Sinrace Power Supply Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.

Since the power supply found on the PC have five different outputs (+12 V, +5 V, + 5 VSB, +3.3 V and –12 V) you would need to connect five multimeters to the power supply at the same time, and publications using this methodology usually use only one, measuring the outputs in different moments in time, making the results

worthless, since they were taken in different moments, with different conditions (load,temperature, etc). Even if you connected five multimeters, you would need to read them at the same time. We don’t know any human being able to read five instruments at the same time and write down the values at the same time. Even if you are really fast, you will take some seconds to make this measurement. As we already mentioned, things inside the PC power supply happens in microseconds, so seconds make a huge difference.

One way to use the above methodology correctly is by using a device to grab the value of all five outputs at the same time, like a digital data collector. The problem is that we would measure the voltages, which, once again, mean nothing. One way to make a correct power supply test using this approach is by measuring the current (and not the voltage) of the five outputs at the same time using a data collector, if you add a correct load to the power supply. In fact, this methodology is the one suggested by one engineer at Intel and can work out if you have the right equipment.