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

[Wester547]

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

On a somewhat related note, I had a bit of a disaster come in at work today in the form of a Dell Inspiron (530s IIRC). It was a TFX form factor, and it had the stock Dell PSU (OEM'd by Lite-on). After not being used for about 18 months, they plugged it in, attempted to turn it on and, kaboom! It blew up, threw the circuit breaker, and took the motherboard and HDD out with it. I didn't get any photos of it, but the only visible damage was 1 small resistor which had a melted leg.

So you're saying that the Lite-on didn't have the proper protection circuitry?

And wow, that Raidmax... nice, fresh, and BBQ'd.

[Uranium-235]

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

Hmm, I have a new Antec Basiq 350 I was never able to return to back to frys.

I don't mind capxon on some PSU's. I've seen them on plenty of working PSU's that are old

Basiq probably has Capxon too, but hell, this raidmax lasted for 6 years with a worse quality

[Uranium-235]

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

I did get a small look inside the basiq, it has some small capxons and medium Taepos

[momaka]

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

I have another RX-380K, in, a SLIGHTLY bit worse condition than yours momaka. I think this perhaps it is a fair bit worse dare I say?

Indeed.

Interesting thing is, your RX-380K is not a Sun Pro build like mine was. I frankly didn't think anything could be worse than those KY-480ATX PSUs, but apparently, that's not the case. This one takes the cake over everything terrible I've seen.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1437463738 (LARGE IMAGE - overview of the main area of damage, coil completely burned, caps obliterated, and I just noticed, one of the cap tops is behind one of the large caps)

Wow! It's like a 4th of July fireworks show went on in there.

I wonder what caused it to burn like that. It looks like the main and 3.3V output toroid inductors are okay. Perhaps the fan went and short circuited and started burning? Or a short on primary that somehow didn't blow the fuse? I'm more inclined to think it is the fan. If it was wired straight up to 12V, there will be nothing to stop it from burning if it short circuits. I've seen cheap fans on older MSI and XFX cards literally melt their cases after their driving FETs shorted. Wouldn't be surprised if this is what happened here. Unfortunately, there isn't much left of the fan here to see if that is the case or not. And yeah, I can imagine why no one will want to analyze this PSU. I tried to open up a burnt out SSR once (which had a shorted Triac inside), and man, what a smell that thing let out. I got a stink on my hand that I couldn't wash off for a few days afterwards.

[Behemot]

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

…

Can I borrow some of those images? Pity the first one is so small and unfocused…

[Dan81]

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

You guys can't get a PSU better than this.

[Behemot]

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

You are wrong mister


http://www.hardwareinsights.com/wp/p...platinum-unit/

[Uranium-235]

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

Can I borrow some of those images? Pity the first one is so small and unfocused…

certainly, tell me where you post them. If its in a forum I want to see the reaction.

I'll try to take another back photo

and yeah, earthwatts tends to be some of the best quality

[Behemot]

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

To HWI's facetoob page, trying to get some attention there…

The Platinums are FSP Aurum 92+, nothing spectacular and those four rails are same crazy shit like five rails of that wonder above…

[Behemot]

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

Here it is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hardw...12455168767624

[coreAngel]

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

Originally posted this on jonnyguru but this deserves to be here

But this one in particular was hard to pass up, i usually peruse craigslist for free computers in my area, and a pentium 4 custom built PC popped up.
I arranged the date and i went and picked it up he said it ran fine since his son who built computers (and was an expert) built one for him.

I took it home and the first thing i took a gander at was the PSU, and guess what i found a Deer PSU 250 watt max on a P4 system i was like oh deer, pun intended.How bad was this going to be and i found my favorite caps to make fun of Rulycons!!!.And most were popped, the main caps were VIVA which were leaking in the bottom

What i still wonder is how could th is have supported the system with 256mb RIMM's a video card,adaptec scsi card,modem,sound and a pentium 4 1.4ghz processor two cd drives and 2 hdd's which were removed. It was a 15 yr old PSU and it actually started i actually hid under a table when i turned it on..any thoughts if this is the worst psu of the millenium

[momaka]

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

I took it home and the first thing i took a gander at was the PSU, and guess what i found a Deer PSU 250 watt max on a P4 system i was like oh deer, pun intended.How bad was this going to be and i found my favorite caps to make fun of Rulycons!!!.And most were popped, the main caps were VIVA which were leaking in the bottom

We, the people at badcaps.net, love Rulycons!
So, thank you for posting .

