Thermaltake PSU

[robes]

What are your thoughts on Thermaltake Power supplies.

I have been thinking of ordering some for some people up here who are having power supply issues. We have a small diesel powered power station here that is not always so reliable and people seem in the last couple of weeks to have lost their power supplies. I can buy them at $40 each (430 Watts) but I was wondering if there was anything generally wrong with them. Are they at the bottom end of the *passable* PSU's or are they at the top end of *crappy* PSU's. The one I am thinking of getting is a W0084, 430Watt PSU.

It doesn't come up on that 80 plus website but other thermaltakes do.

Cheers,

Robes.

[bgavin]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

I install a lot of Sparkle ATX350-PN. These are $33USD from Newegg. Caps are typical middle of the road quality, but the 120mm fan keeps them nice and cool. Sparkle also makes a 450w version of this power supply.

The next step up is Corsair, then Seasonic. I don't think either are any better than the Sparkle, which is why I stay with these. I replace all PSU, fans, disk drives in my client machines every 3 years.

[Wizard]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Thermaltake PSUs is below average. I had thermaltake fans/heatsinks and they were big on name, but performance is poor.

Cheers, Wizard

[bgavin]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Yep. The Big Typhoon, etc, all do poorly compared to the other premium sinks. I suspect their PSU are no different.

[robes]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Thanks guys. As I suspected. I was half tempted to buy them any way but then I read a review on http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/ any they really hit one of the thermaltake models hard. So... I now how have to figure out how much my customers are going to want to pay for quality... rather than the cheaper PSU's they can get from down the road.

BTW: will a decent PSU protect a Motherboard that is already showing signs of Cap Leakage?

Cheers,

Robes.

[stevo1210]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

I can buy them at $40 each (430 Watts) but I was wondering if there was anything generally wrong with them. Are they at the bottom end of the *passable* PSU's or are they at the top end of *crappy* PSU's. The one I am thinking of getting is a W0084, 430Watt PSU.

I use the exact same Thermaltake PSU to power the PC in my signature. As you can see it is a power hungry Pentium D and I have many peripherals that it has to power as well. I have had it for 3.5 years now (since 2005) and I have not encountered a single problem with it. It's been cycled in 3 different PCs since I've bought it. My PC is practically left on all day and the voltages are very stable. 12 is 11.90, 3.3V is 3.25 and 5V is 5.02V normally.... I do not see any voltage fluctuations whatsoever. I have to admit that with the two fans it comes with, it keeps it very cool.
From what I know and can see, it has Teapo, Su'scon and Capxon caps.... I can agree that they are good, but they are middle of the road, average quality caps.... but for the price I bought it, I can't complain.
I've also noted that this unit is manufactured by HEC, I guess it's a HEC OEM unit that's been rebranded as Thermaltake. Inside the unit, there is proper RFI and EMI shielding and filters so I am very happy those components were installed.

Thanks.

[Wizard]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Careful. Your PSU eventually fail.

I caught both of my 120mm fan PSUs one is froton type had fan failure (sleeve you that duh designers used.) without me knowing (deaf) and ruined caps. The other one different one and not much use had swelled cap. :o Fixed both and one good ball bearing fan. All ok.

Even the 70 and up cost of a PSU with 120mm or larger fan still used sleeve. HELLO? You can afford to put in freaking good ball bearing from Delta or Nidec or Nonoise brand fans.

Even the designer PSUs that cost a fortune $80 and up still get sleeve. Stupid, I don't pay for THIS.

Cheers, Wizard

[bgavin]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

I replace fans, power supplies, and disk drives every three years. Much less expensive for the customer, than disaster recovery and fresh rebuild.

[i4004]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

if u were to use maxtor hdds i guess you would be changing them every year...hehe...

[Scenic]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

my maxtor HDDs (made in 2003) are still going strong :P

but both of my new 250GB WDs died within 3months.

but those newer low-end SeaXtor HDDs suck ass...
just cheap & unrelieable Seagate drives relabeled as maxtor.. -.-

RIP Maxtor

[i4004]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

no scenic, maxtor is (unfortunetaly) not dead.
they're now selling same crap under seagate badge. really hard to understand why would otherwise ok company comprimise it's reputation by buying maxtor...

on storagereview.com reliability survey DiamondMax Plus 9 has probably worst result of all drives...
also, it's not that hard to find data on the web from many people who used to make systems with maxtor but started to avoid them like plague after unusually high numbers of maxtor hdds started to die prematurely....

even such simple approach is probably correct
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/comp...ata-backup.htm

if i was buying used hdds i would probably get barracuda 7200.7(just like those i have in my machine) or wd raptor of some sort...

again, it's a pitty google didn't release brand names in their hdd rleiability survey, but i can take almost sure guess that maxtor was peaking when it comes to premature deaths.

but overall when it comes to hdds i think it's a crappy technology that should be abandoned asap. something so fragile that can fail so easilly shouldn't be in the pcs at all. a fucking gramophone....
also, some technologies used there are just mind boggling: can you believe they're actually putting rom(or parts of it) itself on the platters?
just insane.....

