The worst PSU I've ever seen

D

Dan_D

Extremely [H]
Joined
Feb 9, 2002
Messages
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Well, I just found the sorriest excuse for a power supply on the shelf at Comp USA. I think it was called Mad Power or something like that. It was in a black box with red lettering. Anyway, dual combined 12v rails. Yielding 12amps per 12v rail. FEEL THE POWAH! It claimed that it was ATX 1.0 and 2.03 compliant.

I saw that so called "350" watt PSU and I about threw up my softback oatmeal raising cookies I had eaten courtesy of the vending machine about 20minutes before.

The worst part is someone is actually going to buy that pile of crap and try to run their system off it's mighty 24amps of 12v rail and it's 16amps of 3.3v rail. Can't remember what was on the 5v side.
 
Bet it wouldnt give near 24a on the 12v if you took actually took a reading too.


I am one of the dumbasses who bought a shitty PSU at first.
they never seemed to make a difference in the past... i used the same cheap 350w psu from some OEM case for a long time.
I bought a TT TR2 430w for the rig in the sig. Didn't know about rails or anything.
It was cheap.. 12v rails combined for 18.8amps, lol. 3.3v was 20a, 5v was like
30.5
At first the pc was very unstable, then it became stable somehow...but i ordered a S12 500w obviously in spite of that.
Can't believe the system worked at all with 18.8 on the 12v...
 
Even the Comp USA brand featherweight PSU's are better spec wise than that piece of crap I am talking about. The amperage was just SAD.
 
Here's the worst one I've ever seen (and owned):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Power Supplies/DeerPSU.jpg

250 watt Deer under the US-Can name that came with my old Apex case. Pic was taken after two years of service running the awesome power needs of a Duron 700 with two hard drives. The arrows point to heat damage, blown capacitors, and the place where the two main filter caps were that turned out to be bad too.
 
Hmm...CompUSA.... Has the word "Mad" in it...

I think you're talking about the MadDog SurePower 350W. And I don't see what's so "laughable" about dual 12A 12V rails in a 350W power supply.

They're made by TTGI and tend to be very stable power supplies. In fact, I'd take one of these TRUE 350W power supplies over a number of "so called" 480W units.

If THAT is the worst power supply you've ever seen... then you live near the CompUSA in the city of ELDORADO!!!!!! :D
 
CompUSA...sells a lot of stuff, and their salesfolks often either don't know what the devil they're talking about or have a knack for conning people into buying really awful products at exorbinant prices. There's also quite a lot of weird things that go on there, judging by my recent visit.

I was on my way back home from college when I decided to stop by CompUSA to see one of their P180's since I wasn't sure that I wanted to keep the one that I had ordered off the 'net and wanted to see one up close and personal. I make my way over to their cases section, and lo and behold I'm treated to some of the saddest sights I've seen in quite some time.

A quick look at their bargain bin turned up quite a lot of fun. There were all kinds of assorted computer parts; cables, thumbscrews, things like that. But what really caught my eye was that they were actually selling a number of tiny CompUSA brand HSFs that were each roughly as big as a northbridge cooler for $5 each. Gee, wonder why nobody bought them?

A P160 was on display with the left side panel dented and the little bar where the power buttons and ports are hanging out, obviously busted. There was a "manager's special" tag on it, and it was TEN PERCENT OFF! WOOOO...

I was browsing through their power supplies and grabbed an Antec Neopower off the shelf. Man, is that thing heavy! I gave it a good shake just to savor the moment, then put it back on the shelf and grabbed a CompUSA brand power supply. You know how weird it feels to pick up a super light case like a Super Lanboy the first time? I had the same experience with the CompUSA power supply. I briefly wondered if there was anything actually in the little box, but gave it a shake to make sure and heard a re-assuring rattling noise inside. Well, not particularly re-assuring for the chump who'd buy the power supply, but very re-assuring in that I surely wasn't going to buy it.

