little clearer


Sparky... I note in your sig that the love affair with Antec PSUs is over, other than the installed Fuhjyyus their design & componentry is good, once you've recapped them they aren't a bad little PSU @ all IMHO


Fuhjyyu

[starfury1]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Well Taz some good info for U...better then Mine

should mention if you read Taz's post about himself, else where on these forums.
He does try to recycle rather then add to land fill good one Tazzie
so guess thats why he is having a bash to fix it.
Does help the learning curve too.

I've learned a bit more from the posts too...

Did think there was some possible "let the buyer beware" with using the ruby's but didn't know, recall what the possible down sides where from previous posts on that.

I thought Id mention it but didn't...thanks all
(probably erased it when editing post doh!)

Do Capacitors go to Silicon Heaven ?
or is there a separate heaven for
passive components

Cheers

[Sparky]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Sparky... I note in your sig that the love affair with Antec PSUs is over, other than the installed Fuhjyyus their design & componentry is good, once you've recapped them they aren't a bad little PSU @ all IMHO


Fuhjyyu

Yeah they are well built units, couldn't ask for more tightly regulated voltage and low ripple, I just don't understand why they put crap caps in there with an otherwise well-designed unit
A couple days after ordering a new PSU I realized I should have just gotten replacement caps and just fixed it (would have been much cheaper too!) but too late for that. I may still recap it and either sell it that way or keep as a spare (if money allows for that)

starfury1, recycling is a good thing, but I think sometimes there is only so much you can do until things just have only one place to go I would have tried too, but he's done that and it still acts up so at that point is when I would say forget it. Just ask my dad, I horded all sorts of stuff for the longest time in several boxes full because I hate to throw anything out

[kc8adu]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

this post brought to you by many recycled and rebuilt parts.
most were free.
most costly part is the $30 dvd writer.
os is a freebie too.
<$50 in a server grade box=priceless.

[starfury1]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Sparky
just thought Id add that for those passing that may be wondering why Taz would bother

But true, at some point you just got to say its not worth the time and effort
(except maybe if you are just trying to lean a little more or would just like the satisfaction of saying "there I fixed you")

Like you, I too have more junk then I care to think about

"One of these days something off that pcb will be useful
(I say to myself)!"
and you know which day that will be?
The day after I throw it out

Cheers mate, all

[tazwegion]

Re: Honli 480w PSU?.. yeah sure it is!

Yeah, I think that's more like it...

* WWE pose/stance *

"all fixed now, who wants some?"


BTW just as a final note on the original PC reboot/freeze issue (drama)... it turned out to be a less-than-perfect AGP interface, stepping down to AGP x4 fixed the issue, pretty darn sad when you consider the POS Asus board is brand new & populated with quality capacitors!