PSU Inside

One side of the PSU has a little sticker that is supposed to break when you open the case. I thought I was smart and tried to peel off the sticker because it seemed easy to do. The sticker came off easily, but a little "VOID" writing didn't want to go. Before opening your PSU you should make sure you have a good reason to lose your warranty, usually there is no such reason.


This inside looks so much different to most power supplies out there. The case is completely filled up with capacitors and heatsinks. Two stacked PCBs are also very uncommon in power supplies. The two blue trimmers probably change some voltage output, I didn't try to change them because they are sealed with a drop of glue.

Test Equipment

• The PSU is connected to an APC SmartUPS which supplies clean 220V input.
• AC current is measured using a Peaktech 4010 desktop RS232 multimeter with 0.02A accuracy.
• To measure DC output voltages of the PSU we use a Keithley 2700 6.5 digit data acquisition system. All three input voltages are measured at the same time using a solid state switching system.
• Power Factor is measured using a generic Power Efficiency Meter.
• Measurements for Ripple Voltage were obtained using a 100 MHz Tektronix TDS224 Digital Storage Oscilloscope.

Fan noise measurements are performed with an IEC Type 2 Sound level meter and this setup.
It consists of three high-power resistors and a Socket A motherboard. The motherboard creates a small load which makes sure the PSU turns on (some PSUs require a minimum load). Since there is no hardware installed in the motherboard, its power draw is negligible. The three resistors create a static load of 320W (120W @ 12V + 50W @ 5V + 150W @ 12V) - a typical high-performance system. This setup is also used to determine the power conversion efficiency of the PSU.