A saleschick with little idea of what she was talking about was telling a couple of scrawny-looking teenage kids that the Antec Sonata could cool components like no other and the airflow was superb. I felt bad, so I took them aside after the saleschick left and had "the talk" with them about case airflow and how things work in cooling. They saw my point and decided to go to the nearby PC club for a better case.

A chubby guy who worked there was telling a guy who looked (and talked) suspiciously like Jeff Foxworthy that an ATI x700 Pro would play his kid's Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 games at maximum resolutions with maximum effects. If you've ever considered a previous-generation ATI video card to play your computer games on...you might be a redneck.

Some guy brought his girlfriend there and started browsing through the cases while I was looking over CompUSA's hard drive selection nearby. They kept making sexual innuendos out of the various cases' features - I've heard of a lot of things, but who goes on a date to CompUSA and procedes with foreplay in the case section? ...I'm serious about this.

I was looking around after I talked to this kids and I noticed that they didn't have a P180 on display. Just for fun, I tracked down the saleschick and told her that I'd like to see one on display if I could since I'd heard so much about it. I asked her why people said it was so great, and she replied that all she knew was that the power supply was in the bottom. Well, of course I had to take her word for it - I mean, nobody would buy a P180 for a silly thing like silence or performance cooling. It's so good to know that all CompUSA employees are thoroughly briefed about the products they sell.

I think the saddest part of the whole trip came when I saw the price tag on their P180's among other things - $180. One-hundred eighty dollars. $60 some odd for a SmartPower 2.0 350W power supply. Who in their right mind would pay that much for any of those, regardless of how good they were or not? Gah.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Well, I just found the sorriest excuse for a power supply on the shelf at Comp USA. I think it was called Mad Power or something like that. It was in a black box with red lettering. Anyway, dual combined 12v rails. Yielding 12amps per 12v rail. FEEL THE POWAH! It claimed that it was ATX 1.0 and 2.03 compliant.

I saw that so called "350" watt PSU and I about threw up my softback oatmeal raising cookies I had eaten courtesy of the vending machine about 20minutes before.

The worst part is someone is actually going to buy that pile of crap and try to run their system off it's mighty 24amps of 12v rail and it's 16amps of 3.3v rail. Can't remember what was on the 5v side.
Click to expand...
Um... Excuse me:

Click the picture to find out which popular BRAND-NAME PSU this belongs to...
 
mavalpha said:
Um... Excuse me:

Click the picture to find out which popular BRAND-NAME PSU this belongs to...
Click to expand...

I don't know... that PSU has a whole 4 more amps on the 3.3V rail... Oh wait... it's a 450W.

I get your point mavalhpa. But for some reason a lot of people here think you need 600W power supplies with 20A on each 12V rail. ;)
 
jonnyGURU said:
I don't know... that PSU has a whole 4 more amps on the 3.3V rail... Oh wait... it's a 450W.

I get your point mavalhpa. But for some reason a lot of people here think you need 600W power supplies with 20A on each 12V rail. ;)
Click to expand...

I don't think that. It just seemed awful low compared to the NeoPower, the Enermax and other quality PSU's I've been dealing with lately. This thing was also featherweight and cheap as hell.

I also can't speak to the quality of the CoolerMaster Real Power PSU. I've never seen or used one.

BTW, some of us do need close to 20A on the 12v rail and 600Watts of power. Just not most of us.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I also can't speak to the quality of the CoolerMaster Real Power PSU. I've never seen or used one.
Click to expand...
I can testify for the quality behind it. It's top-notch, except that it isn't very powerful. My Newcastle couldn't overclock worth a damn when I also plugged in my 6800NU AGP. I don't know if it was a lack of power, or just dirty power because I was reaching the limit of the PSU's abilities.
 
Shorehn said:
Some guy brought his girlfriend there and started browsing through the cases while I was looking over CompUSA's hard drive selection nearby. They kept making sexual innuendos out of the various cases' features - I've heard of a lot of things, but who goes on a date to CompUSA and procedes with foreplay in the case section?
Click to expand...

