Diablotek PHD650 650W Power Supply Review @ [H]

kahm said:
My Engineer friend went to a trade show in China where a vendor had a stack of identical power supplies, and a selection of stickers with different power ratings on them. When you ordered power supplies from them you also specified which sticker you wanted stuck to them.
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That was shown at a couple of different tech sites. Here's an Ultra 750 which is just a 550 with a newer sticker on top. http://hothardware.com/cs/forums/t/42089.aspx
 
This Diablotek unit makes that 1050 Watt unit which killed JG's power meter look positively good. Which is frightening.
 
"With a current price of ~$49.99, users would be better off taking their cash and setting it on fire rather than buying this unit."

No, really. What an ambiguous statement. How do you really feel? ;)
 
Zap said:
Yup. I know this because I personally contributed part of the money to purchase the unit for review because I was curious, and of course Diablotek probably doesn't send them out for review (how did HardOCP get theirs?).
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The same way we get a lot of units, we bought them at retail.
 
Zap said:
Yup. I know this because I personally contributed part of the money to purchase the unit for review because I was curious, and of course Diablotek probably doesn't send them out for review (how did HardOCP get theirs?).
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Very good question...

Loved the article though, keep it up!!!
 
After carefully examining the output side of the PCB, I realized they might have just removed the components(transistor Q601) for fan control! LOL

It's indeed a cheapo lowish 300W unit.
 
Oh man, this is such a great review. I laughed until I cried while reading it.

Quotes are from the review, presumably from Paul Johnson
Let's move on and see what happens when we actually hook this power supply up to the SM8800 load tester, which honestly is something I look forward to, but Kyle does not since he had to pay to fix the $5000 load tester when crappy PSUs help me blow it up.
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Yes, but its so entertaining to see reviews of PSU's like this!
Kyle, we appreciate you keeping the tester in repair. Your site is one of the very very few that do quality PSU reviews that aren't crap like "we put a multimeter on the output and it looked good".
And this PSU would have passed that kind of test!

the unit out-sucked itself
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Wow, is that even possible? LOL, this is one of the lines where I laughed until I cried.

Skip_ray said:
Hehe I was wondering how this brand did :D now I know! And what the heck? Register your product within 30 days or no warranty for you? Lame!
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There's other companies that do this. Some graphics card company got me with that, was it XFX? something like that.

txmale4969 said:
not trying to get off topic but are you guys gonna look at anymore ultra x psu's thats pretty much all compusas stores push nowadays.........well they push more ultra products then they do corsair,seasonic.
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Tiger direct runs cusa now and most of them are gone. I think they are mostly in florida now?

Elledan said:
So what do you do with the sucky units? Use them for parts? Throw them away? Target practice? :)
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Man that would be fun to see!
 
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wish I saw this earlier, i got a 350W diablotek unit for a budget build for a buddy to read emails and browse the web, it was like $17 at microcenter. Good thing it hasn't fried anything yet.
 
Elledan said:
So what do you do with the sucky units? Use them for parts? Throw them away? Target practice? :)
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They are generally sent to an electronics recycler here in town.

TravisCHEN said:
After carefully examining the output side of the PCB, I realized they might have just removed the components(transistor Q601) for fan control! LOL

It's indeed a cheapo lowish 300W unit.
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Speaking of Travis, any chance you know (or can find) the address for the fan manufacturers website?
 
I really, REALLY appreciated the fact that you followed the tests to the end as best you even though you knew from first inspection that it was a steaming pile of crap. I honestly didn't want to read it, but couldn't look away...Sort of like the first few episodes of American Idol every season!

Anyhow, you've inspired me; I'm going to go sell my Seasonic X750 on craigslist as a 2300W 80 Plus PLATINUM rated shake weight.
 
Thanks for the review almost bought a psu from the same company. Looks like their shat is cheap in quality.
 
With the PHD650, Diablotek seemingly tried to polish a turd with a turd and as such we got the expected outcome, a pile of crap.
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Pretty much what I was already expecting. I was honestly surprised this brand was even reviewed.

First time I walked into Micro Center and saw these on the shelf I said to myself "What the fuck is that shit?"

