What are your experiences with generic PSU's?

rz30

rz30

rz30

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I have a 8 year old PSU that i still use on a P4 system, it's been used a lot over those 8 years and still solid as a rock, it's generic as well...

I have had 2 450W generics, one died after 4 months the other still going strong
after years of usage...

I am trying to work out if branded PSU's are a bit of marketing strategy or not..?

Is it just a case of the generics giving you the odd restart or BSOD now and again ..?
 
I think you'd be surprised how much a PSU does. If you built 2 identical machines one with a generic and one with a name brand you would see a signifcant difference in reliability and performance.
 
Generic PSUs arent all bad. For some light users on a tight budget they are all that is required. What you need to bear in mind is that they wont produce anything near their rated wattage, they will likely be noisier and hotter than a decent model, and the 12v rail wont output as much power.

12v rail is highly important as it provides the power used by the CPU and graphics card, so if there inst enough, or it isnt stable, it will make the system unreliable, or even fail, and generic PSUs are more likely to take other components with them when they fail as their circuitry isnt as good. 12v rail becomes even more important as you overclock.

Also you wont get as good a warranty with a generic, so if and when anything does happen, it'll just be tough, with branded ones I think you normally 3 years "swap for new" warranty.

Its really a case of you get what you pay for, a generic PSU will do the job, but generally a decent quality branded one will do it much better
 
Spot on BENdage.

Whilst a generic PSU might be fine for a basic office box, I wouldn't go near one for my main rig. Various tests have shown that most of them are not capable of their rated wattage and some explode under heavy load!
 
Definitely seen them blow up plenty of times working in a home PC repair shop!

My experience is absolutely get a good branded one if you can afford it. The last thing you want is a cheap one taking out your mobo and possibly more.
 
Main difference between cheap and Branded PSU.

Cheap PSU

Fuse protection


Branded PSU

Better Cooling
Better Efficiency
Fuse Protection
Over Voltage Protection (OVP)
Over Current Protection (OCP)
Short Circuit Protection (SCP)
Over Temperature Protection (OTP)
Under Voltage Protection (UVP)

So basically if something happens to the PSU you will have a better chance that your other hardware will survive compared to a cheap unit.
 
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Some generics are made by good companies, eg. FSP and can be well rated and long lasting. Often PC assemblers use no name but reasonable quality to reduce costs. There is nothing really wrong with this type of generic as the assembler will have speced and tested samples to ensure it's up to the task.

When buying a new PSU the rules are a little different. To an extent you get what you pay for. Most people make the mistake of buying a PSU far more powerful than they need so they can be expensive. You can get a decent 400W ish unit for around £40 which I think is a fair price. If you're paying much less than £10 per 100W then stop and buy something better.

If you read around there are some powersupply tests where they loaded up a cheap supply. They nearly all failed at well below rated specification whereas a good brand usually has a little more to give over it's rated capacity.

Even a known and trusted brand can fail or have a bad batch. Always read around and ask about in the forums if you want info on a particular unit.

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Built a P4 system for a mate about 5 years ago now. It had a QTec 500W PSU and it still works.

Had a 400W PSU that ran by Barton system for a couple of years without a problem either.

So yeah, my experiences with cheap PSUs are actually pretty good.:o
 
ive always used branded psu's like ocz, zalman, thermaltake etc... never just an unbranded psu, for example the psu that i am using at the minute, i've had for, i think, just under 2 years and its a thermaltake toughpower 1200watt psu. In my experience good quality psus are the sort of kit that are worth spending the extra bucks on for features like the connectors that you get with them (some psus dont come with 6 pin adapters, even now a days), they dont come with cable management or a modular system etc... and the build quality of generic psu's is generally poor by comparison to branded ones like thermaltake.
 
Had a 250w Micro-ATX PSU in an old 1.4GHz Duron, GeForce FX 5600. We replaced the fan, and it worked until it was thrown out in a clearout.
 
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