Is my PSU good enough?

mewso

Sorry to bother the clever minds of this forum but I just had a thought about my new build. I have a Q-Tec 450W psu powering my current build of Athlon X2 3800+, 2 * DVD Writer, X1950XT, 2 * 120 Gig HD + floppy with no apparent difficulty.
I'm about to put together a core 2 6600 on an MSI P965 Plat with the same stuff as above. Wondering if this will be ok. Thanks.

8T8

If the current hardware is running okay then the new hardware should be fine too with the existing PSU.

mewso

Good to know. Thanks.

hopeful

If you are spending €400-500 on new bits please spend another €60 and get a decent PSU. The Q-Tech ones are woeful and you are just asking for stability problems if you use it for your new system.

I have had bad experiences with Q-Tech psu's and if you read ANY review you will get an idea of how bad they are.

mewso

Well in fairness to this psu it's 4 years old and has never given me a moments conern. At the time Q-Tec were highly regarded and I bought because of good reviews. Perhaps things have changed since then.
I probably will buy another one soon purely because of it's age but for now I think I can risk using it*.

*Famous last words

hopeful

This is one of those occasions when I pray I am wrong

L31mr0d

DON'T RISK IT

Plus I would like to read these reviews that said Q-Tec PSUs where ever good. They've always been known for cutting corners and being below par with their powersupplies. I bought a Qtec case which had an included 350w PSU, I didn't even chance hooking it up to my system, insteads its relegated to a DC supply for testing fans,leds and breadboard circuits. Every time I power it up I hear 4 or 5 popping noise come out of the back of it which is never good.

please spend the money and invest in a better PSU, even if your new system will run fine with your current one you are giving yourself NO room for upgrading or overclocking. Also, if the PSU is truly 4 years old then I guarantee that it isn't Intel certified up to ATX2.0 or 2.2 and doesn't have decent 12v rails for PCIex graphics cards (not to mention that it won't touch a DX10 card or the 8pin mobos). A bad PSU could ruin EVERY component in your system as they all rely on it... ask yourself is that risk worth it.

hopeful

From CustomPC PSU review from Oct '05 regarding the Q-Tech 650watt psu,

Q-TEC power supplies are very popular because they're so much cheaper than other brands, but, as our testing shows, they're cheap for a good reason.

This particular Q-TEC is rated at 650W, but even before we switched it on we had our doubts, as the case is nearly empty. Q-TEC claims its PSU has a 30A 3.3V rail, 45A 5V rail and a 30A 12V rail. The Q-TEC doesn't follow the guidelines

of the latest ATX spec, which recommends a second 12V rail if the load is greater than 18A. As the name suggests, there are three cooling fans: one 120mm and two 80mm. It supports both 20- and 24-pin motherboards, and has six Molex, two FDD and two S-ATA connectors, but no PCI-E.

The Q-TEC passed the 50 and 75 per cent voltage stability tests, although its efficiency at the latter setting dropped below the ATX spec to 68 per cent. This means that it was drawing a quite ridiculous 725W from the mains to produce 498W. The Q-TEC barely managed a few seconds at 100 per cent load before the voltages on all the rails started jumping up and down by as much as 20 per cent. After approximately a minute, it triggered the trip-switch of the testing lab.

As this PSU cannot even deliver 75 per cent of what it claims while adhering to the ATX spec, and will go bananas and shut down if you attempt to draw anything higher, we recommend steering well clear of it.

It came 26th out of 27 psu's tested.

Have we convinced you to spend a few shillings on a decent unit yet?

mewso

musician wrote:

I probably will buy another one soon purely because of it's age but for now I think I can risk using it.

See this.

I don't doubt ye guys and as I have said I will probably invest soon in a better psu but good or bad as I have said this psu has lasted 4 years without a problem. I say again 4 years. Now that means 2 things. It's old and needs replacing so I will soon but surely it also means that it's reliable enough even if it is a dreaded Q-Tec.

