Do PSUs need electricity stabilizer

[lachihoog]

Hello yesterday I bought a thermaltake se530 smart
When I tried it on my computer it didn't work so I went back to the store to get a new one he said you burned it
With an electrical shock because you don't have an electrical stabilizer at home is that true ? I didn't need an electrical stabilizer for my old PSU
And most of my electronics TV fridge
Monitors all these work fine without a problem
So do I need some kind of an electrical stabilizer? Or is it a dead PSU ?

 

[jgustin7b]

Myself, I don’t have one. If it worked at first and then just died, it might of been a power surge or something. If it was just dead and never powered on from the first time you turned it on, it’s probably a dead psu. If you know you are in an area where electricity isn’t stable, I’d suggest getting one. If everything else is ok, I’d hold off...

 

[Susquehannock]

That is a poor quality PSU = tier 4. If your power grid is not stable it may not be able to adequately compensate. May have worked too hard and burned itself out.

 

[InvalidError]

Good quality modern PSUs can operate on anything from 100VAC to 250VAC, you'd need a stupidly out of spec grid voltage to fry them due to not having a 'stabilizer', whatever that means. That said, there are many areas in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa where such unreliable grid voltage is commonplace. If that's your case, then a wide input range automatic voltage regulator or ferroresonnant voltage regulation transformer may indeed be a must.

 

[jaslion]

Hello yesterday I bought a thermaltake se530 smart
When I tried it on my computer it didn't work so I went back to the store to get a new one he said you burned it
With an electrical shock because you don't have an electrical stabilizer at home is that true ? I didn't need an electrical stabilizer for my old PSU
And most of my electronics TV fridge
Monitors all these work fine without a problem
So do I need some kind of an electrical stabilizer? Or is it a dead PSU ?

It's a bad psu so some spikes could've easily killed it.

 

[Susquehannock]

It's a bad psu so some spikes could've easily killed it.

Indeed. And low voltage "brown outs" can be just as bad. My own power grid dropped to 96 volts before they upgraded a few years back. And I live near a major US city.

 

[aquielisunari]

Hello yesterday I bought a thermaltake se530 smart
When I tried it on my computer it didn't work so I went back to the store to get a new one he said you burned it
With an electrical shock because you don't have an electrical stabilizer at home is that true ? I didn't need an electrical stabilizer for my old PSU
And most of my electronics TV fridge
Monitors all these work fine without a problem
So do I need some kind of an electrical stabilizer? Or is it a dead PSU ?

You need an electrical stabalizer like you need turn signal fluid.

That being said quality PSUs have many protections in place. One of those is undercurrent protection. I don't see that on that PSU.

You didn't offer any info on your power grid. Stable. daily brownout...........Would seem to be relevant.

 

[geofelt]

Baloney.
A quality psu has protections for over/under voltage.
The psu is of low quality and defective.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html


Offer to buy a more expensive quality replacement.

Make a stink about it.
If the store stonewalls, call the credit card company to cancel payment.

No doubt the unit is still under warranty so you might need to contact thermaltake directly

 

[InvalidError]

A quality psu has protections for over/under voltage.

Under/over-voltage protections are in regard with the output, not the input. On the input side, PSUs start running as soon as they have high enough input voltage to get the PWM controller started and keep running until the input filter capacitor voltage drops too low for the PWM to operate off its auxiliary power rail, which can be a very low voltage under light loads. I recently got a VARIAC and one of the PSUs I tested on it just for fun (and to find out how much voltage might be on the bulk input capacitor by the time a PSU shuts down from getting unplugged) kept running all the way down to 20VAC.

 

[geofelt]

A quality psu has protections for over/under voltage.

Under/over-voltage protections are in regard with the output, not the input. On the input side, PSUs start running as soon as they have high enough input voltage to get the PWM controller started and keep running until the input filter capacitor voltage drops too low for the PWM to operate off its auxiliary power rail, which can be a very low voltage under light loads. I recently got a VARIAC and one of the PSUs I tested on it just for fun (and to find out how much voltage might be on the bulk input capacitor by the time a PSU shuts down from getting unplugged) kept running all the way down to 20VAC.

Educate me.
What happens as the store indicated if the input voltage was high enough to "burn out" the psu?

 

[InvalidError]

Educate me.
What happens as the store indicated if the input voltage was high enough to "burn out" the psu?

I doubt the store actually conducted any sort of actual failure analysis to determine whether the cause of the failure really was an input over-voltage. It could very well have been a manufacturing or material flaw and the store simply presumed it must have been an input over-voltage issue.

Since the SE530 is 80+ Bronze, its universal input stage must be able to handle 400-450V peak. You'd need a stupidly unstable grid to kill it with over-voltage under normal circumstances and a shady input filter design for the PSU to fail from a typical power line surge.

 

[Susquehannock]

In any event, need a better PSU.

 

[lachihoog]

No man I didn't have a problem with my old PSU
And the new PSU didn't even blink the fan didn't spin for nor even 1 sec I don't think my electricity is the problem because all other Stuff work and my old PSU 2