The staff at the CompUSA respects customers' privacy so much that a couple of them managed to steal a CPU right out of a running computer.
 
larrymoencurly said:
The staff at the CompUSA respects customers' privacy so much that a couple of them managed to steal a CPU right out of a running computer.
Click to expand...
Uh, whaaa??? :eek:
 
Stores like Compusa are seeing that building computers are becoming popular and they're starting to carry pc components for consumers to buy. Unfortunately a lot of the parts are probably of low quality either from top management's lack of expertise or they think that people who are noobs are teetering on building or buying a prebuilt, so it doesn't matter if they buy a parts that is of lesser quality. I know first hand what a poor quality psu can do, not only did it go bad but it took my motherboard, cpu and video card with it, the only thing that it didn't was my memory. The only fortunate thing that happen to me is that it lasted about 6-10 (I can't remember) months, so I was able to enjoy my first build long enough to get hooked into building computers. I can just see a peson buy all the right parts for building a computer at Compusa and buy that poor quality psu to power up his/her computer. Turns on the computer and the first thing that might happen is it will either turn on or it doesn't, if it doesn't then they go into panic mode and scramble to fix it, spend many frustrating hours in troubleshooting and then someone steers them (mayb at a price $$$) that it might be their power supply. If the computer powers up they get this smile on their face and are very excited only to have it short live when their computers starts turning off unexpectingly or keeps rebooting every 60 seconds and once again they go into panic mood and do the samething thing that the first scenario did only to come to the conclusion to that it's probably their power supply causing the problem. Then nothing might not happen for a while, but in the very near future it finally does and the power supply does blow and taking down most of the computer with it.

The last case is the worse for he/she will tell their buddies that they built their computer and then lead them down the same street of self-destruction. This would also likely discourge a lot of people in building computers, I know if my first build didn't work correctly it most likely would have and the only fortunate thing that happen to me is I didn't talk about the speifics of my first computer build. I'm not sayig all the pc components are of poor quality at stores such as Compusa, but there is just enough of them to cause a bad building experience. Online stores can have the same pratfalls, but they have two advantages over retail stores, one they have many many more parts to choose from (most of them of good quality) and second they don't have a salesperson steering a person wrong. I think if stores such as Compusa are going to start carrying computer parts for people to build their own, they should have a wider selection or a the very least have knowledgable sales people who know their stuff. Just My .02 cents.
 
Pepster64 said:
Stores like Compusa are seeing that building computers are becoming popular and they're starting to carry pc components for consumers to buy. Unfortunately a lot of the parts are probably of low quality either from top management's lack of expertise or they think that people who are noobs are teetering on building or buying a prebuilt, so it doesn't matter if they buy a parts that is of lesser quality. I know first hand what a poor quality psu can do, not only did it go bad but it took my motherboard, cpu and video card with it, the only thing that it didn't was my memory. The only fortunate thing that happen to me is that it lasted about 6-10 (I can't remember) months, so I was able to enjoy my first build long enough to get hooked into building computers. I can just see a peson buy all the right parts for building a computer at Compusa and buy that poor quality psu to power up his/her computer. Turns on the computer and the first thing that might happen is it will either turn on or it doesn't, if it doesn't then they go into panic mode and scramble to fix it, spend many frustrating hours in troubleshooting and then someone steers them (mayb at a price $$$) that it might be their power supply. If the computer powers up they get this smile on their face and are very excited only to have it short live when their computers starts turning off unexpectingly or keeps rebooting every 60 seconds and once again they go into panic mood and do the samething thing that the first scenario did only to come to the conclusion to that it's probably their power supply causing the problem. Then nothing might not happen for a while, but in the very near future it finally does and the power supply does blow and taking down most of the computer with it.

The last case is the worse for he/she will tell their buddies that they built their computer and then lead them down the same street of self-destruction. This would also likely discourge a lot of people in building computers, I know if my first build didn't work correctly it most likely would have and the only fortunate thing that happen to me is I didn't talk about the speifics of my first computer build. I'm not sayig all the pc components are of poor quality at stores such as Compusa, but there is just enough of them to cause a bad building experience. Online stores can have the same pratfalls, but they have two advantages over retail stores, one they have many many more parts to choose from (most of them of good quality) and second they don't have a salesperson steering a person wrong. I think if stores such as Compusa are going to start carrying computer parts for people to build their own, they should have a wider selection or a the very least have knowledgable sales people who know their stuff. Just My .02 cents.
Click to expand...

