Request: EZ-Cool and Q-tec units

[Agent]

Hi guys

Does anyone have an old / dead PSU from these lying about? I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head saying that these 2 may be the same company. I want to rip them to bits to find out.

Secondly - I am fed up of seeing these PSUs being sold at ratings, that quite simply can not be achieved....and I want to take action. Partly because I don't like company's making money on lies, partly because I am tired of seeing newbies to computers be taken in by these.

I want to use this thread for ideas on how we can take some action.

Can anyone with a EZ-Cool (We won't take the mickey ) tell me what certifications it has? CE Mark (I hope so )? UL certification? any others?

As these units clearly won't give out their rated wattage, I'm trying to think of routes that could be taken? Would reporting these to trading standards be useless? After all, in the UK your contract is with the retailer.

Lets brainstorm

[TAKTAK]

/me wonders whether this offer is still open...

BTW if you really want to fry an EZCool on cam there is no need to buy one, I can donate an old one and lets crank it up to see what it will take

but it would be very interesting to see what it can do

(did HEXUS not do an article on lots 'o PSU's or is that very old?)

edit: aah, was back in 05... wonder if anything has changed...
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359

[Agent]

Yup, bet loads has changed
I would love to see another round up!

Guessing that offer is a bit too old now, can hope though

[Webby]

Don't the cheap PSUs state peak wattage, so you can run 500W for 3.5 seconds at absolute zero before you melt something important but for continuous output you can have 12W or something equally stupid.

What concerns me is why reputable retailers even sell these parts they are not up to the job in most cases and certainly not the advertised wattages, do they even comply with the ATX specifications for ripple etc?

[Agent]

Many can't even reach their "peak wattage" though
I'm more interested on the amps that they claim to be able to deliver on the different rails....I think this is where we may have cause for concern / complaint.

[Hicks12]

i have an old Q-tec 500w but its going strong so cant take the thing apart, want me to check the rails on it? or something else?.

[Karl The Gimp]

my EZ-Cool 550W is still going after a year or so, I knew it wasnt up 2 much when i got it for my spare pc which is ..
AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3600+ Dual Core @ 2.0GHz
ASUS M2N-E SLI
2GB RAM
XFX Nvidia 7600 GS
500GB Samsung Sata HDD
The pc runs 12-16 hours a day, I must be one of the lucky ones!

[Jay]

http://forums.hexus.net/help-technic...o-steping.html

These PSUs can not output what they claim but this is because there is no official way to rate PSUs.

My spare PSU is a Tagan 480W... PSUs should never be purchased on the cheap

[watercooled]

Do we have any tests completed yet? Hexus appears high in Google searches, so with an appropriate thread title, I'm sure some people would stumble across it.

[Agent]

Nope. No one has had any units that they want to give up.

I may just buy 2 when I have the cash spare.

[pepsi_max2k]

Just looked in to EZCool today, and a) they're highly over rated (many models barely making half their stated wattage) and b) they're produced by Solytech. get an FSP instead.

the guru knows all:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4924
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3519



oh and my psu's a tagan 480w too jonny hates em but... meh

[TAKTAK]

Agent, Why not get alot of people to chip in a little money?

Surely it's better for 20 people to give £2, than 1 person to give £40?

[alsenior]

i have an old q-tec unit here it has the ce that's it

You can have it for postage.

[watercooled]

I'd be willing to chip in a few quid
Not sure how though - don't have paypal.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wish Scan stopped selling the EZ-Cool PSUs as part of their bundles!! It really does give the wrong message out to inexperienced computer builders!! However the two 400w units my friends have used are still working though!! Luckily for the last build I did I managed to persuade my mate to use a Silverpower 400w instead!! Definitely a much nicer unit for only a few quid more!!

[switchmode]

I have a couple of ez-cool that I replaced the capacitors in for piece of mind they run older Athlon systems OK a long while ago, not heavy use though. One untouched you can have post free if you need it.
just PM me. I have put my faith in Corsair PSUs because of the japanese capacitors they use a lot and I leave the others to trust, that they are good also that they use, capacitors that is. You can guess what I think is the week spot in the components