is this unit a bomb?

[aren332]

https://bjorn3d.com/2006/09/antec-truepower-trio-650-watt-power-supply-unit/

 

My friend gave me this tp3-650 antec psu for fixing his pc, now im just wondering, how reliable is it? It has a little amount of dust, so it wasnt used for that long (unless it was cleaned) but my friend said he found it at a dumpster. Is it safe to put this unit into a working system?

[Hinjima]

6 minutes ago, aren332 said:

https://bjorn3d.com/2006/09/antec-truepower-trio-650-watt-power-supply-unit/

 

My friend gave me this tp3-650 antec psu for fixing his pc, now im just wondering, how reliable is it? It has a little amount of dust, so it wasnt used for that long (unless it was cleaned) but my friend said he found it at a dumpster. Is it safe to put this unit into a working system?

I'd pass on using that. Never know when it was bought and how long its been used before being thrown out in a dumpster...

The unit can be 18 years old at this point as it released in 2006.

I would put it back in the dumpster.

[PDifolco]

29 minutes ago, aren332 said:

https://bjorn3d.com/2006/09/antec-truepower-trio-650-watt-power-supply-unit/

 

My friend gave me this tp3-650 antec psu for fixing his pc, now im just wondering, how reliable is it? It has a little amount of dust, so it wasnt used for that long (unless it was cleaned) but my friend said he found it at a dumpster. Is it safe to put this unit into a working system?

Maybe not a bomb but rather a forgotten shell from a past war  

[Average Nerd]

1 hour ago, aren332 said:

Is it safe to put this unit into a working system?

If it was in a dumpster, it was probably there for a reason. I would't use it.

[Caroline]

A bomb? no no, this is an IED.

 

The housing is nice though, I've always liked the square grill pattern, I'd definitely use something like this for a small bench PSU, to power some light bulbs or LEDs, the wires always come in handy as well. Unless you're into electronics there's not much you can do with it.

[Beerzerker]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

A bomb? no no, this is an IED.

 

The housing is nice though, I've always liked the square grill pattern, I'd definitely use something like this for a small bench PSU, to power some light bulbs or LEDs, the wires always come in handy as well. Unless you're into electronics there's not much you can do with it.

Only thing aside from that is what I've been doing with one out of a really old machine and that's using it to power the waterpump to my cooling system.
Gotta know how to wire it in so you can use the switch on the back to turn it on or off while it's plugged into the wall but that's what I've done with this one - Been working for about 5 years that way with no issues.

However, DO NOT connect it to the system itself.

[Caroline]

1 hour ago, Beerzerker said:

Only thing aside from that is what I've been doing with one out of a really old machine and that's using it to power the waterpump to my cooling system.
Gotta know how to wire it in so you can use the switch on the back to turn it on or off while it's plugged into the wall but that's what I've done with this one - Been working for about 5 years that way with no issues.

However, DO NOT connect it to the system itself.

Mine has funny confusing labels and I replaced the monitor power out with a neon switch which is green but glows amber. The wiring is gone in order to accomodate the lamp connector. Can output up to 8.3A which is pretty good for a noname unit.

 

 

Got a whole box of them for spares, even a "gaming" one with a blue LED fan heh

[JovanD]

Test it out of pc first like this https://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/atx_psu_startup/ (don't need a switch for testing piece of wire is good enough)

If you don't have a multimeter you can use a spare case fan or some simple 12 volt device like a dc motor to test 12volt(yellow wires) and 5volt(red wires) outputs, if it works than you won't have much problems. Old units might have problems handling overload loads (120-150%) if those big 450v capacitors dry up, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem since buck converters on motherbard/gpu have their own capacitors, you should be good if you don't push it too hard, components in quality PSUs are rated for around 10 years minimum and even after that if the capacitors are the weak link they degrade linearly, so it can be working good enough for 20+ years, but might not be able to handle torture loads like a new unit.

[aren332]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:38 PM, JovanD said:

Test it out of pc first like this https://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/atx_psu_startup/ (don't need a switch for testing piece of wire is good enough)

If you don't have a multimeter you can use a spare case fan or some simple 12 volt device like a dc motor to test 12volt(yellow wires) and 5volt(red wires) outputs, if it works than you won't have much problems. Old units might have problems handling overload loads (120-150%) if those big 450v capacitors dry up, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem since buck converters on motherbard/gpu have their own capacitors, you should be good if you don't push it too hard, components in quality PSUs are rated for around 10 years minimum and even after that if the capacitors are the weak link they degrade linearly, so it can be working good enough for 20+ years, but might not be able to handle torture loads like a new unit.

yeah i connected a 12v server fan to sata and it worked at full speed (10k rpm lmao). Also it seems to be a high end unit because it has a lot of cables like individual fan power cables with control

[-rascal-]

2 hours ago, aren332 said:

yeah i connected a 12v server fan to sata and it worked at full speed (10k rpm lmao). Also it seems to be a high end unit because it has a lot of cables like individual fan power cables with control

 

The TruePower series was not really a high-end unit, even at the time of release.

However, it was definitely better than some of the "650W" crap CoolerMaster, Thermalake, and even some other Antec models, available.

It has a lot of cables because of it's non-modular design, support for multiple graphics cards.

The "extra" Fan-only connectors are there because motherboards didn't have much fan headers back then.

 

I had an Antec TruePower Trio 430W back in ~2009, powering an upgraded Acer pre-built, running AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ with an ATi Radeon HD 4850. It was like $30? from Fry's Electronics (when they were still around and pretty big). The "Can it run Crysis" era.

[JovanD]

3 hours ago, -rascal- said:

 

The TruePower series was not really a high-end unit, even at the time of release.

However, it was definitely better than some of the "650W" crap CoolerMaster, Thermalake, and even some other Antec models, available.

It has a lot of cables because of it's non-modular design, support for multiple graphics cards.

The "extra" Fan-only connectors are there because motherboards didn't have much fan headers back then.

 

I had an Antec TruePower Trio 430W back in ~2009, powering an upgraded Acer pre-built, running AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ with an ATi Radeon HD 4850. It was like $30? from Fry's Electronics (when they were still around and pretty big). The "Can it run Crysis" era.

Main issue with older models of power supplies even higher end ones is that they had multi rail design, but they didn't label which cable was on which rail, so that was annoying if you wanted to run multiple GPUs and use molex to pci adapters. That Antec is kinda like x3 220W PSUs in one box, still useful though.