5 - Priliminary testing

The Test

Right, how do you test a PSU? It's difficult, to be honest. We apply a couple of methods though.

Unless you have seriously professional equipment worth thousands of EURO's, it's very hard to test and most of all stress a PSU. Firstly we do a quick test with this gadget I have been using since ages. With a power supply tester I'll quickly check if the rails are all working properly and what amount of voltage they are delivering without a PC connected to it.

This is just a test to see if the PSU is functional and working properly before we connect it to equipment worth a stackload of money. Let's have a look:

Okay so we can immediately see that all primary voltage rails are working fine. Voltages are right on par with what they should be and match ATX specifications 100%. We'll also measure with a multi-meter on the next pages for a precise measurement. 

For those that are wondering what the PG delay being displayed on the screen is, here we go: Power Good (PG) Delay and Off Delay: It takes a power supply at least 100ms to completely power up before it can offer the proper DC voltages to the computer. The computer will not attempt to turn on until the power supply is finished powering up and sends a Power Good (PG) signal to the motherboard via a PG terminal. On power up the Power Good (PG) terminal is polled for a brief period before the PC turns on to check the status of the power supply. Only after the +5V and +3.3V rails are above threshold does the PG signal go "high." The PG signal stays on until the PC is ready to power off. The period of delay between switching on the PS and the actual application of power is the PG delay. Typical values are 100-350ms. The PG delay of the power supply should roughly match the PG delay specification of the motherboard or power on problems may occur.

So this is within specifications. Anyway let's do a real-world test. Next page please.