I am happy to say though that I was witness to a certain Micro Center employee (that visits this site) tell a customer to "Put that back, you don't want that." :)
 
StillFunkyB said:
I am happy to say though that I was witness to a certain Micro Center employee (that visits this site) tell a customer to "Put that back, you don't want that." :)
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Now that just brings a tear to my eye :)
 
Elledan said:
It's sad when B&M shops like around here basically only carry such crappy PSUs. Here in the Netherlands the big electronics stores only carry junk like Sweex PSUs, which sell for a respectable amount, but proudly display a lack of transient filter on the PSU photo, as well as excessive ripple in the power table.

Definite uh-oh moment. I was tempted to slap some store employees silly with these piles of crap, although maybe I should take it up with the managers who decide on what to carry in the stores instead :)
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If its a chain (like frys, microcenter, best buy, etc), its not the manager of that store that has anything to do with it. Its corporate. And they make the decision based on things like how much markup they can get away with. Like those belkin USB cables that sell for $30 in the store and you can buy similar on the net for $2 including shipping? They actually get around 1000% markup on things like that. Someone I knew worked at a computer store chain and looked up the store cost on some of those things.

Anyway, if corporate are buying those things from the cheapest bidder, they can do a huge markup. And even total crap PSU's like this will still work ok for the average joe. He's not going to do SLI, and he's not likely to be stressing it out with high wattage equipment, he's gonna be replacing a burned out PSU in his home computer and probably not going to need more than 200 watts. So they aren't going to get much return rate. If it burns out the guys computer in 2 years from low quality protection and crappy DC, he's not likely to blame it on the PSU (as long as there wasn't any fire), and the computer is out of warranty. So he's gonna buy another one from best buy, and besides it was probably getting full of viruses from surfing porn and slowing down. There's HUGE numbers of people who say "my computer is getting slow and I need a new one" and then go out and buy a new one when the only problem is that its full of trojans/spyware/malware/viruses.
In fact, chains like best buy probably BENEFIT from increased computer sales to people who need them after buying PSU's like this, as long as it doesn't blow the computer right away.

People with a clue generally buy better quality PSU stuff (usually online) than this rock bottom crap, and so don't generally buy total crap PSUs at local places unless its an emergency.

Oh and the reason stores carry things like ipods (which have very LOW margin of profit for retail stores usually only a few bucks which is why its rare to see brands like apple go on sale)? To get people in the store and sell them accessories, since thats where they make the money. They'd stop carrying that stuff in a heartbeat if they could, but they know people would just go to the competitor to get it (and the accessories).

Anyway, if enough people complained to corporate with snail mail letters and phone calls and returns maybe something would be done. Unfortunately most people are a bit apathetic (for instance, I doubt I'll complain to a store that I seldom visit about a product I'd NEVER buy).
 
Anyone up for starting a TV campaign or so against bad PSUs? :D
 
Had a friend who had one of there PS and blew only the PS blew thank goodness! but all of the sudden the room smelled of burning plastic POP and it was done ... put in a antec and drove on ... maybe they have changed and gotten better ... who knows ...
 
I just like seeing the reviews where something goes pop. With Diablotek, Athena Power, "Xtreme" anything, it has to be pretty easy to find one.
 
I've got one of these in what was my video capture box. I built it as cheap as possible using spare parts (minus the case which was still a pretty good deal). Cheapest microATX board that wasn't really, really badly reviewed. I stuck a Diablotek "350w" PSU in it I got on Amazon for $24 or so.

That said, my Shuttle K45 motherboard died and now it is serving as my media server (including the primary copy of my family photos).

I'm going to look into replacing it ASAP after this review. I'm probably overloading it with a passively cooled Radeon HD3450, 2x HDDs, and a C2D e2150. I doubt I'm pulling much in the way of wattage (I ran a setup like this minus the video card on my 100w Shuttle K45) but better not chance it. :D :eek:

Honestly I was in a low-money situation when I bought my Kingwin 520w for my main box which johnnyguru has reviewed as mediocre. I bought it in May 2007...but it hasn't given me any trouble, even when I had an x1950xtx on it..but 520w has always been a bit of overkill.
 
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Doesn't a product this bad deserve a unique award? I think so!

I was thinking of a shiny turd trophy or something, but I am not that good at digital art, so:



[H] should have an exclusive award that is given to only the worst products.
 
I think that the usual 'FAIL' is already a pretty bad thing to happen to a PSU. It basically says that anyone should avoid it at any cost :)

Though a 'Top 5 of worst PSUs of <insert year>' would be pretty amusing :D
 
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