Preview: Topower SilentEZ 350W – modular low-end @HWI

[Jon Gerow]

Powerbird aimed for highend. It at least had SR.

[Philipus II]

There can a difference between features and technology. Topower might have had some good ideas for features, but the performance and life expectancy of their PSU generally was rather poor.

[Behemot]

Even Hermeis plus chloroprene glue with those temperatures could not work long, of course, that is my main concern about the unit.

[Behemot]

Review's up. As stated, the temperatures are extreme, no wonder they were dropping as flies. And those PCIe cables, that must be a joke

Though they managed to get 10ms HUT even with that 120uF C(r)apXon

[green-K-]

I actually pulled one of these things out of the PC from a friend of a friend a few weeks ago. Not sure what revision this is, but I'm gonna share this anyways. It just went dead and took the mainboard with it. Or vice versa.

Bear in mind that I only have a phone cam and that this thing was filled with dust which probably didnt really help with the lifetime, also I only did a halfass job to remove it since I didn't wanna waste too much time on this pile of electronic waste.



It was manufactured November 2009 - and the glossy finish loves scratches



This one uses a Young Lin Tech DFS122512L fan. Can't access their website but according to a listing it's rated at ~1350rpm@20dBA. The good old Scythe Kama PWM and Scythe Silent fans have similar model numbers, maybe they're from the same OEM.





Take note of the FAN2 marking, this platform was probably designed back in the days of dual 8cm fans.



It seems like the OEM is Huizhou Xinhuiyuan Tech. This model is only listed on their english web site, but without any information. On their chinese page only "more recent" PSUs are listed (I couldn't access that site without an online proxy, thats why I took a screenshot)





The secondary caps were completely covered in hairs and dust, the cables probably didn't help, too. Both these and the main cap are made by Taiwanese 12Kuang Jin. (main cap is rated at 150uf/450V)



...

[Stefan Payne]

@green-K-
That one isn't a topower but XHY one. I have two (still) working ones of that make, one with a good protection IC like you have and one with a shitty 8pin one...

And both are labeled 500W but cables and the rest suggest more like something in the 350W range...

But hey good to see that none of those caps are bulged or bloated

€dit:
Hm, pretty close, did that PCB move from Topower to XHY??

[GI_Joe]

Topower back then was the go-to brand for 80+% of models in the market by Retail brands. Rest was FSP & Enhance CWT models.
They were always crap but always keen on bringing new features. (They had to for their many customers for differentiation)
We were in constant battle churning out features against them. Their PMs kept me awake :-)
Their best was the SATA-PATA adaptors. Their lowest their Galaxy-try before we shipped and what we did to them/Tagan via Christophs Galaxy/PCP&C/Tagan 1kW review.
Their +5Vsb was labeled 2.5A, had components labeled for 1.5A inside and those blew up at 0.8A + how we let it die in the heat chamber. Unforgettable how that AC In number went through the roof.
Seconds after Christoph's review was up, Vincent called Steven and demanded my head :-) Steven just asked me to not hit them so hard again and I said no need, they are dead and that day, with Tagan's image Topower's died :-) Vincent tried later via Nvidia ESA to get back into the premium market again, but told me later that he lost so much money on that project alone and over the years just let Tagan die. His team was so frustrated about that.

[Jon Gerow]

I do miss Ken. Nice guy. I hope he's doing well. Of course, Johnny died of a heart attack. That was sad. We'd jokingly call him the "Taiwanese Johnny (with an "h") Guru. Rick, the U.S. rep, is now a realtor down in L.A.

[GI_Joe]

Johnny was funny.
Back in Hamburg, once a month Vincent, Joey and Dr. T came by to trash talk. Joey later joined E in Taiwan and we started working on the Impervio-integration.