Crappy ATX analysis and repair

[@albinklein7680]

Wasting time for nonsense is a bit like the essence of life for intelligent creatures.

[@zeendaniels5809]

Amen to that...

[@anonymoususer6448]

The cat would say: "He loves fixing ATX PSUs so much, that he even fixes one that is not broken" Love the video and way things are presented... as always

[@Lucius4992]

Sometimes you get lucky. When I was still a kid, my mom arrived one day with a small bag of junk and gave it to me, despite the odds of repairing it being non-existent. There was an ATX psu with blew up fuse, missing the fan and screws. I just replaced the fuse and added a fan and screws. It worked and I built my first ATX pc out of it. I still have the PSU and it still works. That was over 15 years ago.

[@techtechnicalgaming]

Woah, when was that psu made?

[@DrFiero]

I always like fixing things that aren't worth fixing just for the learning factor! If I totally break it, nothing lost! If it works... I learned something.

[@guateque1718]

I do the same. I'm always surprised by the little details that can only be learned by practice.

[@michaelcalvin42]

Even if you break it, you probably learned something. It's always a valuable experience, one way or the other.

[@DrFiero]

@@michaelcalvin42 - and considering it was probably broken to start with... it's hard to break it more! :D

[@therealjammit]

Lol. I fix things that are worthless, get them working, and then ask myself what am I going to do with all this junk now?

[@James_Ryan]

So the next job is to fix the ESR meter? ;)

[@jstro-hobbytech]

man, i was thinking the exact same thing. i wanted to take mine apart to see what could go wrong but i loaned it to someone and never got it back so i bought an overpriced lcr meter i rarely use. aquiring gear is for the birds man. i gave most of mine away recently and kept the essentials. i want a spectrum analyzer but cant justify 2500cad so i bought a new guitar instead. it's the siglent that you can hack to dual boot into a vna as well and raise the bandwidth to like 6ghz. i priced some of the probes for it and was like nope. i have a rigol mso3534 im trying to sell with the logic probes but i cant get a bite. i want a micsig so i can fix shorts in cars and be more mobile. i had one in my passenger door and they wanted 900 for labor just to reattach a frayed wire for the power window. i told them to stuff it and took the fuse out and fixed it myself in an afternoon. sorry for rambling man.

[@sahriarjihan220]

if you are a indian then **** you

[@BritishEngineer]

@@jstro-hobbytechjust a ton of SMT.

[@1pcfred]

@@jstro-hobbytech constantly wanting new electronics gear is a drag. I've been there myself.

[@rasungod0]

Those yellow MESR meters have a main board designed to have the banana jacks mounted to the circuit board. Yet they are sold with the jacks only attached by wires. You can move them to the board to eliminate that one ohm resistance. though then they are a bit further back inside the case.

[@MlokKarel]

Not only time is scarce now, compared to being a student - what I lack even more is energy and motivation, nowadays 😭

[@sergepetrov8598]

Same thing for me. But we do many cool things we could not dream of when being students.

[@omniyambot9876]

I'm a student now, what are the things you wish you have done when you still have energy? I waste a lot of money on my Electronics experiments, half of them can kill me.

[@rosewhite2135]

Definitely can identify with, and agree with that! Sixty seven years old in just a couple of months, and finding the motivation even to make a cup of coffee in the morning is like asking me to climb a ladder to the moon.

[@BritishEngineer]

18 year old electrical and electronics engineering student who has been interested in electronics since age 6 - defo have zero time or energy left in a society like this lmao

[@erikziak1249]

For me it is motivation. I have the time and energy, but lack motivation. I am 43.

[@robertpucovsky]

Thank you for showing us the troubleshooting steps for these types of power supplies. I'd like to learn how to do component troubleshooting one day and your channel greatly helps

[@TheSpotify95]

I can see why this was scrapped even from the offset. That 12V rail is rated at 15A, which is only 180W. Since the CPU/Graphics/HDD/SSDs runs on mostly 12V, that's 180W for the main components of a system, which really isn't much.

[@1marcelfilms]

Enough power for 1 cpu and 1 hdd. And thats it.

[@pvc988]

@@1marcelfilms About right for office machine used mostly for Word and Solitaire.

[@JamesBrown-ux9ds]

They scrapped the whole desktop pc and the copper of the cables had been the most valuable remains?

