PC Peripherals Benefits of branded PSU?

Ameet148

Adept
HI

Everyone says that you should not use local brand PSUs:S.But can anyone explain in proper technical terms what bad effects does it practically have when it comes to a local PSU brand?
Or in other sense what are the benefits of a branded PSU in technical terms and not in terms of experience?

I've seen people running hardcore system on sissy local brand PSUs.So whats the trouble exactly?:huh:

Thanks
Ameet148
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?????

Local PSU + Minimal Hardware = OK

Local PSU + Expensive Hardware = Kaput !

Nuff Said.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?????

anyone in his right mind is not going to ask the question that you have just asked. Let me put it this way..you have just purchased a very expensive car and you take it out for a drive, the only thing is that you actually dont know how to drive, so what do you think will happen??

No matter how good & expensive the car is, you need a good driver to exploit its capabilities. The same is true for any high end rig.

The PSU is the component that is powering your so called "hardcore" hardware, you would want to make sure it does its jobs adequately so that all your hardcore hardware continue to remain hardcore and does not turn into vaporware.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?????

Reliability is the word you must concentrate on.
Generic PSU are cheap but they are not at all reliable. They may give away anytime. For e.g. you have a high-end system with i5 and a high-end mobo, now if due to some power issue your PSU gives away then you will have something to decorate as a showpiece .... on the other hand if you have a branded one then you won't get anything to decorate as a showpiece :p
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

am sorry but am trying to know what actually happens to the system when a PSU fails?Isn't it the same as a power cut?Or when you forcefully close your PC.

am just trying to get some technical reasoning.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

^ It depends on your luck. Sometimes when a PSU fails, it takes a few expensive components with it as well. Sometimes, just the PSU fails and nothing else will be effected.

The reliability of the components is also effected, especially the hard drive or the GPU, as they continue to receive bad quality power and lesser voltage than they're supposed to.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

Most of the time substandard PSUs supply rippled and non-spike free power to the components. This leads to the components being stressed running at lower/higher currents. They heat up and burn out. And the load pull of computers is extremely dynamic with power saving modes and the OS also managing power requirements. So literally on the fly the PSUs should be able to switch and vary their outputs. Also good PSUs have a decent efficiency factor.

Found a quick link, give it a thought.

Power Supply Fundamentals | silentpcreview.com
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

arun687 said:
^ It depends on your luck. Sometimes when a PSU fails, it takes a few expensive components with it as well. Sometimes, just the PSU fails and nothing else will be effected.

The reliability of the components is also effected, especially the hard drive or the GPU, as they continue to receive bad quality power and lesser voltage than they're supposed to.
Thats what I was asking.

So it means that if a hardware receives bad voltage for a longer period,it might break down.

But I guess even a good PSU also might send bad power to its hardware after it's warranty is over.What do you guys say about that.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

Ameet148 said:
am sorry but am trying to know what actually happens to the system when a PSU fails?Isn't it the same as a power cut?Or when you forcefully close your PC.

am just trying to get some technical reasoning.
Some (not all) of the branded power suppliers come with features like overvoltage protection and other things. So if you get a power surge , so in that case it just gracefully shuts down the pc or max only component affected is the psu instead of the motherboard and other components
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

asingh said:
Most of the time substandard PSUs supply rippled and non-spike free power to the components. This leads to the components being stressed running at lower/higher currents. They heat up and burn out. And the load pull of computers is extremely dynamic with power saving modes and the OS also managing power requirements. So literally on the fly the PSUs should be able to switch and vary their outputs. Also good PSUs have a decent efficiency factor.

Found a quick link, give it a thought.

Power Supply Fundamentals | silentpcreview.com
whats efficiency factor?

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

bottle said:
Some (not all) of the branded power suppliers come with features like overvoltage protection and other things. So if you get a power surge , so in that case it just gracefully shuts down the pc or max only component affected is the psu instead of the motherboard and other components
I guess there must be some application to detect over-voltage or under-voltage on windows for various components.May be this would help to protect the PC before it dies.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

Ameet148 said:
Thats what I was asking.
So it means that if a hardware receives bad voltage for a longer period,it might break down.
But I guess even a good PSU also might send bad power to its hardware after it's warranty is over.What do you guys say about that.
High quality components are used in good PSUs compared to really cheap components in local PSUs. Hence the cost difference from Rs 400 to Rs 4000+ between the two.

How will a good PSU start sending bad power after warranty is over? Hell, how does the PSU even know that it's no longer in warranty? :p

Do you mean as they get older, they might send bad power?

Anyway in PSU there's a lot happening, like when there's sudden change in load, loading effect comes in and hence voltage fluctuates if it's not designed properly. Ripple effect etc etc. Then there's efficiency, which determines how much power the PSU draws from the wall socket and how much of it is converted to really powering the equipments. A good PSU has around 80%+ efficiency, while a local one has a lot less, thereby increasing power bills for the same operation.

I guess many here will be able to explain in detail the technicalities of all the advantages a well designed PSU has over a normal one.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

Ameet148 said:
I guess there must be some application to detect over-voltage or under-voltage on windows for various components.May be this would help to protect the PC before it dies.

If you get a power surge from the power socket (happens occasionally, you hear people with blown tv's etc when it happens) , it probably would fry the components before an app could detect it.

