Zit Seng's Blog

A Singaporean's technology and lifestyle blog

The Fuss with PC Power Supply Units (Cooler Master eXtreme Power)

The power supply unit of my home desktop PC started to make some uncomfortable noises, or rather, it was the fan of the power supply unit that was making those noises. Most likely the fan was going to die. And then when it dies, the power supply would start to overheat… and since my home desktop actually functions as my 24×7 Internet server for my home, any downtime would be rather inconvenient. Ok, so I went out to get a new power supply.

It’s amazing how you can easily buy complete PC casing inclusive of power supply at under S$100. But buying the power supply on its own tends to set you back about S$100 too. So I started surveying more shops than I would usually do while getting things from Sim Lim Square. Oh of course, there were also S$35 power supplies, but they look really cheap and unreliable. I don’t mind paying slightly more for a reliable power supply.

[photopress:20070923367.jpg,thumb,pp_image]Just as I was about to settle for a HEC branded model (same brand as the existing in my desktop PC), the sales staff at the shop suggested the Cooler Master eXtreme Power 550W. It would cost me S$99, S$4 more than the HEC branded model I had intended to get. I don’t know much about power supplies, but Cooler Master sounded like a good brand. Ok, so I got that.

I started to search the net for reviews after I got home. Yes, that was illogical: You should be doing your research first then go shopping, and not be done shopping before starting the research! Well, you see, I thought there was nothing much to power supplies. But I was quite surprised about what I found! There are plenty of long-winded reviews about power supplies, including this particular Cooler Master model I got. It was quite astounding how much one could say about power supplies. I know some things you’d need to think about including the availability of SATA power cables. But I didn’t know it mattered so much as well about maximum current supplied at various DC output voltages, loudness of fan, type of fan, etc. For this power supply, I noted a 100,000 hrs MTBF. Great, it should last me over 11 years.

Can you imagine, if there could be a long-winded review about say a floppy disk drive? Wow. Haha, but for all you know, there are already long-winded reviews on these devices. 🙂 Maybe they’d talk about support for 360KB disks, 720KB disks, 1.44MB disks. Or how fast they spun the disk.

Anyway for me, power supplies are still just power supplies. I installed the new Cooler Master, connected the cables, turned on the power, and tada the PC booted up. But of course it should.

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