[@tw11tube]

SSDs generally do not run on +12V, but on +5V only. Also, in the days before the P4, CPU and Graphics was usually supplied from +5V and/or +3.3V. I don't think the supply can do 15A @ 3.3V and 20A @ 5V at the same time (although you likely need to add 50W at 3.3 and 100W at 5 to the 180W at 12V to get the overinflated 350W figure), still was this is enough for a Pentium III computer with ~600MHz, a Riva TNT2 graphics cards, one or even two hard drives, a CD recorder and a DVD drive. The "Word and Solitaire" machines mentioned in this thread had supplies around 150-180W. With the switch to "regulate everything from +12V", most prominently driven by the (for that time) extremely power hungry Pentium 4 processor, this supply got obsolete. The marking "For PIV" (for Pentium 4) may have helped selling that device in 2011 to unsuspecting customers, but that doesn't make the design apt for 12V-heavy systems. The only way you could sell a device like this in 2011 was via its price. Which explains why all the interference suppression stuff is missing.

[@ricardoferreira2811]

DiodeGoneWild: why dont you try to fix the MESR-100 device?

[@Conservator.]

1:30 The double suppression inductor, the capacitors and the discharging resistor are omitted for extra safety. (What’s not in there cannot burn;)

[@simontay4851]

No, they were omitted to save a couple of $. Makes no difference to the safety.

[@Conservator.]

@@simontay4851 My comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously 😉

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

Also, if they're not there, it's harder for the assembly worker to put them in incorrectly.

[@barrymayson2492]

They usually send a fully loaded PSU to get it approved by the country's standards and testing department. Once that's done they ship out the reduced cost ones. The parts missing are usually noise reduction. I don't use anything that has been reduced like this as a radio ham because of the noise . Branded power PSUs are usually much better they cost more but they are safer and reduced noise. I must admit I wasn't sure about the joke 😂 but you have a very sharp wit.

[@tvelektron]

Would be interesting to do some measurements about EMV. How bad is it realy if almost all components for suppression are missing...

[@electronixTech]

After over 25 years of building my own computers I always bought the best quality power supply I could afford. In the long run that has paid off.

[@Fluxkompressor]

I was hoping for a schematic on the saturable inductor part. Never heard about that kind of circuity

[@DiodeGoneWild]

The internet is full of atx schematics ;)

[@KeritechElectronics]

Oh damn, reminds me of Codegen and Megabajt, maybe early Modecom Feel. Cheap as it gets, there's almost nothing there, and they even skimped on the mains RF filter though the board has provisions for it. I took so much of that crap apart back in 2000s... a prime source of IEC C14 panel-mount connectors.

[@amirebrahimieftekhari6876]

Awesome 👌 please try to repair the esr meter

[@robjordan63]

Thinking outside the box 🙂

[@JamesBrown-ux9ds]

Nice success - thank you for taking us!

[@Hasitier]

Next video: repair of your ESR meter?

[@jstro-hobbytech]

Another banger vid. What did you take at school dan? Watching your channel has made me obsessed with smps design and taught me a ton and made me go deeper into the math.

[@DiodeGoneWild]

Thank you for your support! At school? Economics, statistics, information systems ... completely unrelated :).

[@jstro-hobbytech]