Now, if you are a fan of recursion, then have a look here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...9&d=1331836529
and here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...0&d=1331835289

Basically, your PSU appears to have the same (or very similar) design as the first one I posted above, but with cap choices and heatsinks of the second unit.
Full threads below, if you get a kick out of reading longs posts about crappy PSUs :
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=491
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=489

What i still wonder is how could th is have supported the system with 256mb RIMM's a video card,adaptec scsi card,modem,sound and a pentium 4 1.4ghz processor two cd drives and 2 hdd's which were removed. It was a 15 yr old PSU and it actually started i actually hid under a table when i turned it on.

Yeah, amazing indeed how such gutless units still continue to run. What's even more amazing is that the PSU you got has a self-oscillating 5VSB circuit without feedback that still works. Those designs usually send the semiconductors in the sky after a few years.

I got a PSU similar to yours last summer. Off of Craigslist too, with bulged caps, but still working, so same deal like yours. I just finished posting it here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...173#post593173

any thoughts if this is the worst psu of the millenium

It's pretty bad, alright. But it could still be worse. Don't believe me? Look back in this thread if you have time. I think you would be pleasantly (or unpleasantly?) surprised .

[goodpsusearch]

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

Any chance this is just glue at the bottom of the primary caps?

[Agent24]

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

Any chance this is just glue at the bottom of the primary caps?

Quite possibly...

[momaka]

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

Any chance this is just glue at the bottom of the primary caps?

Yes, I think so. IIRC, mine had the same glue around the primary caps as well. It's just not visible on the above pictures.

[TELVM]

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

... What i still wonder is how could th is have supported the system with 256mb RIMM's a video card,adaptec scsi card,modem,sound and a pentium 4 1.4ghz processor two cd drives and 2 hdd's ...

I keep alive a dinosaur P4P800 with 3.4 HT Preshott OCed to 4 GHz, ATI 9800 Pro GPU, 3MB of RAM in four sticks, SSD, HDD, DVD and no less than 7 fans onboard, and it just draws ~230W DC tops under full torture.

So wattage-wise poor ole 250W Deers were up to the task.

Now, the ripple your components must have been enduring ...

[coreAngel]

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

We, the people at badcaps.net, love Rulycons!
So, thank you for posting .

Now, if you are a fan of recursion, then have a look here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...9&d=1331836529
and here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...0&d=1331835289

Basically, your PSU appears to have the same (or very similar) design as the first one I posted above, but with cap choices and heatsinks of the second unit.
Full threads below, if you get a kick out of reading longs posts about crappy PSUs :
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=491
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=489



Yeah, amazing indeed how such gutless units still continue to run. What's even more amazing is that the PSU you got has a self-oscillating 5VSB circuit without feedback that still works. Those designs usually send the semiconductors in the sky after a few years.

I got a PSU similar to yours last summer. Off of Craigslist too, with bulged caps, but still working, so same deal like yours. I just finished posting it here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...173#post593173


It's pretty bad, alright. But it could still be worse. Don't believe me? Look back in this thread if you have time. I think you would be pleasantly (or unpleasantly?) surprised .

This one is not exactly a power supply but it is an Inverter, it's designed to convert 12vdc car battery power to 110 to 130 watt AC power and a USB port for charging...after being on this site, i knew i had to take it apart,because it failed after 1 year, the fan works but the caps look unusual, but the fan seems to not spin correctly (its a yateloon fan)

[RJARRRPCGP]

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

I took it home and the first thing i took a gander at was the PSU, and guess what i found a Deer PSU 250 watt max on a P4 system i was like oh deer, pun intended.

Looks like the Deer I used with my first Athlon! LOL! (T-bird 900 Mhz) (Especially the darkened spots!)

[Pentium4]

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!

[TELVM]

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

That must be a 'flying transistor' mod, very 'cool'.