Can high voltage from power supply damage harddrive?

[Arno]

True. Which is why fools buy computers assembled by the
electrically naive. Which is why fools buy supplies only on dollars
and watts. Why so many buy 500 watt supplies that are electrically
equivalent to a 350 watt supply in a brand name computer.

The informed computer assembler knows what many required power
supply functions are so that computers are never damaged by the
supply. And so that the load never damages a supply. Some examples of
what so many Certified A+ computer techs never learn:
Acoustics noise 25.8dBA typical at 70w, 30cm
Short circuit protection on all outputs
Over voltage protection
Over power protection
100% hi-pot test
100% burn in, high temperature cycled on/off
PFC harmonics compliance: EN61000-3-2 + A1 + A2
EMI/RFI compliance: CE, CISPR22 & FCC part 15 class B
Safety compliance: VDE, TUV, D, N, S, Fi, UL, C-UL & CB
Hold up time, full load: 16ms. typical
Dielectric withstand, input to frame/ground: 1800VAC, 1sec.
Dielectric withstand, input to output: 1800VAC, 1sec.
Ripple/noise: 1%
MTBF, full load @ 25?C amb.: >100k hrs

Power supplies that would cause disk drive failure are typically
missing these and many other functions. Power supplies even 40 years
ago were not damaged by the load. All power supplies from the
monster sized to single chip supplies were not damaged by the load
even 40 years ago. It was industry standard even that long ago.

Supply failure is traceable to a computer assembler without
electrical knowledge. Who buys a supply only on dollars and watts. A
problem becoming severe in North America. Basic electrical knowledge
has become so minimal that 60% of new Silicon Valley employees come
from India or China. Finding enough Americans with basic electrical
knowledge has become that difficult.

The load must never damage a supply. And a supply must never damage
its load (ie disk drive). Overloading must never damage a supply.
But does when the supply is missing essential functions - when sold on
price, When the consumer does always demand technical specs.

Your point? Damanding the world be different is very ineffective
as a problem solvong strategy....

Arno

 

[Arno]

On 8/31/2010 6:49 AM PT, Arno typed:

Great. So what are good brand of these days that isn't so pricey these
days for home users?

You get what you pay for. I cannot really recommend
any manufaturer except Enermax. It seems they are
also the only ones that do design and manufacturing
all in-house.

Hmm, prices vary a lot on
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...der=BESTMATCH&Description=Enermax+psu&x=0&y=0
... I hope I don't need 900 watts any time soon. Yes, I have lots of
hardwares and play computer games (those darn video cards [even single
card] suck a lot!).

Hehe, no, you are unlike to need 900W unless you have
3-4 graphics cards or two very, very power hungry ones.

[/QUOTE]

I have a video card that also has a tv output. I think I can turn the
tv output off except on the rare occasions I use it.

Do you think it would use less power if it were off? More than a
watt?

I ask because during the really hot weather, 95+, my cpu and sometimes
my mobo get very hot and I even may have to turn off the computer.

Also, the video card seems to be failing. About 4 times in the last 3
months the picture has been illegible, full of specks, with a pink
ghost image of the text, and I've had to turn the computer off for
that too.

Do you think turning off the tv output make a difference?

Very inlikely in practice. I would advide you to get
better airflow in the case.

(Every extra browser tab raises the temp a little, although closing
Eudora doesn't seem to make a difference.)

Forget about that. No relevant influence.

Arno

 

[Arno]

On 8/30/2010 12:56 PM PT, Arno typed:

According to my notes: 4/24/2005 -- Replaced the dead Enlight 240
watts PSU in Debian/Athlon XP box with an old PSU (Enlight
EN-8341934; Model: HPC-340-101; 340 watts) I kept in my closet
from previous machines. I guess the last PSU was too old? I don't
remember if Enlight PSUs were good back then. :/

Never heard of them. That suggests one of the following: ElCheapo,
memory loss on my side, or lack of knowledge on my side ;-)
Age is a factor though.