@@DiodeGoneWild that's hilarious dany. i was the same and hated it so i changed my major to software engineering data mining algorithms. was back in the 90's before google and whatnot. we didnt even have text books. i mustve learned 20 friggen languages and different legacy and up to then modern backend databases. some you had to create using cobol, pascal, then pl/sql. all my electives were math and programming. by far the worst one was java, when it first came out. running only in applet form before javascript took over website design. i hated front-end stuff, i wish i still had some of my projects, i ported a few nintendo games to pc and wrote a few original ones using direct3d back before programable shaders. i cant draw worth a crap so everything was procedural flat shaded polygons. i remember the nightmare of directx 4 or 5 i think it was. just creating a surface was pain in the dick and the pcs were pentium 90's or something and i had an amd 333 rig at home so stuff wouldnt run on pentium 2 processors alot because of the mmx instruction set. my guitar broke halfway through the second year so i sold my pc to buy a new one and went a year using a 386 writing my code in notepad and compiling it at school. you couldnt get a compsci degree there because you had to finish your last 2 years like 500km away so i settled with that stupid sounding degree. i never used it professionally though, i was offered a good job too as a junior 3d physics systems programmer with the canadian coast guard but i was addicted to my girlfriend at the time and just having fun coding and didnt want to move. i ended up becoming a 911 supervisor. i started coding again when i retired after 15 years there. i may go back to school as i have 2 years worth of credits for compsci or ee and might be moving for a few years. we have a local engineering technology program at the community college but I know more than they do. the final project for them is making a heart monitor. it's a group project too, 2 opamps and some resistors. imagine ehh. i can go there for free though so i may take the mechanical engineering program and put more time into cad modelling. im writing a record right now with a buddy though and plan to release it on my channel. it's a concept technical jazz/metal thing. my buddy is a voice actor so he can sing. i'd like to have something to show for the tens of thousands of hours of practicing scales and shit while im still in my mid 40's and can shred like a demon. gonna be posting some short horror films in the new year too, fan fiction stuff with original soundtrack. i've got a game engine framework written too but i need an artist. i want to do a graphic novel of the history of eastern canada from the time cabot landed until the halifax explosion. an interactive one. sell it for a buck a copy to tourists as my province is reliant on tourism. then i have an idea for metroidvania game based on real history of math and engineering and i could hire some people to help. it's the coolest idea ever man, i ramble alot but i dont tell people about it because i dont want someone else doing it haha. we get so many tourists here that people would eat up the graphic novel for like 2 beans on their phones. what's 2 dollars right. i've paid a girl to do some concept art but it's too bubbly like hello kitty so i wasted money. no one takes you seriously unless you show them some money, i'd want a piece of the backend after it was completed if it were me. that's what i offer. it's a six month project for 3 people putting in about 2 hours a day or so. every year it would start selling in the late spring until fall haha. we get something like 5 million people so even .01 percent of them paying 2 dollars or so would make a killing every year and they'd know something about what the fuck they're looking at or why there are so many ghost towns and shit. marconi lived like 40 minutes away from here and alexander grahm bell 40 minutes the other way haha. his family own a whole island and i've explored it and shit when i was younger. they still have all the old victorian houses there kept in original form. that's hard to do when you build shit out of wood and old iron nails and live next to a windy as fuck inland ocean. haha. or maybe i could just rob tourists like in your home town ehh hahaha. i kid, i seen a documentary once about it but it was greatly embelished. i plan to visit there in a few years, backpack and busk across Europe like a street person haha . i digress.

[@cthulhu_sebs]

Thanks, this is pretty informative for younger generation hobbyists cause not having access to older AT powersupply computers that much and finding good information source on internet nowadays is a pain

[@dieseltinus6680]

I'm amazed; no bulging capacitors!

[@SrWolf90]

NICON capacitors tend to be very durable, they are bad but not prone to swelling.

[@alphadog6970]

I have these in my old psu😅

[@andutei]

The base drive transformer has 1 turn in series with the main transformer primary and 2x 4 turns base outputs. This gives a proportional base current 1/4 of the collector current, matching the high current gain of the transistors (usually 13007 or 13009) which is 4. The control chip was usually a TL494 or clone (KA7500) and on newer ones an SG610x which had over and under-voltage protection included. I saw one without the magnetic regulator for 3.3V, it had a linear regulator from 5V with a mosfet and tl431😄 Toasty!

[@niemam5825]

0:43 - 0:48 - I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU !!! I was poor student too, now, ten years later I'm trying to start my own business.

[@Long0214]

Thank you Diode and little Diode

[@_PovertyLabs_]

A masterclass in ATX repair all noobs should watch this... Well done.

[@retrofitter]

I had one of these supplies. The orage polyester capacitor burnt up stinking up my room. I replaced the supply with a superflower unit. The ground/center tap from the transformer came out the top and was run though spagetti landed right at the ground pads of the wire bundles, which I though was a clever way to reduce PCB loss..

[@rasungod0]

I fixed my MESR meter by moving the jacks off the wires mounting them directly onto the board, and powering it from a lithium cell instead of two AA cells. The wires add resistance and there is a place on the board for the jacks, they are just mounted a bit further back. Also it likes the slightly higher voltage of a Lithium cell.

[@threeMetreJim]

They are still useful when you need a highish current supply at 12v for testing things that are meant to run in 12v vehicles. The protection is usually pretty good for not accidentally blowing them up when trying to test something that has a beefy 12v motor for example.

[@filenotfound__3871]

I would love to se an explanation and fix of a higher end power supply. They usually have a bit trickier faults.

[@ZugTheDragon]

Not nonsenses if you got satisfaction or knowledge from it, and you seem to have gotten both :) Great video as usual!

