Bought a cheap power supply tester for $25 and it cost me a whole motherboard

Used it on a client's gaming rig last week. Said the 12V rail was fine but it was actually dropping under load. Fried a $300 board before I figured it out. Never trusting those little box testers again. What do you guys use to check PSUs for real?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy97417d ago

My old $15 tester said my PSU was fine too...

ray_miller8416d ago

Yeah, "said the 12V rail was fine" is the problem. Those cheap testers just show a voltage with no real load on it. It's like checking if a car runs by just turning on the radio. I use a real load tester now, the kind that actually pulls some amps. It was more money, but way cheaper than buying another motherboard for a client.

lunaf6717d ago

So you just use a multimeter now? That's scary, @amy974, makes me wonder how many of those testers are lying.