Cheap way out is to have a power strip but an extra level of protection doesnt hurt.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

It depends on your system configuration I am using computers for the past 11 years.I did not buy any smps other than the default option in every cabinet and did not face any drastic problem without the use of reputed psu like corsair.In this 11 year period I always bought average system which should be sufficient for most of the persons except some hardcore high end gamers,some kind of high end users.As of now I am using intel dual core e5300,Asus p5kpl am/ps motherboard,2gb corsair ddr2 800mhz ram,seagate 500gb,1gb HDD,DVD writer,samsung 2033 monitor.Most of the period I am using spike buster,ups to connect my system to power socket these two will take care of power irregularities.If you have high power consuming hardware like high end cpu,moderate to high end graphics card,more additional cards (sound card,more ram,tv tuner card ...) then you should buy separate reputed psu as per your system demands.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

Ameet148 said:
am sorry but am trying to know what actually happens to the system when a PSU fails?Isn't it the same as a power cut?Or when you forcefully close your PC.

am just trying to get some technical reasoning.
There are more than one way in which a bad PSU can damage components.

1. The Poor circuitry in the PSU can case irregularities in the power supply that is not good for the PC components. It will reduce the life of components over a period of time. This will happen regardless of whether you are using high end components or not.

2. A PSU can fail suddenly and any sudden spikes during the failure can permanently damage PC components internally. If there is no physical damage (burn marks), you can probably try to claim Warranty

3. A PSU can explode causing physical damage to the surrounding computer components. This will also result in a fire/electricity hazzard.

In addition to having poor quality components, most of the cheapo PSU's bundled with cabinets are at best 250W PSU's being labled as anything between 350W~750W at the whim and wish of the manufacturer. If you think you have max 300W worth of components and its safe to run it on a 500W cheapo PSU, then think again because you are running that stuff on what should at best be labeled as a 230~250W PSU.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

rajuwaste said:
I am using computers for the past 11 years.I did not buy any smps other than the default option in every cabinet and did not face any drastic problem without the use of reputed psu like corsair.
That's the rough equivalent of saying that you have danced on an unexploded land mine for 11 years and that is has never exploded and so you have come to the conclusion that its perfectly fine for some one of your weight to dance on a land mine.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

Lord Nemesis said:
That's the rough equivalent of saying that you have danced on an unexploded land mine for 11 years and that is has never exploded and so you have come to the conclusion that its perfectly fine for some one of your weight to dance on a land mine.

Your answer is like you should use so and so switch otherwise your tube light will mall function and even blow one day it will not give that much of lighting.I don't want to go into marketing gimmick of corporate world there are dedicated marketing team to make consumers believe one thing is necessary obviously it is there in internet also.As far as I know most of the systems sold in our area without premium branded psu like corsair and I didn't hear any major news about hardware failure because of this.As I already told normal users don't want high efficient psu like corsair only gamers those who buy dedicated graphics card will require that.
 
Branded vs Non branded

1.Branded PSU r rated according to continuous power whereas Non branded PSU r peak power rated.for e.g a Non branded with 350w rating can hold load of only 120W HOW? it can have 10A 12v O/P.+12v rating is very important in judging real o/p of PSU.

2.Efficiency of Branded PSUs mosty 80+ where as efficiency of Non branded varies from 40 to 70%. AT 40% it'll Draw 375W from socket at 150W load whereas 80+ will draw 187.5W or less

3.Build Quality of Branded PSU u can judge this simply by price difference.

4.Non branded PSUs are minimal ckt. to deliver power no protection ckt at I/P stage.one or two protections for o/p stage whereas branded PSUs have proper protection ckts at I/P and O/P stage.
 
Re: Benifits of Branded PSU?

rajuwaste said:
Your answer is like you should use so and so switch otherwise your tube light will mall function and even blow one day it will not give that much of lighting.

As far as I know most of the systems sold in our area without premium branded psu like corsair and I didn't hear any major news about hardware failure because of this.As I already told normal users don't want high efficient psu like corsair only gamers those who buy dedicated graphics card will require that.

The comparison to a switch isn't right. A switch only completes the circuit, a PSU has to convert AC to DC, because thats what all the components in your PC run on.

~~AC~~> PSU > --DC--> VRM > CPU / RAM / ICs / Drives

AC is sinusoidal, and ideally DC has a perfectly stable voltage level, which is what the best PSUs try to get close to.

Any leftover ripple (minor voltage fluctuation) is handled by your Voltage Regulator modules. The work is split out, so if your PSU is not doing a good job, your VRM will have to step up. More ripple = more work by the VRM = more heat dissipated = shorter life.

Long term cases, the effects show up as bulging capacitors which is why the switch to more reliable solid state caps. Extremely bad ripple in case of a poorly designed or overloaded PSU and your VRMs will fry. You only need to walk into any motherboard service centre to check on the number of boards being repaired for damaged VRMs.

True, a lot of users have lighter systems so usually get lucky since at lower loads generic PSUs tend to have not so bad voltage ripple.

Efficiency is a by-product of a good design.

@Ameet :

Some of the advantages I can think of with a Good PSU (I didn't use the term Branded, since even Generic PSUs are branded, and even some Branded PSUs are bad :lol: ) :-

- Better Voltage Regulation/Load regulation, i.e. voltage stays between +/- 5% as per the ATX spec

- Lower ripple, i.e. within +/- 1% as per ATX spec

- Safety Protection like Over-voltage, Over-current, Short-circuit, Over-temperature protection

- Cross-loading is controlled, i.e. unloaded voltage rails don't shoot up beyond the +/- 5% spec if another rail is heavily loaded (Many good PSUs struggle under this test as well)

- Better hold-up times and works over a wider input voltage range

- Better Efficiency; power factor correction (Passive/Active PFC)

This may be shocking, but most generic PSUs dont even meet the minimum ATX specs with voltage regulation and ripple.
 
^

Really well explained. I would just prefer branded psus for:

1. Better Voltage Regulation/Load regulation, i.e. voltage stays between +/- 5% as per the ATX spec
2. Safety Protection like Over-voltage, Over-current, Short-circuit, Over-temperature protection
Efficiency will come to picture when anyone is using power hungry componets in his/her pc.
 
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