Quick Question On Power

[JMack986]

hi as the uk and usa have different mains power voltage if i bought a uk power fan and run on UK voltage, if i then bought american parts would this mean that the pc would not work when i try to start it up and bit would not work. i mean like to put the parts from the uk like memory and a usa bought motherboard or something like this or graphic or anything does that mean i would have to only buy uk parts because of the power voltage going in?

i wanting to start buying part i just need to check this first

hope u can help

JMack986

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Just flick the 115/230 VAC button on the back of your power supply and you'll be good-to-go.

 

[Steeeeve]

As an accountant I don't claim to know electronics that well but I believe the above poster is correct. The PSU is converting AC power to DC power...the amount of power used by your parts (in terms of Volts) is standard and has nothing to do with the power out of the wall. Just flip the switch on the PSU and you are good to go...as was said

If you get a chance to go to China, be sure to pick up some cheap computer parts and bring them back

 

[madmat]

Don't listen to these guys unless you're planning to bring your PC to the states...It sounds to me, though, like you're planning to buy parts from a stateside supplier and have them shipped across the pond. If that's the case, then, yes the parts will work fine. The mobo gets 5v, 3,3v and 12v from the PSU, all PSUs put out these voltages no matter what the mains voltages are going into them.

The only time you want to mess with the mains voltage switch is if you're traveling to either the US or Canada where the voltage from the mains is 115V rather than 220V. Flipping the switch with 220V on the mains to the 115V setting will result in letting the magic smoke out of the PSU for certain and possibly the rest of your gear as well.

Just bear in mind that if you buy parts from one country and use them in another that should you ever need to RMA those parts they will have to be RMA'd to the country of origin. I've seen this happen with guys that built PCs stateside then took them with them to a military posting overseas only to have a part fail. They ended up either shipping the part back to have it returned for them by a loved one here or buying new parts overseas since the arm of the company where they were located flat out refused to honor the warranty on what was essentially a grey-market part. In fact a fellow I know from the UK bought a part there in the UK that originated from a Canadian supplier (he had no idea of this as it was a local shop he was buying from) and the part died on him (IIRC it was a 9800 Pro) and when he tried to RMA the part he found out it wasn't a part that was supposed to be sold in the UK and that it had come from a Canadian distributer and ATI UK refused to honor the warranty. I know I'm rambling but my point is you might want to be aware of the can of worms you're opening by purchasing parts slated for sale in countries other than the one you're in.

 

[Steeeeve]

Don't listen to us? You said the exact same things we did...

 

[madmat]

No, you guys told him "flip the switch" He's in the UK, his switch is on 220V so doing that will blow his shit up.

So, long story short, do not listen to that...

 

[davidhammock200]

As "Active PFC" is required by law in the UK, there may not even be a 115/230 switch,
as they are not required in top of the line PSU's with active PFC.

 

[masher]

No, you guys told him "flip the switch" He's in the UK, his switch is on 220V...

FYI, the U.K. electric standard is 230V +10% -6%. Or anywhere from 216-253v.

 

[madmat]

FYI, the U.K. electric standard is 230V +10% -6%. Or anywhere from 216-253v.

Ok, his switch is on 230V, semantics, semantics...the point is that the UK standard is roughly 200% of the US standard voltage wise (which FYI is 120v although it runs anywhere from 110V to 125V but it's generally labled as 115V which is a generalization) so "flipping the switch" is still a very bad idea.

I worked in an aircraft paint shop for a while stripping and sanding planes and for some stupid reason they had wired 220 to a standard 110 outlet and one of the guys I worked with plugged his boombox into the outlet even though it was clearly labled 220V and while it did work for about 5 minutes he did manage to burn it up rather nicely.

As to the PFC comment, there are scores of PSUs sold stateside that feature active PFC so the suppliers could be sending the same units to both the UK and the US with different cables for the mains and with the switches on 230 rather than 115. Companies try to save as much money as they possibly can and offering one product to work in multiple locations tends to be cheaper than making two separate products for two locations.

I haven't figured out why all the PSU makers haven't jumped onboard with active PFC for the world market though...