Power Supply Problems

[Guest]

Hello All,
I have been building custom computers for approx 3 years now and have come across a very strange situation at one of my clients. My client has a auto dealership and requested 5 computers. During a period of a little over a year almost all of the power supplies had to be replaced. The all did not go out at once but were spread out over the next year. I thought I may have received a bad bunch of P/S so I purchased replacements from a few local vendors of which a few have had to be replaced again. These machines are PII 350, HDD, floppy, ATI video card with two ontaining a CDROM. The dealership is contained in an OLD building and I had thought maybe outdated electrical wiring, etc may be the cause. I cant seem to pin point the cause of the problem. I have replaced the failing P/S with different manufacturer and from different vendors, to be quite truthful I am at a loss at this point. Any ideas.

 

[yoda271828]

It doesn't sound like the power supplies are bad, it's probably power spikes in the building wiring. Are your clients plugging the computers into the wall, a surge protector, or a line conditioner? They should at least be using a surge protector, and having problems such as those a line conditioner is a good idea.

 

[Guest]

yoda271828 is right. Surge protectors should do the trick. But, be carefull, there are many kinds of surge protectors. The cheap ones may have only a component called "VDR" This is not enough. A good surge protector should have "VDR's", "Capacitors", "Coils" and a fuse would be nice too. Instead of "VDR's" (Voltage Dependant Resistors)they could have some kind of "discharge bulbs" (don't know the name in the US; are You in the US?).

Even better than surge protectors, are UPS's (these ones are expensive!)

Last but not least, if it's an old building, there could be defective cabling and it is possible that the power lines are "too high" That means to many volts (over 130). It would be important to measure the voltage on the power line. It takes only a voltmeter.

Please feed-back your experiences.

Good Luck

 

[Guest]

Bottom line: My judgement is that P/S is low end,and poor quality.

You know, they are so many junk" Power Supplies" out there.And, just repeat the same problem oven and over again.

Try to avoid all those Low-End white Cases with very low price.

Poeple tend to go like Computer Shows, where the price is good , but is it orginal, refurbished, or what!

Buy the Power Supplies from Manufacturers.

Power Supplies are one very important key PC Part, you just can't ignored, but unfortunately many guys do anyway.

E-mail to me ,and I will let you know a couple a good places where you can get Real good P/S's.