Protection Features Evaluation

Every PSU should be equipped with a set of protections that will protect the PSU and the whole system. You can learn more about PSU protections by reading through the corresponding section of our "A Detailed Look Into PSUs" article.

In a snap, the most important protection features for PSUs are the following:

Over Current Protection (OCP)
Over Power Protection (OPP)
Over Temperature Protection (OTP)
Over/Under Voltage Protection (OVP/UVP)
Short Circuit Protection (SCP)
No-load Operation (NLO)
Surge and Inrush Protection (SIP)

We should note that OCP isn't usually offered in single +12V rail PSUs, especially high capacity ones. In such units, OPP takes over. OTP is very important, and we won't mess with OVP/UVP until we find a way to safely evaluate it.

OCP is set to a reasonable level on all rails. As you can see, we didn't test OCP on the stronger +12V rails because our second loader, which we exclusively use to evaluate protections, cannot provide more than 45 A on each of its two +12V load banks. This will change pretty soon, though, since we will set up a new array of much stronger DC loads with which we will then evaluate protection features.

OPP is at around 131% of the PSU's maximum rated capacity. Pretty high in our opinion, it should be set to around 120-125 %. The PSU didn't have the slightest problem with delivering over 1.1 kW under normal ambient temperatures, but such might not be the case with higher temperatures. However, this platform does have OTP, which should keep it and any hardware you have attached save should you happen to really push the PSU beyond its limits. Finally, there is SCP for all the rails, and the power ok signal is accurate, but doesn't last as long as the ATX specification requires.