Since I work at a CompUSA part time, I'll chime in on this. All the drives, most of the cases and even in reference to the motherboard selection, aren't low quality. They are the same brands you'd find anywhere else. We carry everything from old Soyo crap, to Asus and Abit parts. We've got shit, and we've got some of the best boards you can find. Many of our cases are Antec, alot of our PSU selection is Antec, our drives are the same brands you'd find anywhere else. Processors are all retail boxed versions. No OEM CPU's are sold there. We've got both AMD and Intel chips. I'd hardly call everything low quality. We've got our share of shit. You'll find just as much if not more "shit" at Newegg and every other place. You'll also find quality components too. The stores are NOT responsible for the quality of the items sold. All they can be held accountable for is making sure they are reasonably priced, and not re-stocked defective items. Fry's being the biggest offender on that.

When it comes to price, more often than not, CompUSA is a little high. But not any worse than Best Buy or any other Retailer. The only retailer that usually has "good" prices is Fry's. Even then, you have to wade through the see of defective returns that were killed by idiots who didn't know what they were buying or due to lack of skills, killed the part in the first place. Fry's doesn't check it. They just re-shrink, throw a sticker on it (sometimes) and then send it back out to fhe floor.

Management at CompUSA's on a local level to not determine what products get sold. In fact CompUSA's selection is nearly universal to all the stores. There are a few exceptions where a certain store might be stocked somewhat differently due to being in a different demographic based on geographic location. For instance, the Northpark CompUSA has about the largest selection of notebooks of any of the stores. They stock more medium and high end products, then low end ones. The Mesquite store is the opposite. They have less notebooks, and the ones they have are low and medium end. With fewer high end units in stock due to less demand. Rednecks aren't usually high end unit buyers.

So in short, you'll find good and bad parts anywhere and everywhere. You can buy alot of top quality products from Best Buy or CompUSA or whereever else. The worst thing CompUSA is guilty of is crap pricing. They think they need 30pts. of margin on every item in the store. When you actually check the price that CompUSA pays for any particular item in the store, you'll find that CompUSA's cost pricing is rather high. This is due to the buyers not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground, and purchasing dumb crap based on margin, or simply because the sales person from the distributor or the manufacturer suckered them into carrying some stupid ass product that doesn't belong in the store in the first place.

So CompUSA's cost price+margin (minimal or not)=teh rape!
 
The staff at CompUSA respects customers' privacy so much that a couple of them managed to steal a CPU right out of a running computer.
Click to expand...
mavalpha said:
Uh, whaaa??? :eek:
Click to expand...
I guess the staff is so bored (almost no customers -- there's a Best Buy in the same parking lot) that they don't watch for shoplifters, plus the store has a modded computer with fans so loud that they probably covered up any noises made by the thieves.
 
Oklahoma Wolf said:
Here's the worst one I've ever seen (and owned):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Oklawolf/Power Supplies/DeerPSU.jpg

250 watt Deer under the US-Can name that came with my old Apex case. Pic was taken after two years of service running the awesome power needs of a Duron 700 with two hard drives. The arrows point to heat damage, blown capacitors, and the place where the two main filter caps were that turned out to be bad too.
Click to expand...

OH GOD!!! DON'T MENTION DEER TO ME!!! The local store had to replace no less than 50% of the PCs that were sold with those things....

"Nothing pops like a Deer"
 
davidhammock200 said:
Especially for Durons! :eek:
Click to expand...
I think what I just built my dad is pretty good though, wont crash!


Pentium 3 800Mhz
512MB SD PC100 RAM
40GB 5400RPM HDD
3.5GB 4200RPM HDD
PC Power and Cooling 850Watt


I dunno if I should be running that second hard drive though, kind of pushing it, no?
 
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