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The $9 PSU tester that lied to me for 6 months
Grabbed one of those cheap LED power supply testers off eBay back in March to check a dead build, and it kept showing all green lights so I blamed the motherboard. Turns out the tester was junk and my PSU was dropping voltage under load, which I only found after swapping in a buddy's multimeter. Anyone else had a cheap tool give you false confidence and cost you more time than it saved?
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nathanbennett15d ago
Three different YouTube reviewers I follow all did videos on those cheap testers last year, and every single one found the same thing. They basically only check if the rails are alive, not if they can actually hold voltage when the PSU is working hard. I remember one guy hooked up a power hungry GPU and watched the 12V line drop to 11.2 while the tester still showed green. It's like checking if a water pipe has water in it by looking at it, instead of turning on the tap. Your story is a good warning for anyone who thinks those little tools are a real diagnosis.
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