A Look Inside & Component Analysis

Before reading this page, we strongly suggest a look at this article, which will help you understand the internal components of a PSU much better. Our main tool for the disassembly of the PSU is a Thermaltronics TMT-9000S soldering and rework station. It is of extreme quality and is equipped with a matching de-soldering gun. With such equipment in hand, breaking apart every PSU is like a walk in the park!


Like all Cougar units, this one is also made by HEC/Compucase, and the more experienced of you will notice that it is based on an older platform, which, however, features DC-DC converters in the secondary side for the generation of the minor rails. The utilization of DC-DC converters then allows this PSU to easily meet the unofficial Intel requirements for Haswell compatibility which we reproduce in our CL1 test.


The first part of the transient filtering stage is located on a small PCB right behind the AC receptacle and includes a single X and two Y caps. The main PCB has one more X cap, a pair of Y caps, an MOV, and two CM chokes.


The two parallel bridge rectifiers are bolted to a dedicated heatsink.


the APFC has four Magnachip MDP13N50 fets and a pair of BYC10-600 boost diodes. We didn't expect to find as many active components in the APFC circuit, but the less amps each fet handles, the less are the energy losses, which increases efficiency. The bulk caps are provided by Panasonic (330 μF each or 660 μF combined, 400 V, 105°C).


A pair of Magnachip MDP18N50 fets are used as main switchers.


The combo PFC/PWM controller is the usual suspect: a Champion CM6800TX IC on a vertical daughter-board.


The standby PWM controller is cooled by a small heatsink. This is the first time we have come across passive cooling for this IC. Also, the SBR (Schottky Barrier Rectifier) that generates the 5VSB rail is a PFR10L60CT.


Passive components rectify the +12V rail in the secondary side—six PFR30L60CT are definitely up to the task. +12V generates the minor rails through a couple VRMs (Voltage Regulation Modules). An APW7073 PWM controller and three fests are installed on each VRM.


A few Capxon polymer caps and several Teapo electrolytic ones are used for ripple filtering. Definitely not the best choice quality-wise, but good enough for an affordable unit.


The front of the modular PCB hosts several Capxon electrolytic caps used for ripple filtering.


This small PCB houses the supervisor IC, a Weltrend 7527V that supports OCP for up to two +12V rails, which matches the specifications on paper.


Soldering quality on the rear of the main PCB is decent, but we spotted some component leads that were longer than we would like. We also found four current shunt resistors under the +12V islands, which is indicative of this unit originally having four +12V rails. However, three of the aforementioned shunt resistors were in this case shortened to form a single rail.


The fan is provided by Cougar, and its model number is DFB132512H (12 V, 0.25 A). It uses double ball-bearings to ensure it lasts quite a while. We can't say this to be the quietest fan we have ever heard, and the fan profile is tuned with the 40°C maximum operating temperature in mind, which had it generate a ton of noise inside our hotbox because it spun at high speeds.