Easy, Inexpensive, & "Realistic" PSU Testing

jedihobbit

Greetings y'all! Looking for suggestions for a decent methodology for testing power supplies that covers most if not all of the "important" stuff. I've tripped across some interesting units with nice specs that I would like to "punish" to see if they are "worth it". However not wanting to purchase aftermarket testing equipment.

First thing that comes to mind is that OCCT I believe offers a PSU testing section, but have never used it. Any others out there that will stress and allow for current measurement?

PirateNinja

Back in the day when I worked in a shop we just used a hardware tester that had LED indicators. It's a binary test, but our purpose wasn't to benchmark it was to replace or not replace. It sounds like you want to stress test or benchmark, I think the best way to do that is with a cpu/gpu intensive benchmark.

My understanding was that most software based tools don't provide reliable data when it comes to power supply info because the are basing the results on readouts from sensors on the parts drawing the voltage. I of course could be wrong.

What is your overall goal? Do you just wan a recommendation on a good PS? Are you looking for a solid one for consistent system builds?

drasnor

The CoolerMaster PSU calculator will tell you what kind of load a given configuration will put on a power supply. This is usually lower than what you might expect but is helpful when selecting a PSU for your system. If you're trying to test a PSU though, you need some way to load it up and measure the voltage and ripple. Software solutions on your computer can only measure voltage since motherboard hardware monitoring doesn't include current sensing. Even if it did, it wouldn't be representative of overall load since not everything gets power from the motherboard. Dedicated hardware is really the way to go here.

Real PSU testers are expensive because they have precision calibrated variable loads. All you really need though is some sort of resistive load that can handle the power you're putting through it. Since any power supply you're going to want to test is going to have a power rating comparable to an oven you can use math to determine an appropriate length of a given gauge of resistance heater wire for your loads. Just keep in mind they will get red hot during testing. A decent digital multimeter can be used in DC Voltage mode to give you the rail voltages and in AC voltage mode to measure the ripple voltage (if the meter is sensitive enough.) Otherwise you need an oscilloscope for that.