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

[goodpsusearch]

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

[Agent24]

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

Maybe it's for the 5vSB rail? That might get away without a heatsink.

[Behemot]

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

OFC it is SB rail…there is no booster so the switchers will be far on left.

This is absolutelly normal.

[momaka]

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

Shame on you, Solytech...

This thing managed to power a computer for 2 years and never failed. Pretty surprising!
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1449294660

Haha! At first, I didn't even notice anything wrong there. It wasn't until I read all of the replies after this that I realized what was wrong.

Wow, that is... shocking? ...or amazing?
Even though this IS for the 5VSB rail, I am surprised that it didn't fail within minutes. The older Deer/Allied/L&C PSUs tend to generate a lot of heat in soft-OFF/standby mode. I guess Solytech must have improved their 5VSB designs a little. My Deer DR-250ATX keeps the whole primary heatsink nice and warm (about 40-50C) in soft-OFF mode. So I would guess that transistor is dissipating no less than 1 Watt. If this was the case here with this PSU, the PCB underneath that transistor would definitely have become crispy, especially around the Collector pin. Then again, it's hard to tell with a PCB painted black.

[Behemot]

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

Possibly there is already some PWM driver, if the unit is only few years old. EU regulations in this area already work for some time…and manufacturers tend to have single paltform for all markets.

[ben7]

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

Dell H240AS-00

I posted pics of this PSU before, and I seem to recall someone saying to replace a ceramic cap, but I looked and couldn't find that post.

Well .... you were right. I think it finally failed.
That computer was brought back to me, and had no power. No 5v stby

The picture tells it all! :P

She blowed up real good!
Notice the soot around the fuse! Holy moses! Somethin done gone bang for sure!

.. Looks like I have a power supply to fix

-Ben

[momaka]

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

Looks like that ceramic cap is across Drain and Source on the FET behind it. Also note the small hole in the resistor too! Judging by the resistance value of that resistor, it is probably used as a Source resistor for the FET - and if it is, you might want to check the FET too. I see a 420V primary cap behind. APFC PSU? If yes, I bet that's all that is wrong with it.

.. Looks like I have a power supply to fix

Mmm-hmmm

[ben7]

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

Looks like that ceramic cap is across Drain and Source on the FET behind it. Also note the small hole in the resistor too! Judging by the resistance value of that resistor, it is probably used as a Source resistor for the FET - and if it is, you might want to check the FET too. I see a 420V primary cap behind. APFC PSU? If yes, I bet that's all that is wrong with it.

Yes I am just about the check the FET and other primary side power devices.

And yes it has APFC! Somewhat surprising for a 240W PSU.

-Ben

[ben7]

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

[Quick update]

(Will make new thread if I need to, but I don't at the moment. Don't want to hijack lol)

The main switching FET is shorted, the APFC FET is shorted, and the APFC diode seems unhealthy. (Measures 200 ohms both ways, and this is in circuit.)

The APFC FET shorted badly, I get 0.4 ohms on the + and - of the bridge rectifier. (All 4 bridge rect diodes test fine though, forward voltage wise.)

It's REALLY gone pop!...
No wonder why the fuse blew so hard!

An SMD diode and resistor have blown as well.

Edit: Holy crap! Gee, a switching controller chip on a daughterboard is burnt as well!...

-Ben

[momaka]

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

As PhotonicInduction would say:
Awwwww. We POPed it!
I'd still try to repair it, though, just for fun. If you do that, then yeah, make a thread for it (and with more pictures of the carnage!)

[Agent24]

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

I guess the ceramic capacitor shorted out (maybe voltage rating too low/bad quality?) and caused everything else to fail.
I can't imagine how the capacitor would fail if the FET blew first.

[Per Hansson]

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

Well Ben, I sent you this PM on November 28, how is that memory going? :P

Hi, re your Dell PSU here: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...postcount=2314

Do read this thread, might be a good idea to replace that ceramic cap before it fails!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=40726

Ah, well, I don't have that supply any more.... :/

-Ben

EDIT: Saw your new thread now, here is is for others that want to follow
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=50864

[ben7]

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

Well Ben, I sent you this PM on November 28, how is that memory going? :P

EDIT: Saw your new thread now, here is is for others that want to follow
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=50864

*Atomic Facepalm*

No wonder why I couldn't find it ... it wasn't a post, it was a PM!

Gosh, I'm getting old!

My brain belongs in this hall of shame.

-Ben

[coreAngel]

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

Hello everyone i haven't posted in a while and i thought now is the best time to do so.

