Index
What is a PSU?
What Determines a good PSU?
What Happens When A PSU Fails
Trusted PSU Vendor List
Current PSU's of Choice
What is a PSU?
PSU. Power Supply Unit. A Cube/Cuboid shaped transformer mounted inside your case, towards the rear. Electricity supplied to your home is AC (Alternating Current). This is no good for a computer and as a result a transformer is used to convert Alternating Current to Direct Current. The Voltage is also stepped down from 110V/240V to split Voltage rails inside the computer of +3.3V, +5V, +12V, which in turn power certain components within the system. Without any argument it's the heart of a Computer.
Some data you need to understand.
Power- Energy transferred per unit time. Power Supplies are advertised by the amount of Power it can deliver to the components. Units in Watts (W)
Voltage- Energy transferred per charge carrier. You may need to understand the importance of the 3.3V, 5V and 12V rails.
Current- The flow of electricity to components. Units in Amperes (A)
Efficiency- ((Power Drawn From Mains) / (Power Effectively Used)) * 100%
where > 75% is ideal.
Anyway, that's more than enough background information for now. Lets move on.
Edited by Mul., 16 November 2007 - 06:18 PM.