[Wizard]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

I used to run Maxtors for few years but eventually withdrawn them from daily use in my homebuilt machines to machine tinkertoys status and knock around HDs to run bench boards due to performance not 100% satistary and possible data loss.

I have are 8 and 9 series including DX and two slim 8's. I went on with seagates and occasional WD and rare Hitachis thanks to computer store not stocking them and if so, not very often & poor selection. Performance is good.

Cheers, Wizard

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Thermaltake is so-so on the low end and excellent on the high end. The Toughpowers are the excellent units.

The HEC made units are on the low end though... you'd be better off with FSP/Sparkle.

[JEWilson]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

What are your views on the pure power range?

I have a ThermalTake PurePower 680APD
Type - ATX 12V 2.2 plus EPS 12V
P/N - W0049-B

This is dead but I am prepared to repair it

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Old Sirtec design, and a weird one at that... repairing it may be easier said than done.

[momaka]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Hi everyone,
I just joined the forums recently. Well, first off I would like to thank everyone for posting on this forum. I've found lots of useful information here. In fact if it wasn't for that, I would have eventually lost one of my computers because of a power supply going bad.

So here's the story...

Last winter I opened up my computer for a cleanup, and I decided to open the PSU as well (a PowMax at that time). This was also about the same time I discovered this website and started to read about bad caps. So after I cleaned that PSU, I was curious about the capacitors in it. After looking around a bit, I spotted 3 slightly bulging caps on the secondary side and 1 on the primary side .

Because I wasn't using that computer that much prior to that, I decided to leave it disassembled either until I found good replacement capacitors or until I found a cheap reputable PSU on craigslist (didn't want to invest too much in a PSU for that computer because it's old already). Eventually the computer wasn't used at all for a few more months. In the spring, the Micro Center near my house put a discount on a few things, including the Thermaltake TR2 430W, which was $25 after MIR. I decided to buy it since it had 3 years warranty. Also, because it is ATX12 v1.3, I thought I would make a good replacement for an old computer like mine .

So, that's what I have now, a Thermaltake TR2 430W and this is what I'm powering:
Jetway N2PAP Lite motherboard w/ nForce 2 chipset
AMD Duron Applebred 1.4 GHz at 1.5v, 133MHz FSB
1x 128 MB Kingston PC2700, 1x 512 MB Mosel PC 3200
ASUS Radeon 9200 SE, 64 MB, AGP 8x
Maxtor DiamondMax VL40, 20 GB, 5400 RPM
Teac CD-540E, 40x CD-ROM
2x 80mm "CBE" brand fans. One I got from a JNC PSU and the other from a Deer PSU. Both are 0.14A.
1x 80mm GlobalWin fan/CPU cooler, 0.21A

I've only tested this computer for 3 weeks, and last week, a high pitched noise started to come out of the computer. It sounds as if it's coming from the Thermaltake PSU. First time it did it, I had the computer on for only about 20 minutes tops. I shut it down and unplugged it, then tried again it the next day, and again after 10-20 minutes the computer started to slowly amplify this high pitched noise.

I'm not 100% sure it's from the PSU itself, but it has to be. Before I removed the Powmax last winter, everything was working fine (no high pitched noises ever), including the Powmax (which is still working ATM, only problem is it has bad caps so I'm not going to use that until it's recapped).

As for the motherboard, it has GSC and OST caps. I know that GSC caps are listed as bad here, but I haven't had a problem related to them yet on that motherboard (everything is stable even with CPU at 100%). None of them seem to be bulged. They also feel relatively cool to the touch, along with the Mosfets. The 1.5v output for the CPU is a little low though - usually stays at 1.488v and frequently drops to 1.472v. On occasion the PSU makes a really quiet static discharge noise (can barely be heard), and then the 1.5v goes down to 1.456v (5v also drops 20mV), but after that the 1.5v jumps to 1.504v for a second and back to 1.488v. Computer does remain stable though.

As far as PSU voltages go, the rails seem pretty stable at their values. The 3.3v is 3.28v, which is good. 5VSb is 5.48v (is this too high?). The 12v is reading 12.09v and rising to 12.16v every once in a while. Lastly, the 5v is reading 4.89v and rarely falling to 4.87v.