Hopefully, my current 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU (since 6/2006 --
awesome so far -- might get another one as my future PSU brand) and

Seasonic is MID-Range and should be fine as it has a lot
mior power than needed here.

Cool. I might get another SeaSonic PSU for my future PSUs. That is
assuming they are still good. 2/2006 is over four years ago.

Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX Power Supply (BP500U) [started making fan
noises and I only had it since 1/23/2010 -- ugh!]).

Antec is prettied-up ElCheapo with a high price tag. I had
one server-grade EPS from them fail. Opened it and it turned
out to be an insufficiently cooled component, in a configuration
that I can only call either "incompetent" or "designed to fail".
The thing was running at about 40% permenant load and about 80%
load on startup (lots of disks). In addition the overall
impression was that of very cheap build design and component
selection.

I will not buy Antec again.

Great. So what are good brand of these days that isn't so pricey
these days for home users?

You get what you pay for. I cannot really recommend
any manufaturer except Enermax. It seems they are
also the only ones that do design and manufacturing
all in-house.

Arno

That is a completely silly claim.

And why would that be?

Arno

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

It is possible, but it requires a) the PSU regulator failing into
overvoltage and b) no output-overvoltage protection. Both failing
is very rare, hovever cheap PSUs often come without the protection
circuitry. Reason: Price. Let me give you an idea (say 400W):

- ElCheapo : $20
- Mid-range : $80
- Enermax with all protection: $120
- Industrial with 10 year lifetime: $300-$500

Now, at the lower end, using cheaper components alone does not cut
it anymore, you have to use a lot less components. That means
cutting out protection circuirty, using cheaper, less reliable
regulators, cheaper transformers with lower insulation rating,
etc.. Also your ElCheapo 400W unit is more likely a 250-300W unit,
while a 400W Enermax is more likely 500-700W.

According to JonnyGuru.com, which tests lots of power supplies,
Enermax is good, but so are many other brands, and in 400W size,
quality brands can often be bought for $30-60.

What's the difference between a retail Enermax and something like a
Seasonic, Fortron-Source, Enhance, Channel Well, or Delta? Most seem
to use the same standard controller and protection chips and have
transformers, chokes, and filter capacitors of comparable size. Even
the cheapest PSUs contain protection for overvoltage and overcurrent,
but I haven't seen crowbar protection in any ATX PC PSU. Some newer
high-power PSUs use only high-quality capacitors, including but not
just Enermax, but my old 350W was full of PCE-TUR caps from CEC
Industries.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Hopefully, my current 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU (since 6/2006 --
awesome so far -- might get another one as my future PSU brand) and
Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX Power Supply (BP500U) [started making fan
noises and I only had it since 1/23/2010 -- ugh!]).

If that Basiq 500W was made by Fortron-Source, it's probably full of
CapXon brand capacitors that should be replaced. 8 of them are
1000uF, 16V, and 2 are 2200uF, 6.3V, all 8mm diameter, but I think
there's room for fatter 10mm ones. Newer Basiqs are by Delta.

Lots of Seasonics use OST brand caps that are also not the best.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Never heard of them. That suggests one of the following: ElCheapo,
memory loss on my side, or lack of knowledge on my side ;-)
Age is a factor though.

Enlight used several suppliers, and that was a Sirtec (High Power),
which made a wide range of quality.

Hopefully, my current 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU (since 6/2006 --
awesome so far -- might get another one as my future PSU brand) and

Seasonic is MID-Range and should be fine as it has a lot
mior power than needed here.

Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX Power Supply (BP500U) [started making fan
noises and I only had it since 1/23/2010 -- ugh!]).

Antec is prettied-up ElCheapo with a high price tag. I had
one server-grade EPS from them fail. Opened it and it turned
out to be an insufficiently cooled component, in a configuration
that I can only call either "incompetent" or "designed to fail".
The thing was running at about 40% permenant load and about 80%
load on startup (lots of disks). In addition the overall
impression was that of very cheap build design and component
selection.

