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Protection Features
Check out our PSUs 101 article to learn more about PSU protection features.
Protection Features | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
OCP (Cold @ 23°C) | 12V: 170A (151.11%), 11.913V 5V: 30.1A (125.42%), 5.014V 3.3V: 30.3A (126.25%), 3.357V 5VSB: 5.5A (183.33%), 4.937V |
OCP (Hot @ 39°C) | 12V: 168A (149.33%), 11.926V 5V: 30.1A (125.42%), 5.015V 3.3V: 30.2A (125.83%), 3.361V 5VSB: 5.4A (180%), 4.938V |
OPP (Cold @ 29°C) | 1893.27W (140.24%) |
OPP (Hot @ 43°C) | 1710.23W (126.68%) |
OTP | ✓ (171°C @ 12V Heat Sink) |
SCP | 12V to Earth: ✓ 5V to Earth: ✓ 3.3V to Earth: ✓ 5VSB to Earth: ✓ -12V to Earth: ✓ |
PWR_OK | Proper operation |
NLO | ✓ |
SIP | Surge: MOV Inrush: NTC Thermistor & Bypass relay |
The 12V rail has high OCP triggering points, and the same goes for OPP. The good thing is that the PSU shuts down at a notably lower load under hot conditions. There is also a difference between OCP and OPP triggering points, and this is because, during OPP, we increase the load on all rails simultaneously, while during OCP, we increase the load on a single rail while the load on the other rails remains stable.
DC Power Sequencing
According to Intel’s most recent Power Supply Design Guide (revision 1.4), the +12V and 5V outputs must be equal to or greater than the 3.3V rail at all times. Unfortunately, Intel doesn't mention why it is so important to always keep the 3.3V rail's voltage lower than the levels of the other two outputs.
No problems here since the 3.3V rail is always lower than the other two.
Cross Load Tests
To generate the following charts, we set our loaders to auto mode through custom-made software before trying more than 25,000 possible load combinations with the +12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails.
The deviations in each of the charts below are calculated by taking the nominal values of the rails (12V, 5V, and 3.3V) as point zero. The ambient temperature during testing was between 30 to 32 degrees Celsius (86 to 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Load Regulation Charts
Efficiency Graph
Ripple Graphs
The lower the power supply's ripple, the more stable the system will be and less stress will also be applied to its components.
Infrared Images
We apply a half-load for 10 minutes with the PSU's top cover and cooling fan removed before taking photos with a modified Fluke Ti480 PRO camera able to deliver an IR resolution of 640x480 (307,200 pixels).
A small ceramic cap right next to one of the bulk caps looks to get quite hot. The temperatures on the rest parts are kept in control.
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Current page: Protection Features, DC Power Sequencing, Cross-Load Tests and Infrared Images
Prev Page Load Regulation, Hold-Up Time, Inrush & Leakage Current, Efficiency and Noise Next Page Transient Response Tests, Timing Tests, Ripple Measurements and EMC Pre-Compliance TestingAris Mpitziopoulos is a contributing editor at Tom's Hardware, covering PSUs.
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