Could it be that I'm not loading the 12v rail enough (PSU says 1A min)? When I first tried the PSU without the hard drive and CD-ROM, the 12v was 12.16v constantly while the 5v was 4.87v.

In any case, everything is stable - no crashes or BSODs whatsoever, though I haven't tried playing games yet. It's just that the high pitched noise is starting to worry me. It makes me think the computer wants to explode . Also that 5v rail doesn't seem too happy. Perhaps I should plug in my other HD to load the 12v more making the 5v go up?

If anyone knows what could be causing this noise, please let me know.
Well thanks everyone in advance for your help, and sorry for the long post.

-momaka

[Krankshaft]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

Yep. The Big Typhoon, etc, all do poorly compared to the other premium sinks. I suspect their PSU are no different.

I have that heatsink on my PC and it sucks!

We're talking CPU temps 46 C at idle and around 50 during gaming. You'd think something that looks like a car radiator would do a great job but looks are decieving.

The things so huge I have to remove my mobo to get the power supply out.

I've just been too lazy to change it .

my maxtor HDDs (made in 2003) are still going strong :P

but both of my new 250GB WDs died within 3months.

but those newer low-end SeaXtor HDDs suck ass...
just cheap & unrelieable Seagate drives relabeled as maxtor.. -.-

RIP Maxtor

Don't get me started on Maxtor I ran one of their 120 gb HDDs since 2002 storing all of my music files and software on my main computer.

So in 2007 I finally upgrade to a WD 500 gb and transfer the files over everything is fine.

One day I'm working on backing up a customers files before I do a clean install of XP so I decide to use the old Maxtor 120 gb since it's performed well since I've had it and halfway through the copy process there is a write error. The HDD motor crapped out .

That scared the crap out of me.

I thought what would happen if this occured during the data transfer to my new hdd or during the transfer back to the customers HDD?

I also had another 80 gb Maxtor with an intermittant motor (shortly after my 120 gb crapped out) luckily it was able to work long enough to recover the data I would NEVER buy Maxtor again.

I'm sticking with Western Digital and Seagate Barrcudas.

I can't blame Maxtor disguising themselves.

Thats what bad cap companies do right change their name?

[kc8adu]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

yes maxtor had a bad run.but western digital is having a much worse one lately.
better back up that 500 before it eats your data!this is true of any brand but right now i am getting in a ton of wd for data recovery.
right now seagate has been most reliable.new maxtors are rebadged seagates.
at least the old maxtors were easy to recover after the firmware was rewritten.

[i4004]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

just got wd 500gb a week or two ago.
this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136073
reliability is probably simillar to simillar priced seagate models.

it'll be in external case that so it won't be doing much work anyway.
(i think with such usage pattern even those crappy maxtors would last 10 years...
start-stopy cycles shouldn't be a problem for these wds as haeds are not landing on the platter---they have a plastic ramp on the edge where they sit..)

judging by newegg customer feedback seagate is somewhat worse
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136073
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148288

so i don't think wd problems are anywhere near maxtor's.
many peoiple put hdd in external boxes with no air circulation at all.
no wonder those die faster.
(that's probably what's eaitng wd mybook series...)

so far my experience with wd is pretty damn good.

kc8adu, about maxtor firmware rewriting: are any special tools needed, or you've just used some software?

[JEWilson]

Re: Thermaltake PSU

There are a few vendors out there which offer data recovery
for Maxtor and other vendors HDDs

see further
http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/maxtor-h...k-recovery.htm
and
http://www.dtidata.com/resourcecente...ry-diamondmax/

Correct me if wrong but recovery may refer to;
1. Recovering partitions thought to be lost
2. Low level format of an HDD to clear
recorded errors data structures (retained on the HDD) for any
particular HDD as well as
3. Advanced recovery software which amongst other goodies;
will rewrite or update the firmware such as where the f/w
is corrupted, e.g. HDD not recognised by the BIOS etc.
4. Rewite SMART attributes et al under a refurbishment head.

Most manufacturers will refurbish HDDs rec'd under warranty
as dead and place these back in the market sale through secondary
or tertiary sales channels.
Unsurprisingly, any/all software used by the vendors to effect
the latter fixes seldom find their way into the tech chains of
supply and repair unless you qaulify as an authorised refurb
party.

Some HDD recovery vendors such as those advertised as forensic
HDD recovery specialists offer HDD recovery at a premium price so far as
they offer clean room environments amongst other services for
such purposes as referred to.

Unsure as to what is kc8adu referring to as he states old maxtors.

Suppose that his business as well as line of business.

HTH