[@555-xd1fo]

In sometimes the problem is much simpler than your expectations

[@iamdarkyoshi]

At least you've got a nice project box with cooling, could build an audio amplifier in it :D

[@hempbear]

Well you got yourself a couple of nice heatsinks :D

[@pvc988]

Hey, Diode! Since you have repaired quite a lot of these PSUs, have you ever encountered matryoshka main filtering caps? I have and I couldn't believe my eyes. There were complet, smaller caps stuffed inside larger case. I've also seen PFC inductors with no windings, but just awire going through something that looked like an inductor. Some people even reported literal rocks stuffed inside fake PFC inductors to make the thing heavier without using any expensive metals like iron or steel.

[@DiodeGoneWild]

I've never encountered matryoshka main filtering caps, but I've never looked for them. I have a lot of ATX boards for parts, so maybe if I examined them, I could find some...

[@electronicwaves]

You are talking about this one, Fake Passive PFC coil: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5fIe6iapJiIpZo

[@AchhcityNoob]

Hey diode, i am ur fan for over 5 years and your videos are the most entertaining but put some more clips of kitty more

[@1pcfred]

Young proto diode would have loved to have had the tools and equipment you have now.

[@noneofyerbeeswax8194]

I love how you speak perfectly fluent English with a ghorrrible Czech accent. Please never change.😊 This PSU is really crap…

[@spica6605]

There's much more effective ways to waste time compared to learning how all sorts of powersupplies work, faultfinding, reverseengineering, basic understanding for the components, tinkering, soldering etc. during your studies. It propably elevated a lot of your skills.

[@jakewynn]

Is there a guide of what resistance/ESR you should expect when troubleshooting common components?

[@andrewprettyquick2070]

On my deathbed I'll only complain that Diode didn't make enough non-compliant power supply videos, especially USB ones.

[@janno288]

Hey Diodegonewild/Danyk Could you maybe do a Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil Series? You have done series on SGTC and SSTC how about making one for VTTCs? I've seen the ones on your Website and I love them

[@BitterCynical]

Solder joints breaking from drops explains why manufacturers like to use that silastic goo so much, probably minimizes warranty cases due to shipping damage.

[@kalashnikov_47z]

This type of videos i like to seee 🎉

[@tajtrlik1111]

Opäť ti musím (teda nemusím, ale chcem 😀) poďakovať za toto poučné video o činnosti spínaného zdroja pre PC-čka.

[@BrianG61UK]

OMG. Back when this was new, medium/long wave radio was still a thing. But you can forget about receiving it anywhere near such a PSU with no filter.

[@ceilingfanmusic6597]

I like vids like this. Yes the psu is really crappy quality and is better off being stripped for its transistors but repair videos like this are educational because in the field sometimes you have to repair even cheap crap. If i had to use this psu i would populate the emi filter and replace all the caps besides maby the big primary ones. I would then add a secondary 5v regulator to the sb5v rail so if for any reason that rail were to run away it wouldn't blow up the mb. Psu fact time!!! The bestec 250 12E power supplies also used the same stand by power supply tapology as this unit and because of the capacitor pleuge they often failed and killed anything connected to the 5v rail. The mb. Ram. Any preferals connected to the usb ports. Bestec later moved to the 25012Z moddle that used an IC for the 5vsb rail and had oc an ov protections.

[@sudipsaha3566]

Please review some modern ATX 3 or higher 1000W plus computer power supply

[@andrewprettyquick2070]

Not drinking hard cider, these are apple-based Molotovs :) **Are-apple based Molotovs**

[@dvsbangkaeedivisi9369]

nice work

[@rarbiart]

thank you for thinking out of the Box!

[@hafo821]

passive PFC is not just inductor, but it also has a capacitor inside, probably for resonance?

[@two_number_nines]

Wait, how exactly does that saturable inductor create 3.3V? If I've heard correctly there is still half a coil supplying half the wave with the full 5v coil voltage, so it should hit 5v on the 3.3v rail when unloaded

[@DiodeGoneWild]

There's a loading resistor on the 3.3V rail, so it never really runs with zero load. This resistor is the reason why the 3.3V rail double schottky is hard to test - it makes it appear shorted.

[@RicoElectrico]

Zasilacz z czarnej listy, zamykam temat i przenoszę do kosza.

[@pvc988]

Czekaj, gdzieś już to widziałem :)

[@alphadog6970]

Last week i opened my chinese 300w psu from 15 years ago. Most caps are dry, its still disassembled i hesitate should i order caps for it or not. And the 5vsb is shorted, I read online that this model also has tendencies to kill motherboards through this line , and i did have one motherboard changed back then with this psu. Later found out it was a MOSFET on it that shorted but still makes me wonder. Hopely atx-3008-sp is the model😅 Oh Danny i used your website for the schematic, it was similar enough to a powerman 250w psu.