I will not buy Antec again.

Antec has used several suppliers. The original SmartPowers and
TruePowers were by Channel Well Technology, but then the company
switched to Seasonic, Fortron-Source (original Basiqs), Delta,
Enhance, and again Channel Well, and I never paid more than $20 for
one (including the replacement capacitors), sometimes with a case.
The older Channel Wells were good until their horrible Fuhjyyu brand
capacitors failed.

 

[Simon Brown]

On 8/30/2010 12:56 PM PT, Arno typed:

According to my notes: 4/24/2005 -- Replaced the dead Enlight 240
watts PSU in Debian/Athlon XP box with an old PSU (Enlight
EN-8341934; Model: HPC-340-101; 340 watts) I kept in my closet
from previous machines. I guess the last PSU was too old? I don't
remember if Enlight PSUs were good back then. :/

Never heard of them. That suggests one of the following: ElCheapo,
memory loss on my side, or lack of knowledge on my side ;-)
Age is a factor though.




Hopefully, my current 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU (since 6/2006 --
awesome so far -- might get another one as my future PSU brand)
and

Seasonic is MID-Range and should be fine as it has a lot
mior power than needed here.

Cool. I might get another SeaSonic PSU for my future PSUs. That is
assuming they are still good. 2/2006 is over four years ago.


Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX Power Supply (BP500U) [started making
fan noises and I only had it since 1/23/2010 -- ugh!]).

Antec is prettied-up ElCheapo with a high price tag. I had
one server-grade EPS from them fail. Opened it and it turned
out to be an insufficiently cooled component, in a configuration
that I can only call either "incompetent" or "designed to fail".
The thing was running at about 40% permenant load and about 80%
load on startup (lots of disks). In addition the overall
impression was that of very cheap build design and component
selection.

I will not buy Antec again.

Great. So what are good brand of these days that isn't so pricey
these days for home users?

You get what you pay for. I cannot really recommend
any manufaturer except Enermax. It seems they are
also the only ones that do design and manufacturing
all in-house.

Arno

That is a completely silly claim.

And why would that be?

Its completely silly to claim that they are the only ones that do design and manufacturing all in house.

 

[Arno]

Arno wrote:
On 8/30/2010 12:56 PM PT, Arno typed:

According to my notes: 4/24/2005 -- Replaced the dead Enlight 240
watts PSU in Debian/Athlon XP box with an old PSU (Enlight
EN-8341934; Model: HPC-340-101; 340 watts) I kept in my closet
from previous machines. I guess the last PSU was too old? I don't
remember if Enlight PSUs were good back then. :/

Never heard of them. That suggests one of the following: ElCheapo,
memory loss on my side, or lack of knowledge on my side ;-)
Age is a factor though.




Hopefully, my current 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU (since 6/2006 --
awesome so far -- might get another one as my future PSU brand)
and

Seasonic is MID-Range and should be fine as it has a lot
mior power than needed here.

Cool. I might get another SeaSonic PSU for my future PSUs. That is
assuming they are still good. 2/2006 is over four years ago.


Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX Power Supply (BP500U) [started making
fan noises and I only had it since 1/23/2010 -- ugh!]).

Antec is prettied-up ElCheapo with a high price tag. I had
one server-grade EPS from them fail. Opened it and it turned
out to be an insufficiently cooled component, in a configuration
that I can only call either "incompetent" or "designed to fail".
The thing was running at about 40% permenant load and about 80%
load on startup (lots of disks). In addition the overall
impression was that of very cheap build design and component
selection.

I will not buy Antec again.

Great. So what are good brand of these days that isn't so pricey
these days for home users?

You get what you pay for. I cannot really recommend
any manufaturer except Enermax. It seems they are
also the only ones that do design and manufacturing
all in-house.

Arno

That is a completely silly claim.

And why would that be?

Its completely silly to claim that they are the only ones that
do design and manufacturing all in house.

