[SOLVED] Any good PSU's around $30?

shafe88

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Jul 6, 2010
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I think the fan in my Acer's PSU is dying and need a cheap, but good PSUreplacement that's around $30. My PSU's fan was making kinda of a loud grinding noise, cleaned it with canned air and now it's no longer making the loud grinding noise, but is making a faint, continuous clicking noise that's similar to an old hard drive thats seeking. PSU doesn't need to be too powerful as the most demanding components it will be powering is a i5-4440 and a MSI GTX 750ti(no power connector).
 
Solution
Do not buy a cheap psu.
A cheap PSU will be made of substandard components. It will not have safety and overload protections.
The danger is if it fails under load, it can destroy anything it is connected to.
It will deliver advertised power only at room temperatures, not at higher temperatures found when installed in a case.
The wattage will be delivered on the 3 and 5v rails, not on the 12v rails where modern parts
like the CPU and Graphics cards need it. What power is delivered may fluctuate and cause instability
issues that are hard to diagnose.
The fan will need to spin up higher to cool it, making it noisy.
A cheap PSU can become very expensive.

Do not buy one.

Look for nothing less than a tier 3 unit from a list such as...
If you want something that won't burn your house down you'll go higher than that-
https://www.newegg.com/corsair-cx-series-cx450-450w/p/N82E16817139201
That's a little out of my price range, I can go high as $40, and prefer to order from Amazon as I don't need a credit card to make a purchase.
Here is a couple I was looking at.
https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-100-BR-...r+supply&qid=1611930786&s=electronics&sr=1-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CZ1LY3K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Warrant...ix=500w+power+supply+,electronics,188&sr=1-16
 
It is not wise to cheap out on a power supply. This is because the cheaper ones can and often do catastrophically fail and when that happens it can destroy the motherboard the hard drive and the CPU and the ram of the device it is powering. It should never be considered to be a cheap purchase so get what you can afford now and save up for a good one later
 
if i limited it to amazon and went as cheap as possible this is what i would settle on. tested well and decently built for the money.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0838YLZ1H?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

$45 but better than the other options. but for my personal usage, i'd never go this cheap. it's just not worth it when it finally decides to die on you. if you're lucky it only takes the psu. if you're not, then it takes your whole house with it!!
 
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Do not buy a cheap psu.
A cheap PSU will be made of substandard components. It will not have safety and overload protections.
The danger is if it fails under load, it can destroy anything it is connected to.
It will deliver advertised power only at room temperatures, not at higher temperatures found when installed in a case.
The wattage will be delivered on the 3 and 5v rails, not on the 12v rails where modern parts
like the CPU and Graphics cards need it. What power is delivered may fluctuate and cause instability
issues that are hard to diagnose.
The fan will need to spin up higher to cool it, making it noisy.
A cheap PSU can become very expensive.

Do not buy one.

Look for nothing less than a tier 3 unit from a list such as this:

The ticking sound you hear is likely from the fan.
I would not change it out until you can buy a quality replacement
The devil you know is safer than the devil you don't.

Put a plan in place to save up enough for a quality power supply.
It is one of the few future proof pc purchases you can make.
They do not go obsolete quickly.
 
Solution