this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023

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451

Redditor finds heavy block of iron shavings inside cheap PSU, also appears to lack safety protections (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This has been going on for at least a couple of decades now.

PSU buying advice you'd hear from random PC gamers before the age of having a plethora of engaging-to-watch tech YouTubers really would be "if a power supply is heavy, it's probably good" outside of a slim minority of people who actually regularly read PSU reviews from PC hardware mags and articles.

I've seen a PSU with a straight up thin layer of cement in it, as well as bits of metal stuck to the inside. It's nothing new.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think we should be fair and give credit where it's due, that advice may have been going around but more likely in reverse form – "if a PSU is very light something's wrong". Any gamer with half a brain has long since learned to buy PSU's based on reviews coming from reputable testing labs. There have been such labs available for a long time now, jonnyguru.com (Jean-Claude Gerow) started doing detailed PSU analysis around 2006 I believe.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To me this is the most important reason for building your own PC. If you don't care or don't want to research each part then sure, get a prebuilt. Otherwise, it's really nice to know what's in it and do your research on each piece so you know it's quality and will be supported.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Warranty is the biggest reason for a prebuilt. Anything goes wrong with it and you're not spending money on things to test and experiment with. You send it in, it comes back working.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You get warranty for parts too. Unless you meant warranty as a substitute for building know-how.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a convenience factor I think. Send the whole thing away and it comes back working. Opposed to having to find the faulting hardware and determining the type of fault and dealing with the vendor for that specific part in hopes that it's actually the issue.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I don't personally view that as a convenience but understand the sentiment. If my PSU died, or something similar, and I had to send my entire machine just to get it fixed, that translates into working downtime for me.

It's nice to just have some spare parts or your old parts to swap into temporarily while you rma the dead part. Of course, this assumes that you can do a bit of hardware troubleshooting (which I admit isn't something most laypeople can do).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've given similar advice but it's more "light is likely no good, but don't just trust that it's heavy" as well.

The cement is probably missed with lead to keep the radiation in ;-)

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This reads like an AI generated news story about a reddit post.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The sad thing is that it almost certainly isn't. The spelling mistakes that were made aren't characteristic of AI generated blurbs which means they paid someone to write this lol.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah this type of "thing in Reddit happens..." articles have been going on for a long time, ever since it took off. It's what drove me off traditional media and into reddit in the first place, so many articles were "Redditor does this" "Redditor discovers that" that I eventually was like fuck it why wouldn't I just go to the source of all of this lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

you can easily tell an LLM to sprinkle a couple typos or spelling mistakes into a text

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you suggesting someone instructed an AI to write an article with typos? Wtf purpose would that serve?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To get exactly this reaction "can't be ai, it has typos"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Occam's razor says no to that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Underpaid tech bloggers playing 4d chess

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

"Write the article in the style of a junior high student" probably gets close enough to be believable, who needs an editor!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s no point in doing that

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes there is. It clearly creates doubt as to whether it was generated. As exemplified by the discussion you're commenting to. Bold to come on and just ... say something already demonstrated as wrong...

Can you not even understand what's happening in front of your own face?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Considering that writer is pumping out multiple articles a day, they most likely are to some extent.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I really long for the days that journalists proofread their work for obvious mistakes. Pathetic:

But RedditCringe990 on the PCMR subreddit did, and found a power supplies ...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's supposed to be copy editors for that sort of thing. It's their job to have a copy of Hacker and a red pen at their desk.

I worked for a small, local newspaper in high school, and the copy editors would endlessly complain about one of the most prolific contributors. Her articles were nearly unreadable before the copy editors did their work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I have to copy-edit my own work, and I, too, complain about the illegibility of copy before I fiercely edit it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Right, this made it past at least two people, assuming they work at all traditionally

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

To quote Boris the Blade: Heavy is good, heavy is reliable.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

If it doesn’t work, you can still hit him with it

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Why do they call him the bullet dodger?"

"... because he dodges bullets, Avi."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Anything to declare?

Yeah. Don't go to England.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jurassic park did it way before Snatch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA1vmN-skXo

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=OA1vmN-skXo

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Direct Reddit link in case anyone wants to avoid SEO spam

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/18cppqc/is_there_a_genuine_reason_this_cheap_psu_has_a/

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

But now I have to give Reddit traffic.

I'm conflicted

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was it made by Kia?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For those of us out of the loop, what did Kia do?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Metal shavings took out some of their engines.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I just looked this brand and model up and don't see it yet, and I don't see it on the side of the housing, so I'm gonna guess this doesn't have a UL listing. That's usually a good starting point to see if it's reputable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Isn't this pretty common in a lot of consumer electronics? Pretty sure power banks and hard drives frequently have weights added to them

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Only in cheap chinese shit. Don't buy cheap chinese shit. Heavy stuff is heavy because transformers and huge MOSFETs are pricey.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why? What's the benefit of adding weights? Surely smaller and lighter is better?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

People think weight = quality.

Sometimes it can indicate something is better made, like something made with lots of plastic vs more metal. In a PSU you need lots of metal for the windings, cores, and power stabilization components. It should have some heft to it.

Unscrupulous manufacturers will sometimes throw chunks of metal into an item (like Beats headphones) that do nothing except make a thing weigh more to prey on the sense that weight means better quality.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Feels more premium

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In certain devices (batteries and power supplies) there's a minimum weight that can realistically store or convert a specified amount of energy or power.

So if you buy a 1000w PSU and it's too light, you're going to know it is fake. So they add the weight to make it feel right for the power rating. In this case this is a double-whammy of a failure waiting to happen. A PSU with a lower than advertised rating, coupled with a lack of safety circuitry means it's more likely to fail due to the overload applied, and when it fails it's more likely to go out in a big way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think they were asking about legitimate benefits of adding weights to consumer electronics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I could see it making sense in a hard drive to dampen vibrations but that’s a stretch

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

~~There legitimately aren't any, so no, I doubt they were asking that.~~ Derp, yes they were, context is important kids! Leaving the rest of my original answer, as it's accurate:

In some handhelds, you might see small counterweights added to make them easier to hold for long periods, or to stop them tipping over when in a table, but for internal components (like power supplies) there's never a need to add weights.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That's definitely what they meant, I don't know why you're so certain otherwise. Just because a question doesn't have an answer doesn't mean it wasn't asked.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I remember opening up Powmax power supplies and seeing hand soldering and trace tape everywhere

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

At least they grounded it)))