The consequences of choosing the wrong power supply

Oliver Valdez-Guzman 12 June, 2021

0 3.533 4 reading minutes

The power supply of our PC is much more important than many think and here we will detail why it is importable to choose a quality one.

Choosing a bad power supply can cause you all kinds of problems: on the one hand, it won't supply clean energy to your components; which will result in bluescreens, reboots, and premature degradation of components connected to it. On the other hand, if the PSU does not have its protections well configured, or (if it does not even have such protections), as soon as an unwanted situation arises, (which may be due to user error, failure of a component within the PC or problems associated with your home's electrical supply), at least you'll have a burned-out PSU; but it is not uncommon for this to ruin other parts of your computer as well. There have even been cases where the PSU catches fire and causes a fire.

After reading this, you will have realized that Saving too much on this piece can end in monetary or even human losses! The truth is that most of the time we do not reach these catastrophic situations, but we should not stay with the idea of saying "nothing happens, I have had a generic font for many years and my computer continues to work»

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Popular thinking about power supplies

As I explained, many people rely on their particular experience to suggest that you don't need to spend a lot of time choosing a power source. In fact it is possible that some of you are based on the opinions of stores like Amazon, newegg, PCComponentes, etc. to choose your power source. Then I explain why the experience rule is not valid for purchasing PSUs.

Let us remember that the sources, unlike other components, are not pieces that can be compared so intuitively; things like texture, ergonomics, or even quantitative values like FPS, resolution, refresh rate, image quality are completely unrelated to the world of switched power supplies (the technical name for PSUs). I reiterate, the power supply has two main functions: to deliver the correct and stable power to the equipment; and protect the source, the equipment and yourself if something goes wrong.

You can use a generic font and when seeing that the PC turns on and works as if nothing; think that everything is going well, even if it is not like that. But electrically you do not perceive what is really happening, and this is how your power source sees it:

This graph represents the ripple (ripple) that is the voltage fluctuations that occur in milliseconds.

Your components could well be receiving inadequate or unstable voltages; something that you will not perceive at first until your computer begins to give problems or directly stops working. Regarding the protections; We can use the analogy of a car seat belt: you can drive a car without it, but in the event of an accident the seat belt saves your life. Similarly, a power supply can function without safety protections; These save the life of the PSU itself as soon as there are problems; to the PC and to yourself too.

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Are user reviews really the best way to choose a power supply?

After telling you this, it's clear that we shouldn't use other people's "experience" to decide on our purchase. A true benchmark of quality is... professional analysis of sources; which do have laboratory equipment (which is very expensive and requires knowledge to operate effectively) to tell you about these problems that most people overlook at first glance.

He believes that on sites like Amazon, Newegg, and PCComponentes, the vast majority of people are unaware of the function and purpose of a power supply because they are stores, not sites for hardware enthusiasts. HardwaresphereFurthermore, many of these comments come from users who have only had their product for 3, 6, 12, or at most 24 months. That's far from enough time, considering that the minimum acceptable warranty for a PSU is 3 years (because in the worst-case scenario, manufacturers expect it to last 3 years so they can avoid honoring warranties).

Not to mention that for every buyer reference, there is talk of a single source Of the thousands sold, if you want to know the failure rate and/or RMAs, you need more than just a couple of opinions; so Unless you see that everyone is giving it 3 stars or less, the famous user reviews shouldn't worry you.

Here you can see that user "reviews" have little use, and not only in fonts, but in the rest of the components as well.

Conclusion

Of course you shouldn't just go and buy the cheapest PC power supply you can find. With a good power supply, you have the peace of mind that nothing will go wrong; and if it does fail, at least you can claim the warranty. (although perhaps the problem is your electrical installation) Not to mention that A decent power supply often has one or more of the added benefits I'm about to mention: good technical support, superior efficiency, less electromagnetic interference, longer warranty, modular cables, lower noise, good aesthetics, and even greater functionality through software.

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