Incidentially, they are. Give me one other manufacturer that
does it.

Arno

 

[Simon Brown]

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Simon Brown <[email protected]>
wrote:
Arno wrote:
On 8/30/2010 12:56 PM PT, Arno typed:

According to my notes: 4/24/2005 -- Replaced the dead Enlight
240 watts PSU in Debian/Athlon XP box with an old PSU (Enlight
EN-8341934; Model: HPC-340-101; 340 watts) I kept in my closet
from previous machines. I guess the last PSU was too old? I
don't remember if Enlight PSUs were good back then. :/

Never heard of them. That suggests one of the following:
ElCheapo, memory loss on my side, or lack of knowledge on my
side ;-)
Age is a factor though.




Hopefully, my current 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU (since 6/2006
-- awesome so far -- might get another one as my future PSU
brand) and

Seasonic is MID-Range and should be fine as it has a lot
mior power than needed here.

Cool. I might get another SeaSonic PSU for my future PSUs. That
is assuming they are still good. 2/2006 is over four years ago.



Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX Power Supply (BP500U) [started making
fan noises and I only had it since 1/23/2010 -- ugh!]).

Antec is prettied-up ElCheapo with a high price tag. I had
one server-grade EPS from them fail. Opened it and it turned
out to be an insufficiently cooled component, in a configuration
that I can only call either "incompetent" or "designed to fail".
The thing was running at about 40% permenant load and about 80%
load on startup (lots of disks). In addition the overall
impression was that of very cheap build design and component
selection.

I will not buy Antec again.

Great. So what are good brand of these days that isn't so pricey
these days for home users?

You get what you pay for. I cannot really recommend
any manufaturer except Enermax. It seems they are
also the only ones that do design and manufacturing
all in-house.

Arno

That is a completely silly claim.

And why would that be?

Its completely silly to claim that they are the only ones that
do design and manufacturing all in house.

Incidentially, they are.
Nope.

Give me one other manufacturer that does it.

 

[Rod Speed]

Ant wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Or maybe he uses those browser and Flash that uses video acceleration like Chrome, Flash v10.1(?), etc.

Even if he does, he wont see any measurable effect going between say 60 and 61 tabs.

Is the web browser hogging CPU?

Likely it is if its firefox and 70 tabs.

Some sites seem to hog CPU if I have too many tabs open like http://neatorama.com

Yeah, a few that I use do too. I find it hard to believe that all 70 of his do tho.

(yes, I do open like 30+ tabs at once).

Sure, I do too, but not 70.

I guess it might be possible with say stock trading and an individual tab for each
stock, all using the same site that does use a lot of cpu resources for each tab,
but even then, I find it VERY hard to believe that that would produce a measurable
increase in the temperature between say 70 and 71 tabs.

 

[mm]

mm wrote


With what browser ?

FireFox 3.6.8
I thought it would only be really hot for a week, like most years, or
I might have rushed to pick out a new furnace/ac.

Fark, why do you have so many ?

I'll do a google search for a harddrive, then open 3 or 4 of the
resultes in separate tabs; do an ebay seach and open 3 or 4; look up
a news story or a person or something historical and open up 4 or 5
pages related to each of them, etc.

I don't close the pages until I buy one of the things in the open
pages or buy something else instead. Don't close the news or personal
story pages until I discuss them with a friend.

In fall, winter and spring this works fine, but in this really hot
summer it's been a problem. (Also my computer is vulnerable because
a problem with my oil furnace left soot on things that had
electrostatic attraction. I vacuumed much of it off with a 4 amp
vacuum, and lowered the operating temp by 10 to 20 degrees, but I want
to vacuum again with a 7 amp vac.

I find it VERY hard to believe that with
say 60 tabs open, you can actually see a temperature rise with 61 open.

I could have been more clear. It's not that I can actually identify a
different temp. But it's that with 20 tabs open ASUS Probe will start
beeping. And with 10 tabs open it won't.

