Just how bad is a cheap power supply?

rickh

rickh

rickh

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Looking at buying lots of computers for an office.

So far I've got:

Code: 
£77 - Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156)
£51 - ASRock H55M-LE Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard
£35 - Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit
£20 OCUK EZCool NA-705 Case - Black (500w PSU)

This comes in at £185 for a reasonably specced PC.

My question is - how bad are the EZCool power supplies?
I know they're cheap and nasty (and for personal builds I'd use proper PSU's), but for plain old type writer office pc's, they can't be that bad..

The problem is, adding a proper power supply and a case will add another £50 quid to each PC.

Is it worth it?
 
I've had two corsair tx650's fail from new inside of 8 months, yet a generic psu that came preinstalled in a case in a previous gaming build is still going strong after 3 years. Provided you don't tax it too much I think for office pc's you shouldn't have a problem. Obviously if you are building enthusiast sytems that are going to be overclocked or taxed with high end gaming its a different matter and I woudl then advocate a solid branded psu.
 
vanandjuanunited said:
Can you afford to lose the pc if the psu fails and takes the mobo with it?
I would rather reduce the risk myself

Why 4 gig ram?
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I have replaced about 60 PSU's over the last 2 years, not had one case of a faulty mobo + psu... not saying it cannot happen only that it is not likley...

however I have had a high number of failures on the new cheap £17 PSU's so I now get ones for around £25....
 
Cheap PSUs are fine for office based PCs. There's just no need to spend more if they are adequate for the needs. I bought a case with 300W PSU a few years back and it outlasted two aftermarket PSUs, mind you one was a Silenx and the other was Q-Tec :)
 
Personally would always go just that bit further in making sure I get a good PSU, but obviously if only for office work and presuming your buying quite a lot then maybe should be ok. Always a risk tho, as with everything. Maybe try to contact a retailer and they could give some sort discount if buying a large quantity?

On a side note, why not got down the route of AMD Athlon II dual core of only for office work? and do you need 4GB RAM?
 
shadow_boxer said:
On a side note, why not got down the route of AMD Athlon II dual core of only for office work? and do you need 4GB RAM?
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Because the machines are expected to last for lots and lots of years (still running old celerons and p4's).

May aswell put fairly decent stuff in now than go round in a few years to add ram etc.

The i3's seem to perform much better than the athlon x2's in my experience, just feel a lot smoother and snappier.

Also, photoshop is used quite a bit so they can't be too weedy.




Anyone else bought these ezcool psu/cases or had any good experience with the ocuk swift psus?
 
Well if you've ever had one Blow up you wouldn't be asking, The one that Blew on me was Mid range as well not bobby basic, Scared the bejesus out of me, Popped fizzle BANG then Loads of smoke.
Then you have the pleasure of praying to the Gods that it didn't take anything else out. :(
 
Pretty sure you can get a branded reliable ~400w PSU for around £30... Unless prices have changed.

Better to spend a little more, than end up with something crap.
 
I've seen lots of PSU failures. The only ones that damage other components are the cheap ones. More expensive ones almost always last longer and provide more stable power to your components, so if you OC etc it's much more reliable. If you value your other components, get a good PSU.

I'd spend a little more on something like this and you should be able to keep it for future builds too. Note the Wattage ratings on cheap PSUs are mostly meaningless. A decent 400W PSU can outperform even 750W cheap ones pretty easily.
 
my pc has been running fine for about 3 years with an iCute 1000w that i got when my OCz 750w thing blew up (not literally) would it be safe to say that cheap PSUs aren't necessarily bad but have a higher risk involved?
 
nataku17 said:
my pc has been running fine for about 3 years with an iCute 1000w that i got when my OCz 750w thing blew up (not literally) would it be safe to say that cheap PSUs aren't necessarily bad but have a higher risk involved?
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That may well be true, but do you need a '1000W' PSU? What's your spec if you don't mind me asking?

EDIT: I've had 3 Corsair PSU failures over the years. None of them went bang, none of them damaged anything else. I still recommend them because of this. Seen a whole host of problems from cheap PSUs, from exploding when plugged in and taking mobo, gfx, hdd with it. Instability can also be quite common, like occasional blue screens and slow, laggy performance. A good PSU can transform a PC if you're using a cheapo one, even if you don't change anything else. Also the fans tend to die a noisy death quite often too, as well as just generally being very loud from the outset. That's something else worthy of consideration on the super cheap ones.
 
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alexhull24 said:
That may well be true, but do you need a '1000W' PSU? What's your spec if you don't mind me asking?
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oh i really don't need it but it was the only thing the shop had at the time and i needed a new psu

Core 2 Duo E6600
Geforce 8800GTX
3 HDDs
2 DVD-rw
probably don't need anything else

Edit: added spec to show how much i don't need it
 
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The EZCool PSUs are terrible. Had one go kaput on a mates work PC and it took out some parts.

ColorsIT makes slightly better cheapo PSUs but again another one on a mates went kaput too and took out a hard drive.

I gave him an ancient GlobalWin Sapphire 520W as a stop-gap and he is still using it a year later. The GlobalWin is from 2003 to 2004 and was a high end PSU at the time.
 
EZ-Cool psu's are crap. It's as simple as that. Poor build quality. poor components and weigh next to nothing.

If you must go for bargain basement psu's then Winpower seem to be the best of them. That does'nt mean that they are good though. Just better than the rest of the budget rubbish.
 
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