Convince me not to buy a £10 PSU from eBay

Lemonade1947

Lemonade1947

Lemonade1947

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Convince me not to buy a £10 500w fully modular PSU from eBay. I wont link it, but we all know they're there.

If I buy it, I can have my bare bones setup by christmas.

Being somewhat electronically competent, I don't understand how 500watts from one PSU is different from another.

I get cheap ones are most likely less efficient, but since I don't pay the electricity bill, does this affect me?

maybe they are less reliable, but what does this mean, and how does this affect me?

Thanks, this is my first build, so any help is appreciated.
 
The worst thing they can do is have high ripple so the voltage fluctuates and can damage conponants.

personnaly i would be happy to put one in a standard machine but wouldt run a shiny £400 GPU on one. its all about risk/reward
 
If you buy it, you could have a burning fireball by boxing day..

A lovely few hunderd quid wasted..

Or if you're really lucky it may not even switch on. :)
 
It's the same as asking what the difference is between a 2 litre engine from a car you've never heard of costing £500 brand new and a 2 litre engine from a brand new Audi costing £25k!

The £10 PSU may at times be able to deliver 500w, but not consistently, cleanly or efficiently. So best case scenario you're computer shuts down at random times when power it calls for isn't there when it asks for it or worst case scenario it blows and takes something with it.

Spend as much as you can afford on the PSU and think of it as something you can take with you from build to build. That's my advice anyway.
 
The best way to convince you (in the long term) is to encourage you to buy it. Go for it! Knock yourself out! What could possibly go wrong!

You'll soon learn.

Anyone somewhat electronically competent wouldn't need telling.
 
At the end of the day you could be lucky and it works fine but if it blows can you afford to take a loss as there is no way an ebay seller will remburse the damage.
 
A PSU has different rails.

The cheapo PSU will be rated for 500W on rails you aren't ever going to use 500W on, so the rails you actually need it may only be able to give 250W.

That's without going into efficiency etc.
 
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Less reliable means more likely to kill your nice mid/high end machine because you were silly enough to cheap out.

If you get a power surge, chances are with no protection, one dead PSU, possibly computer too.

Liken it to buying a Ferrari and filling it up with the cheapest crappiest petrol and oil at the garage.

A quality PSU will last years, It'll be that one thing that goes into and powers multiple machines.

Sure a tenner is cheap, but it's not, buy a quality power supply today for 50-60 quid and have it running 5-6 years, bang, theres your tenner per year, and I'd bet good money your cheapo one would need replacing inside the first year.
 
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An IT "tech guy" replaced a 10 year old 400W branded PSU with a 400W £10 at my place while I was away. It was loud, got very warm and the voltages were all over the place. Calls from the office telling me the system kept crashing.

When I got back I ripped out the new PSU and put another spare 10 year old 400W branded PSU (recycling old systems) and the system runs perfect again.

I would never trust a system with a cheap PSU. With a good brand if the PSU fails it takes itself out. A cheap one will probably take out half the system with it.

£40 PSU bought 10 years ago still powering the system now, £10 PSU didn't even last a week.
 
Have fun most likely killing your components with it. Or a fire or worse.

The amount of noise on the rails on that PSU will be like sticking your ear into a jet engine turbine, you just don't do it.

I get why you can skimp on other components, but a power supply should be the only item you NEVER skimp on.
 
As Martini says, a 500W supply doesn't tell you anything about how it supplies that power so could be totally useless by not being available on the 12V line for instance.

It could also be less accurate in supplying the correct voltage, may not provide as clean power and if it fails it is more likely to take other components with it. Of course, if you're really unlucky it may also electrocute you. But that's an extreme example of what could happen, not very likely.

Even if all of these things prove not the case & you're very lucky it'll still likely have a shorter life & a PSU dying on you is never a fun occurrence.
 
By the way, if you do ignore the advice of the thread, daily updates would be lovely to see how badly you get "burnt" by it.
 
So far, on the tests on tomshardware and such, such PSU's have blown when loaded past 50% (250W in your case). Yes, blown, meaning fire, and possible REAL explosion.

It is not funny seeing hundreds of pounds of components BURN.

Don't do it. Seriously.
 
It's the difference between whether you want to take the risk of the PSU failing and potentially taking other components with it, or paying for a quality PSU and having a far lesser chance of that even happening.

Save cash now, skimp on PSU and run the risk of it costing you hundreds in replacement components or spend more now and feel rest assured that you'll have a stable and reliable power supply that won't harm your components should it fail.

I think i speak for more than a handful of members here when i say a good portion of us have had to learn this the hard way, and ultimately it pays to have a good quality power supply.

Heck, if you need to skimp on parts, skimp on the case and fans, there's far less risk in those departments.
 
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