Today, as if in answer to your question, was an unusually specific
situtation. It started off cool today, only 80 degrees at noon, but
by 3:30 it was in the mid 90's. Firefox had been open for two hours,
with about 40 or 50 tabs just sitting there, filled in, but when
someone on the phone asked me a question and I opened one more tab,
Asus Probe started beeping.

I turned off my sound** and after 3 more tabs it was 166F, and I read
quickly, and then closed FF altogether, and the temp dropped down to
154.

**I've gotten some but not a lot of feedback about what temps are
actually going to ruin my CPU. I think I have the Probe program set
to beep at a much lower temp than that, so once in a while I let it go
higher. The worst time was the first time I knew it was
overheatign, when the programs wouldn't work right, but I didn't have
anything to measure the temp then, so I don't know how hot it was.
But even that didnt' seem to damage anything once it cooled off.

That last is nothing like the first claim.

Maybe so.

Firefox can be rather resource hungry.

Recommendations perhaps?

 

[Rod Speed]

mm wrote

FireFox 3.6.8

I thought it would only be really hot for a week, like most
years, or I might have rushed to pick out a new furnace/ac.

I'll do a google search for a harddrive, then open 3 or 4 of the
resultes in separate tabs; do an ebay seach and open 3 or 4;
look up a news story or a person or something historical and
open up 4 or 5 pages related to each of them, etc.

I do it like that too, but dont get to 60 or 70.

I don't close the pages until I buy one of the things in the open
pages or buy something else instead. Don't close the news
or personal story pages until I discuss them with a friend.

In fall, winter and spring this works fine, but in this really hot
summer it's been a problem. (Also my computer is vulnerable
because a problem with my oil furnace left soot on things that
had electrostatic attraction. I vacuumed much of it off with a
4 amp vacuum, and lowered the operating temp by 10 to 20
degrees, but I want to vacuum again with a 7 amp vac.

That last wont be making any real difference, its just hot weather.

I could have been more clear. It's not that I can actually identify
a different temp. But it's that with 20 tabs open ASUS Probe
will start beeping. And with 10 tabs open it won't.

Yeah, that makes much more sense.

Today, as if in answer to your question, was an unusually
specific situtation. It started off cool today, only 80
degrees at noon, but by 3:30 it was in the mid 90's.

We can go for 10 days over 100.

Firefox had been open for two hours, with about 40 or 50
tabs just sitting there, filled in, but when someone on the
phone asked me a question and I opened one more tab,
Asus Probe started beeping.

I turned off my sound** and after 3 more tabs it was 166F, and I read
quickly, and then closed FF altogether, and the temp dropped down to 154.

**I've gotten some but not a lot of feedback about what temps are
actually going to ruin my CPU. I think I have the Probe program set
to beep at a much lower temp than that, so once in a while I let it go
higher. The worst time was the first time I knew it was
overheatign, when the programs wouldn't work right, but I didn't have
anything to measure the temp then, so I don't know how hot it was.
But even that didnt' seem to damage anything once it cooled off.

Which cpu ?

Maybe so.

Certainly so now that you said it more clearly above in this post.

Recommendations perhaps?

I still use IE most of the time myself.

I dont have an overheating problem at all. I use a swamp cooler and like it
warmer than most. I dont usually turn the cooler on until its over 85 in the room.

 

[David Brown]

Ant wrote


Even if he does, he wont see any measurable effect going between say 60 and 61 tabs.



Likely it is if its firefox and 70 tabs.

It should be a pretty simple matter to start task manager and see if
firefox (or anything else) is using CPU power.

Unless you are talking about sites with active javascript running, or
lots of flash, then tabs don't take cpu power once the page is loaded
and rendered. They take up memory, of course, but not processing power.
(flashblock is /very/ useful here.)

Yeah, a few that I use do too. I find it hard to believe that all 70 of his do tho.


Sure, I do too, but not 70.

I guess it might be possible with say stock trading and an individual tab for each
stock, all using the same site that does use a lot of cpu resources for each tab,
but even then, I find it VERY hard to believe that that would produce a measurable
increase in the temperature between say 70 and 71 tabs.

