On Monday, July 29, 2013 19:34:26 Allen wrote: > On Monday, July 29, 2013 01:51:12 PM Joseph Apuzzo wrote: > > > Ok for some home projects I decided to get one of these: > > http://rosewill.com/products/1763/ProductDetail_Overview.htm[1]
The trailing [1] in the link above needs to be trimmed. http://rosewill.com/products/1763/ProductDetail_Overview.htm Nice looking device. > It's a small device used to test if your power supply is good or bad. > > > Why? Well if you have a PC that is dead ( you power it on and nothing > happens ) you have a problem. The next logical test is do disconnect > everything from the power supply except for the mother board. Next power > it up again, if your monitor shows the Bios started then you most likely > have a good power supply. Other then that test one usually has a spare > power supply to swap to see if the mother board is bad. > > > With that said, I and other have found that test is really no longer valid. > Power supplies for all makers are failing, in different ways. Thus I bought > a tester to verify my collection of PC and spare power supplies. > > > I regularly read the Anandtech Power-Supplies forum. I've seen it > mentioned there many times that to adequately test a switch-mode PSU, > the PSU must be under load. From looking at the overview and specs of > the Rosewill PSU tester, it is unclear if this unit presents an adequate > load, or if it is just a multimeter with PSU connectors. I've been meaning to study a common computer switching power supply to try to figure out the underlying topology. They're likely "buck converter" type, but I haven't verified that. http://schmidt-walter.eit.h-da.de/smps_e/smps_e.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply#Non-isolated_topologies The "buck converter" is the most likely, because the other options (boost, buck-boost) have conditions of operation that have to be avoided. (Underload or mid-range load.) -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College Aug 7 - Scripting Your World with Python Sep 4 - NoSQL and MongoDB Oct 2 - OpenFlow: Open Standard for Networking Hardware
