Cheap generic PSU's

[WindowsXP16]

I know there are many threads about this, but most of them are old. Today whats the worst that could happen if you buy and use cheap PSU on a decent build. Can it really damage components in case of failure? How long do they last? If you have any experiences with them, fell free to post pictures of the damage.

[WereCat]

Cheap generic PSU

1.) Worst case scenario - bye bye house, you're on fire today!

2.) What happens usually - BOOM! Oh...bye motherboard and PSU, I will miss you!

3.) What happens less usually - BOOM! ...damn, I will have to replace you!

4.) What happens often - Why do my PC parts stop working so often? My PSU is working just fine!

5.) What rarely happens - Everything is fine.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, WindowsXP16 said:

I know there are many threads about this, but most of them are old. Today whats the worst that could happen if you buy and use cheap PSU on a decent build. Can it really damage components in case of failure? How long do they last? If you have any experiences with them, fell free to post pictures of the damage.

 

30 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Cheap generic PSU

1.) Worst case scenario - bye bye house, you're on fire today!

2.) What happens usually - BOOM! Oh...bye motherboard and PSU, I will miss you!

3.) What happens less usually - BOOM! ...damn, I will have to replace you!

4.) What happens often - Why do my PC parts stop working so often? My PSU is working just fine!

5.) What rarely happens - Everything is fine.

This guy summed it up. Bye Austin's home.

[Droidbot]

If you can find a brand name or something that you can use, you'll be fine. Most pulls from Dell/HP are Delta or SeaSonic units.

[Ex0Thermic]

Cheap PSU's tend to not give enough stable power when you pc needs it......
you might be doing something that makes you cpu hit 70% or higher and your processes might crash out or pc blue screens/locks up.
and I have seen cheaps psu go pop (loud bang and sparks shoot out of psu) when you graphics card is under load. 

 

But I myself have not seen a cheap damage any other pc components. most modern components have some sort of surge protection, that older parts might not have.

I tend to recommend name brand psu's for these reasons. and you can get good coolermaster and evga psu's pretty cheaply.

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, GeekThief said:

Cheap PSU's tend to not give enough stable power when you pc needs it......
you might be doing something that makes you cpu hit 70% or higher and your processes might crash out or pc blue screens/locks up.
and I have seen cheaps psu go pop (loud bang and sparks shoot out of psu) when you graphics card is under load. 

 

But I myself have not seen a cheap damage any other pc components. most modern components have some sort of surge protection, that older parts might not have.

I tend to recommend name brand psu's for these reasons. and you can get good coolermaster and evga psu's pretty cheaply.

I've had a cheap PSU go boom and take out a mobo and a 2x250GB HDD array in 2011. 

That machine was at least 7-8 years old at that point and was a home server so I didn't care at the timr

[KyleTM]

Having run my own PC repair shop for a time, an untrustworthy PSU can do more damage than a hammer.

[STRMfrmXMN]

6 hours ago, WindowsXP16 said:

I know there are many threads about this, but most of them are old. Today whats the worst that could happen if you buy and use cheap PSU on a decent build. Can it really damage components in case of failure? How long do they last? If you have any experiences with them, fell free to post pictures of the damage.

Most PSUs in prebuilts these days are honestly fine. A lot of them are quite decent Delta units and HP/Lenovo etc. can get them sourced cheaply because they buy them en masse. That said, most are not capable of outputting much wattage. I know the HP machines my computer science class uses for VR programming and gaming have quad-core hyperthreaded Xeons and GTX 1060s with a proprietary 280W PSU made by Delta. You wouldn't want to put a GTX 1080ti in there with that PSU, for example.