Check Your Power Supplies

I was cleaning up my garage workbench when I came accross a bunch of PC Power Supplies.

I was thinking I could jerry-rig a bench power supply with one of them.  I found myself primarily using 5V and 12V so I thought why not.

I plug one in and connected PINs 15 and 16 on the main cable tested the power to see if it was close to what I needed.  It was not.  I tested a few more and found that a lot of the power supplies did not reach 12V.  So I decided to go through a few of them and document the voltage outputs I found.

Here are the ones I tested

• Antec True330
• Power Man FSP-250-60GTA
• NSpire MAV-250P
• Power Man FSP-300-60BTV
• Codegen CG-PXA4-3
• AOpen FSP250-60GTA

I tested it with an Antec Power Supply Tester

And used a multimeter on the main set of wires to check voltage.

Antec True330

In my opinion, Antec makes some good power supplies, but this power supply was in this pile of stuff for a reason, it tested faulty. (See below)

Still faulty and all, I think I will be using this as my bench power supply

Watts 330

3.3 Volt line was 3.30V

5 Volt line was 5.06V

12 Volt line was 12.00

Power Man FSP-250-60GTA

This power supply also failed the Antec Power Supply Tester.

Watts 250

3.3 Volt line was 3.39V

5 Volt line was 5.42V

12 Volt line was 10.99

NSpire MAV-250P

This passed the power supply tester but I was disappointed the voltage did not stay closer to 12V on the 12 Volt supply.

Watts 300

3.3 Volt line was 3.40V

5 Volt line was 5.30V

12 Volt line was 11.22

Power Man FSP-300-60BTV

Another Powerman Power Supply this time higher wattage at 300.

Watts 330

3.3 Volt line was 3.36V

5 Volt line was 5.27V

12 Volt line was 11.58

Codegen CG-PXA4-3

This is one of the spare power supplies I own.  Better numbers but I had to put it back in my supply of spares.

Watts 450

3.3 Volt line was 3.36V

5 Volt line was 5.28V

12 Volt line was 12.28

AOpen FSP250-60GTA

This power supply seems remarkably like the Power Man FSP250

Watts 250

3.3 Volt line was 3.33V

5 Volt line was 5.30V

12 Volt line was 11.56

Why I went with the Antec

I guess part of it was trust or the good name they hold.  I am not sure why this ended up in pile of old worn down power supplies, maybe because it was failing in a PC or I upgraded the PS to something with more power but I am not too worried about its failure on the power supply tester.

It seemed like the 3.3Volt and the 5VSB (Standby) are the only ones not working right.

Also it is weird that both the Fault light and the Good light are on.

 This will never power another desktop PC again, but I think I am OK with it to power an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

Conclusion

Next time I install a new power supply in my PC, I am going to check if the voltage is close.  Some online sources say that 11.5 is acceptable for a 12V power supply and is within parameters.  I would rather have it spot on like the Antec.