CaseBuy EZ Power Supply Tester 2

Published on August 21, 2005
Written by Michael Larabel
Page 3 of 3
Discuss This Article

Performance:

Like our testing of the original CaseBuy EZ Power Supply Tester, we first used a power supply that we knew for a fact was in working order, which happened to be the Thermaltake PurePower 460W ATX 12V 2.0. We connected the 24-pin motherboard connector, and presto, all of the appropriate LEDs immediately turned on. We proceeded to check the molex connector with its 5V and 12V lines, as well as the 8-pin connector with its 12V rail, followed by the floppy, hard drive, and SATA power connectors.


Next, we plugged in a SilverStone 400W unit we believed was faulty. As we had expected, only the +5VSB LED had lit up for the 24-pin connector while nothing had lit up for the additional connectors.

As with the original model, the EZ Power Supply Tester continues to get quite warm after its been in use for sometime so watch out for that as well as possibly causing damage to the power supply itself. When we had the CaseBuy USB Vacuum Cleaner earlier in the year, we destructed the entire unit in the article to get a better understanding for its suffice performance and we ended up finding some fairly poor solder joints, masking tape construction, and a 220 µF capacitor to provide the power boost. As with the USB Vacuum Cleaner, once testing had wrapped up, we disassembled the EZ Power Supply Tester 2. Similar to the warranty technique used on power supplies, covering the single screw hole for the unit is the part/serial number sticker. Once we removed that we were into disassembling the entire unit by breaking off the covers on both ends. Below is what we found inside.


Unlike the construction of the USB Vacuum Cleaner, the construction of the CaseBuy EZ Power Supply Tester 2 wasn't as questionable. However, examining the tester's PCB revealed that its real model number is YE-PST-II. With the YE-PST-II model printed on the circuit board, along with "Young Year" and its respective logo, the actual OEM of the unit is indeed Young Year Electronics. Nevertheless, the PCB was well laid out and for reference its revision B1. Another item we're able to see is the 3.3V buzzer, which "chirps" once a power supply is connected to the unit.

Conclusion:

As we had stated in the original CaseBuy EZ Power Supply Tester review "time spent with the CaseBuy EZ Power Supply Tester was well spent" the same holds true for the EZ Power Supply Tester 2. These simple additions of a 24-pin motherboard, SATA power, as well as a 8-pin P4 and 6-pin power connectors make it a worthy product for testing any recent power supply unit. Although the device doesn't indicate in anyway how far off the rails are from their theoretical voltages, which still can be costly when it comes to the stability of the system, it at least specifies the rail is indeed active rather than giving a single LED for the status of an entire connector. Another one of the nice additions to the EZ Power Supply Tester 2 was the blue anodized metal rather than simply the plain brushed metal appearance of the original unit. Overall, the EZ Power Supply Tester 2 is another handy pocket-sided unit from CaseBuy to quickly and easily test the status of a PC power supply.

Discuss this article in our forums, IRC channel, or email the author. You can also follow our content via RSS and on social networks like Facebook, Identi.ca, and Twitter (@Phoronix and @MichaelLarabel). Subscribe to Phoronix Premium to view our content without advertisements, view entire articles on a single page, and experience other benefits.


Phoronix Product Rating: 8 / 10

3
Next Page >>
Latest Hardware Reviews
  1. Sumo Lounge Emperor
  2. Gallium3D Continues Improving OpenGL For Older Radeon GPUs
  3. 15-Way Open vs. Closed Source NVIDIA/AMD Linux GPU Comparison
  4. Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Linux Comparison Shows Shortcomings
Latest Software Articles
  1. Intel Linux OpenGL Driver Leading Over Apple OS X
  2. The Cost Of Ubuntu Disk Encryption
  3. Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. XFS vs. F2FS On Linux 3.10
  4. AMD Radeon R600 GPU LLVM 3.3 Back-End Testing
Latest Linux News
  1. KDE 4.11 Will Be The Last Major KDE4 Workspaces Feature Release
  2. New NVIDIA Linux Driver Supports The GeForce GTX 780
  3. Chrome 28 To Offer More Speed Improvements
  4. Digia Announces "Boot To Qt" Project
  5. X.Org Libraries Hit By Round Of Security Issues
  6. Wayland's Weston Gets Output Scaling Support
  7. Raspberry Pi Gets New Wayland Weston Renderer
  8. Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 Release Brings New Packages
  9. Intel Ultrabook Performance Is Faster With Mesa 9.2
  10. Hot Relocation HDD To SSD Support For Btrfs
  11. Phoronix Test Suite 4.6.0 "Utsira" Released
Latest Forum Talk
  1. Digia Announces "Boot To Qt" Project
  2. Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 Release Brings New Packages
  3. KDE 4.11 Will Be The Last Major KDE4 Workspaces...
  4. Raspberry Pi Gets New Wayland Weston Renderer
  5. X.Org Libraries Hit By Round Of Security Issues
  6. Chrome 27 Loads Web Pages Faster
  1. Computers
  2. Display Drivers
  3. Graphics Cards
  4. Motherboards
  5. Peripherals
  6. Processors
  7. Software
  8. Operating Systems
  9. All Articles
  1. Linux Benchmarking
  2. OpenBenchmarking.org
  3. Phoronix Test Suite