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 better.


The original manufacturer (OEM) of this unit is Super Flower and the SilentNight-500 is a rebadged Golden Silent 500 W. Two enormous heatsinks reside under the top mounted heatsink. The first one cools down the APFC fets along with the main switchers, and the second one handles the mosfets of the secondary side. An LLC resonant converter is utilized on the primary side; it provides an efficiency boost. The secondary side uses a synchronous design with two DC-DC converters for the generation of the minor rails.


In this PSU, the AC receptacle doesn't hold any parts of the transient filtering stage. The latter has been fully deployed on the main PCB with two coils, three X caps, and four Y caps. Unfortunately, Super Flower decided that an MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) isn't essential, so they didn't install one. We, of course, don't agree with this choice: every PSU should be equipped with such an inexpensive part, especially since it protects against spikes through the power grid.

The single bridge rectifier, an US30K80R, is installed between two heatsinks for optimal heat dissipation. It is very strong and can handle up to 30 A of current, so it easily meets the requirements of this unit.


In the APFC, one IPW50R140CP mosfet and a boost diode (C3D10060) are used. The APFC cap is provided by Nippon Chemi-Con (400 V;470 μF; KMQ series; 105C). Next to it, we find a thermistor for inrush current protection and a relay that bypasses it once it finishes its job, which reduces its energy dissipation. As main switchers, two IPP50R199CP mosfets are used, and an LLC-resonant converter is utilized to provide an efficiency boost.


The APFC controller is an NCP1653A IC and an ICE3B0565 is used as a standby PWN controller.


Synchronous rectification is used on the secondary side, and the +12V rail is rectified by four IPP023N04N mosfets, while the minor rails are generated by two DC-DC converters. Several polymer caps and some electrolytics, all of them are provided by Nippon Chemi-Con, handle all the filtering.


The SF29601 LLC resonant controller is installed on a vertical daughter-board that resides on the secondary side. This controller is a propriety design by Super Flower, so no information is available on the net. It, besides the primary switches, definitely also handles the unit's protections since there is no other supervisor IC to be found.


The small modular PCB features three small Chemi-Con caps for some extra ripple filtering.


Soldering quality is good overall, but it is still inferior to high-end Seasonic and Delta implementations. It, nevertheless, still does, as you will see, allow for high performance.


This huge heatsink has been mounted onto the top side of the unit where the cooling fan is usually installed. It removes hot air out of the PSU's internals, but must also face upwards at all times to be effective.