Which PSU??

[davidamarkley]

I need a Power Supply that is at least 400 watt. I want a good brand that's under $100.

I saw THIS one on pricewatch for $76. It's an Enermax 431 watt.


What is the best brand for power supply?

Thanks!!

David

[PresterJohn]

enermax is a very good brand. just make sure the ps is matched to your mobo...

Enermax is one of the best PSU makers (if not the best). It will not let you down.

Grab it if your can

[elroy]

I don't think anyone would argue with Enermax's quality. A little pricey but good quality. Personally I buy the cheapies and in 10 years have never had one go out on me. Though I have replaced 1 or 2 fans in them.

[Scott Tiger]

I didn't know that PSU's were servicable... how did you replace the fan?

[davidamarkley]

You open up the cover and take out the old fan and replace with a new fan of same size.

Thanks, guys! I'll probably be getting the enermax, because I will be running three hard drives, a couple CD-RW drives, and the mobo, and a power hungry Athlon 2400+. So I want the best PSU you can get for the best price. Will go with Enermax.

David


[EDIT] What do you mean matched to my mobo? I thought all ATX PSUs would work on all ATX mobos unless you have a dell which changed the pinout on the power connector?[/EDIT]

[madcat209]

enermax and antec are nothing more than Bling Bling POS power supplies.

I had one enermax 650W supply keep its +5V at 4.5V when used with an XP2100+ and 1.4 T-bird, which meant that the system would hang most of the time when it was near 4.5 - it can go as high as 4.68V

Another friend of mine had an Antec 430W not being able to start up his Asus KT333 mobo + XP2000+

What was the solution to both our problems?
CompUSA 500W ATX supply, $79.99 from CompUSA.

My system has the +5V at 5.07V, and his Asus works fine now.

I've ran my system for 3 days straight w/o a single hitch.

My suggestion is to go w/ something cheap.

The Chinese have a funny way of cutting costs in their name brand stuff as soon as it starts to get famous. I just built a new system using the cheapest case and cheapest power supply and can tell you that it is FAR SUPERIOR to the $100 Skyhawk Alum case + $120 Enermax 650W ATX supply combo in terms of quality and fit + finish.

Go with a CompUSA 500W ATX at your local branch. If its bad, just go back and return it. There's no need to deal with shady Chinese stores over the internet only to get some overpriced Bling Bling (gold plated exhaust rotator splint bearings) POS.

[bill1971]

madcat:

Please share with us, or give us a link to this "FAR SUPERIOR"
case and PSU?? Alot of us here would like to investigate it, and
we're all looking for good bargains on good quality stuff.

Better yet, as an EE, could you possibly give us technical aid in
building our own PSUs? If you could source the PCBs, all the other
components would be a piece of cake. Maybe draw us some plans.

I'm also interested on your take on PSUs from PC Power and Cooling. These are even pricier, and I was wondering what warranted that price premium. Are they made here?
How about those new Vantec PSUs? Prices are outrageous,IMO.

I wonder who makes those CompUSA PSUs?

I've had good luck with my 431 watt Enermax. Personally, I think
they're all over-priced.

Just curious. . .Thanks.

- Bill

[JimG]

My AMD system is currently using the same Enermax PSU (431 W). No problems with it at all. It's powering the XP 1800+, 2 HDs, 1 DVD-ROM, 1 CD-R, and 6 fans with 24/7 uptime. Using Motherboard Monitor, it shows my +5V rail at 4.92 V. Enermax does have a problem with keeping the +5V rail above 5V (there's other threads in the forums, just search). Other than that, it's a great PSU for the money. Also, they give you enough connectors to connect anything and everything. And unless you're using some giant case, the cables will reach everywhere.

[Geotpf]

That's pretty bad when a 650 watt power supply (which you would think would be high quality, due to the overkill wattage of it) can't keep it's voltage within spec. Me, I currently have some generic 300 watt power supply that came with my case. Works fine with my P4, all the voltages are fine. I only have a sound card, video card, one hard drive, CD-RW drive, and DVD-ROM drive in it, though (LAN is on-board). If I had a bunch of hard drives and all my PCI slots filled, I would get a bigger power supply, but for a typical setup like the one I have, a 300 watt, if it's within spec, is fine.