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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2006-10-25 at 00:34 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:
From the computer point of view: how many people just buy a box at a shop with a prepackaged $15 power supply and then merrily run their computer for hours? Does the PSU regulate the voltage sufficiently to provide the safety needed for such a delicate and complex bit of equipment?
They should, but they might not. When I design a psu for my use, the safety margins are as big as I can, although there are limits on the overvoltage the transformer can handle without burning. When a manufacturer designs a PSU with price in mind... the margins may be much narrower, down to the "legal" limit. In theory, if the overvoltage is too big to handle, they should just switch off, but they might not have that protection; in that case, they should die on the post, while on duty. Then again, that self destruction should not destroy the electronics downstream, but that, again, might not happen. Me, I don't design for such an overvoltage, I'm afraid: mine would die. It simply should not happen, so we don't design for it normally. In case of undervoltage... I'm not sure what would happen with switched-mode power supplies used by computers. In the best case the output voltage would go down, or maybe it wouldn't cope with the current needed. And... ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFPlpUtTMYHG2NR9URAvtuAJ9s6lv1Rt7eRn9U6JxHiknSzMC0bQCfYBDi nn29RG7qMCbffU5o6TTsnPs= =ZepQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----