[@ruimvp]

I scraped one good hdd because of a weak PS. Not enough power for the drive but PC was running. It was that cheap.

[@German_byte]

Thanks

[@simontay4851]

Can the primary high voltage BJT transistors be replaced with MOSFETS to improve efficiency? What changes would i need to do to the drive circuit?

[@noneofyerbeeswax8194]

Bad idea. This kind of PSUs are not worth improving. And if you’re asking such questions, perhaps, you shouldn’t be touching the primary side… yet. But to actually answer your question: At the very least, you would need to change the turn ratio of the BDT (base driver transformer) as to have 10-15V at the gates instead of the 2-3 that the current driver provides.

[@VVerVVurm]

I had just fixed one of these .. but mine was the luxury version with PFC and all the other missing parts. both main transistors where shot and the replacement ones ordered from amazon turned out to be fakes with wrong pinout..

[@TomboRectify]

One of the PC PSUs I took apart to solder thicker wires to just stopped doing anything but give the sub 5V. I haven't been able to make it do anything else since. What could be the issue?

[@j7ndominica051]

You can at least get a case fan out of these, which may cost 4 euros new. Buying a single capacitor in radio parts shop is a lot of money. For the big one they want about 7 euros. Somehow they now make very light powersupplies with not much in it, even from companies that used to be good like Fortron FSP. I don't know how they work, but they apparently convert 12 volts to 5 and 3 volts, and claim good efficiency.

[@hichamtassi1753]

What about the chip, does it have supervisor fonction in it ?

[@threeMetreJim]

The chip in these PSUs is normally a TL494 or equivalent.

[@oefzdegoeggl]

😄 pretty obvious, but I wouldn't have look at this as well. Fixing PSUs with cut wires is not a thing one usually does

[@andrewprettyquick2070]

PSU runaway. Bang after bang.

[@gergelysoki1705]

I have learnt more from your videos than in the school. Thank you for the effort making these videos

[@alcyhodzic8259]

What did you study? Electrical engineering?

[@DiodeGoneWild]

Economics, statistics, information systems. Completely unrelated :)

[@skminecrafthindi4487]

You are Russian

[@1marcelfilms]

Still has too many inductors. Remove them for more simplicity

[@simontay4851]

No it doesn't. You can never have too many inductors in a PSU. Add back the mains filter inductor and X2 capacitor and the PFC coil.

[@ЁбрагимИпатенкоибнАдхарма]

Interference supression inductor is not omitted, there are SPJ (Special Trained Jumpers) - uniqe chinese technology working on greed of resellers and ignorance of users😂 this is rofl of course

[@change_your_oil_regularly4287]

Yay!

[@adrian_sp6def]

no schematic this time?

[@piconano]

I steal the fans and chuck the rest.

[@salehneyestani7627]

I have an ATX, that 3.3v rail have about 2.5v. But when connecting any load to one of rails, 3.3v get well. What is the problem of this?! Any one can help me?

[@sergepetrov8598]

No one expected you would run PS without load. Run it with load.

[@salehneyestani7627]

@@sergepetrov8598 but it is unnormal, there is a problem. I can't trust that ATX

[@purgiaali]

wow

[@friedrichfreigeist3292]

Based

[@敗北王測試用頻道はいぼく]

1:26這裡證實來至🇨🇳的廉價 開關變壓器有多危險 居然省略重要的π型濾波電路

[@mehdikho]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@antibrevity]

No way could this sustain 350w for more than a few minutes. It's a barebones circuit with inadequate heat-sinking.

[@gordonwelcher9598]

I had one of these power supplies with no interference suppression. The interference was reaching every bench in the lab. I took it out and smashed it with my foot. I hurt my foot, should’ve used Widlar’s hammer instead.

[@Killerspieler0815]

as cheap as it can get (unless it´s build from literal junk parts = recycling)

[@joeshmoe7899]

Not applicable to intermittent faults.

[@webster0203]

So wasting time is worth it?

[@LaciDoszka]

It says "HAZADOUS" instead of "Hazardous". Another chinenglish?

[@CallumRepairs]

There's almost nothing in there. What a pitifully bad PSU!

[@Lightrunner.]

Meow......

[@Dc_tech386]

Very bad design

[@dexterperucho90]

I see Diodegonewild. I CLICKKK🤭