So i purchased today a slim ITX case with an HEC psu (that i found at a local retailer of electronics which is closing it's last remaining store permanently , in FL) i saw it was in excellent condition but they were asking several months ago 75 dollars for it, i waited until today which the price was reduced to 15 dollars for everything and the case includes a 8x slim DVD combo drive.

Well now that the story is out of the way i was thinking is the HEC psu worth it as it's maximum power output is 200 watts.Active PFC (as the area where the voltage selector switch is covered with a sticker) It has 14 amps in the 12+ side. It has a bridge rectifier, 8 amp not heatsinked, Primary capxon(or should i say Crapxon, but it's the primary) cap all other caps are teapo with exception of some sus'con caps on some daughterboards which are tiny caps. Should i toss it? can i actually use this PSU or switch to another brand?

thanks

[coreAngel]

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

This one really surprised me this is a notebook power brick which i bought off ebay for a bit less than an original hp adapter. The components are not all secured, questionable caps, the components which are crucial can only output 12 volts not the 19 v needed to work properly no wonder the brick got so hot i became worried and unplugged it.

Qinfen primary cap, and oxxa caps on the rest... yes they are using the logo from oxxo good grips kitchen utensils to put oxxa for some type of fake cap....

My laser thermometer read the case of the power brick under moderate use at almost 88 C either somethings wrong with it or it must be the worst design ever...

This really belongs as crap

And yes i bought a genuine HP power adaptor after this

[Behemot]

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

The pic of that HEC unit are terrible man.

Well, some of the chinese bricks are somewhat decent, just with cheap caps. But this is terrible. Primary and secondary connected by common heatsink? OMG! And that primary switcher is not even screwed to it, it is flying apart!

[japlytic]

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

Should the HP f1905 PSU be a candidate for this list?
After some time with no signal (but the power light was on), it would display black with a snowy white border (but was OK when a signal source was applied) - when I opened it up, I found that the 450V 150uF Elite PW Series unit was leaking at one of its pins.
Most of the other electrolytics were Elite EL, with two unknown brand units, and near each of the two backlight inverters was one Chemi-Con KY unit.

[Behemot]

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

Elite, that's quite common. It can go as far as the electrode completelly rotting off.

[coreAngel]

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

The pic of that HEC unit are terrible man.

Well, some of the chinese bricks are somewhat decent, just with cheap caps. But this is terrible. Primary and secondary connected by common heatsink? OMG! And that primary switcher is not even screwed to it, it is flying apart!

I will try to take pics of the HEC again so it's more clear but it's a really tight space so i don't know if it will all come out

[ben7]

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

Hello everyone i haven't posted in a while and i thought now is the best time to do so.

So i purchased today a slim ITX case with an HEC psu ... *snip* ... Should i toss it? can i actually use this PSU or switch to another brand?

thanks

It looks good to me. I dunno if it can do 200W, but the quality looks good from what I can tell. Except for the cheap caps of course.
It's hard to tell how well it might work. Just because the heatsinks may be smaller than usual, doesn't mean that the power supply is improperly designed. If efficient enough, it doesn't need huge heatsinks.

This one really surprised me this is a notebook power brick which i bought off ebay for a bit less than an original hp adapter. The components are not all secured, questionable caps, the components which are crucial can only output 12 volts not the 19 v needed to work properly no wonder the brick got so hot i became worried and unplugged it.

Qinfen primary cap, and oxxa caps on the rest... yes they are using the logo from oxxo good grips kitchen utensils to put oxxa for some type of fake cap....

My laser thermometer read the case of the power brick under moderate use at almost 88 C either somethings wrong with it or it must be the worst design ever...

This really belongs as crap

And yes i bought a genuine HP power adaptor after this

Doesn't surprise me! :P

You might be able to modify the feedback so that the output voltage is correct, at 19V.
Also, the cable going to the laptop itself might be poor quality - as in, too fine of a gauge of wire - there might be voltage drop there as well. But a 7V drop seems a bit too much even with fine wire ... it might be the power supply itself that is set for 12V out.

In regards to the extreme heating ... It might be a poor design, or maybe they might have picked cheap parts for the switching transistor and the output rectifier. Also I know those transformers can run quite hot too. Perhaps the switching frequency isn't optimal, so the losses are higher ... who knows

(( Could you read us the part numbers for the switching transistor and the output rectifier? ))

But ... 88C on the outside case is not acceptable! You might not be able to boil water on it under regular conditions, but you still could get a slight burn from it! Wow!

Also note how the heatsink is extruded! Interesting, they went to the effort to do that instead of doing what is usually done, using a [folded] bar of metal (This is done in the genuine PSUs as well, so it's not exactly poor practice)

-Ben