This thread has come full circle a few times... My observations are as follows:But there is a specification. Someone designed the PSU, and the OPP is supposed to do something, even if it isn't an industry standard.
The specification is just not public, and may differ from brands, but it is there. In any case, the GN test seems fairly straight-forward and not tainted.
1. Everyone agrees the GM series PSUs are not ones that we want in our systems (whether you trust NewEgg reviews, or have read actual reviews of the unit's performance under load)
2. People seem to equate criticism of the OPP test to calling the power supply good when that is not the case.
3. The main issue with the OPP test appears to focus on borking power supplies by creating their own arbitrary test case. (to "figure out" why there have been so many DOA reviews on NewEgg)
4. The PR response from implicated parties leaves much to be desired.
I'm still not convinced they've thought that all the way through. They are not experts in electrical safety, but they're going to make an assertion to their readers about the safety of the power supplies that they review without having industry defined specs to test against, without testing a statistically valid sample of units and probably without disclosing what they're doing to their worker's comp carrier.I like they are extending testing to include Short Circuit Protection (which I think is very straightforward and very critical for a PSU to protect against), Over Power Protection and so on.
So, given those points - if they do short circuit protection on one unit, declare it works fine, someone relies on that who then has their house burn down due to a unit they bought because of the review, the reviewer would likely lose a negligence case for not putting enough work into the assertion (even though such work is not cost effective for the reviewer).
Safety is a high liability thing to opine to - while it IS important to know that a power supply is safe, I'm not sure it's something that's appropriate to be in scope for reviews like these (which have a goal of determining whether a unit meets a standard and/or what the label on the box says it can do). Of course, most people in this thread will likely disagree with that scope, but does it really make you feel any safer to have a sample of one unit not go boom when tested?