I am planning on building this tonight. I buy my stuff online so whats a good place to go tomorrow if I need to. I see the 580W Hiper mentioned at PC World in another thread. Maybe I should consider that.

hopeful

The Hiper in PC World is a pretty good deal if it's still at €99. Won't get it much cheaper TBH. I've had a couple of these and they are rock solid.

mewso

O.k. so last night I shut down the old pc and open it up. I actually have a 480W Antec TruPower so I'm thinking I must be fine then.

Now it's plugged into the mobo via an adapter attached to the case (so the case can leech some power for annoying flashing stuff at front). I'm moving my stuff to a new case which of course doesn't have an adapter.

So I have a decent psu thats atx 1.2 and a mobo thats atx 2. The 20 pin plug will go into the 24 pin socket on the mobo as far as I know so I duly plug it in. Fine. Next thing is the mobo requires an 8 pin plug to power the cpu. Further investigation reveals this is standard for core 2 duo mobos. Even further investigation reveals that even modern atx 2 psus are unlikely to have an 8 pin plug. So I can't figure out what to do. I have a 4 pin plug which fits into half the 8 pin socket so I try that. Even more strangely the mobo has a socket for graphics card power??? Must be some way around it if folks are using this Hiper and recommending it.

Anyway long story short. The thing won't come on so I'm going to pop into town and grab this Hiper. Only thing is when I check online it doesn't have an 8 pin plug either so what do I do?

L31mr0d

why oh why didn't you order a new psu when you bought the rest of the computer. This will be one of those "live and learn" exercises. All these questions you are now asking yourself should have been researched before you bought your PC. If you where building a car would you buy the engine of a ferrari and assume the gas tank off your micra would fuel it.

Note you can't plug a 20 pin connector into your mobo, it needs the full 24 pins, most modern PSUs will come with the extra 4 pin connection, if not you should be able to get a cheap adapter. Also, for stability, you need the 8 pin cpu power connector, although most boards will run with only the 4 pin connector, but imo don't chance it. The power connector needed for your mobo is generally only used when running crossfire or SLI, some people plug it in anyway just to be safe.

If you can't find a PSU that meets your needs (i.e. ATX 2.2) try eBay, i've bought my last 2 PSUs off eBay from the states, and even with shipping it always works out cheaper. Never go for one that's second hand though.

mewso

It's my fifth build and I DO alot of research before building but foolishly assumed the PSU would be o.k. Hardly the end of the world.
I went into town yesterday and bought an OCZ Modstream 520W. It works fine and with the 4pin plug in the 8pin socket. PSUs seem rare with the 8 pin plug (which is part of ATX2.91 as far as I can tell) so I doubt I am alone in doing this.
Everything up and working fine. Thanks for the advice and the chiding.

L31mr0d

chiding? if you thought that was harsh then you must be easily offended

All i'm saying is that because the PSU is the least glamarous component in a system they tend to be overlooked when putting a build together. But choose a wrong one and you could have a ridiculously high electricity bill, system heat problems, and noise problems, not to mention system wide hardware failure should you get one with widely fluctuating voltages.

As I said the 8 pin connector isn't needed but adds greater stability to your system, for, say, overclocking. Although in saying that newer motherboards now require you have a 8 pin connector on the PSU, especially ones that offer C2Q support, just something to consider should you think of upgrading to quad core.

For future reference some good PSU makes are OCZ, Seasonic, Silverstone, Fortron/Sparkle, Enermax and PC P&C if you can find them. Generally avoid the Antec, NorthQ and Qtec PSUs, not to mention your no name brands.

extra-ordinary_

L31mr0d wrote:

But choose a wrong one and you could have a ridiculously high electricity bill...

How would that happen??

mewso

L31mr0d wrote:

chiding? if you thought that was harsh then you must be easily offended

Nah I wasn't offended. I genuinely value the advice here.