I have firefox open all the time, and I can easily have a lot more than
70 tabs open at a time. I regularly have several projects that are
under active development at work, and for any given project I might have
two or three firefox windows with lots of tabs open - manual pages,
links to resources, google searches, etc. It's a lot easier just to
keep the tabs open while they might still be useful, than to close them
and find them again.

But I can't imagine why multiple tabs would take cpu power and therefore
increase the temperature of the system. Perhaps the tabs are all
showing "hot" movies?

 

[David Brown]

On Wed, 1 Sep 2010 07:20:21 +1000, "Rod Speed"


Recommendations perhaps?

Have you done some basic checking with (at least) task manager to see
how much processor power and memory firefox is using?


Firefox takes a fair amount of memory, but so does any browser with a
lot of tabs open. Older versions were worse, and also leaked memory,
which is where it got its reputation for being resource hungry. But all
browsers use a lot of memory, with varying amounts for different types
of content. You will probably find that Opera uses least resources for
large numbers of tabs, but there is not much difference.

The trick that will make a /huge/ difference to browser memory, as well
as cpu power, browser speed, and ease of use, is to install flashblock
to cut out flash except when you specifically want to see something. I
also recommend adblock plus to remove most adverts. This gets rid of
the flashing, blinking, beeping boxes around the web pages so that it
takes no processing power.

 

[Rod Speed]

David Brown wrote

Rod Speed wrote

It should be a pretty simple matter to start task manager and see if firefox (or anything else) is using CPU power.

Bet it is.

Unless you are talking about sites with active javascript running, or
lots of flash, then tabs don't take cpu power once the page is loaded
and rendered. They take up memory, of course, but not processing
power. (flashblock is /very/ useful here.)

Its more complicated than that.

I have firefox open all the time, and I can easily have a lot more
than 70 tabs open at a time. I regularly have several projects that
are under active development at work, and for any given project I
might have two or three firefox windows with lots of tabs open -
manual pages, links to resources, google searches, etc. It's a lot
easier just to keep the tabs open while they might still be useful,
than to close them and find them again.

But I can't imagine why multiple tabs would take cpu power and therefore increase the temperature of the system.
Perhaps the tabs are all showing "hot" movies?

He has since says what he is doing.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

So far for theory. In practice ElCheapo designers could not care
less what Intel demands and the typical cheap PSU (and some more
expensive ones) will not survive a short circuit and may even
die when operated at 100% load for more than a few minutes.

Plus, I don't really think a short-circuit is the appropriate failure
mode to be discussing here, since a short-circuit is too much power
going through a circuit, whereas I was talking about too little power
going through.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Rod Speed]

Yousuf Khan wrote

Arno wrote

Plus, I don't really think a short-circuit is the appropriate failure
mode to be discussing here, since a short-circuit is too much power
going through a circuit, whereas I was talking about too little power
going through.

Not necessarily. Some badly designed power supplys can die rather
spectacularly when they are overloaded, taking out the over voltage
protection on the drive. The regulation basically fails, delivering the
maxium voltage the supply can produce on the rails.

 

[Arno]

Plus, I don't really think a short-circuit is the appropriate failure
mode to be discussing here, since a short-circuit is too much power
going through a circuit, whereas I was talking about too little power
going through.

Well, yes. But since it is a normal start-up and power-down
situation, there is almost no circuit that can be damaged by too
little power. In fact, it is pretty difficult (but possible) to
design such a ciruit in the in the first place.

So, no. The only thing in a PC that can cause hardware damage (but
will not get damaged itselv) with too low voltages is active cooling.

HDDs in particular will not spin with too low voltages and thereby
will avoid motor damage. A too slow spin would indeed damage
a modern FDB over a relatively short time. Incidentially, a HDD
will also spin-down immediately if it does not mamage to bring the
spindle up to speed in a very short time.

Arno