A couple of weeks ago I emailed various power supply companies that were listed in AMD's Athlon-approved power supply list. After getting a few responses of prices and shipping conditions I decided upon this unit from Leadman in Taiwan (www.leadman.com.tw). It seemed the best value, having 100+ watts more than most other approved supplies and being less expensive than most. It was only US$40, which was about A$65 but I had to pay for the telegraphic transfer and freight which pushed it up to around A$100. Unfortunately they don't accept credit cards but the unit was so cheap that even with the transfer fee it was still cheaper than other brands that accepted credit card orders. This price was when I ordered 2, getting just 1 would have been slightly more mostly due to the fact that the transfer fee was A$35 no matter how many I ordered.

UPDATE: The price has now changed. Check with Leadman's website for current pricing. Also, Eyo are planning to be the sole distributor in Australia by February 2000.

The other day I received 2 units, one for me, one for a friend (I tested both). The Leadman LP-6100 400 watt power supply is a standard-sized ATX 2.01 power supply, with two things that I haven't seen in a power supply for quite awhile. First is the monitor power output (yes I know a lot of ATX PSU's have them but I've never had one). The other is it has 2 ball bearing fans. The Macase 300 watt power supply is a fairly expensive power supply (A$100) and yet it only comes with a single sleeve bearing fan. So it's great to have two fans that will last a lot longer than usual. The second fan is attached externally to the side that faces the inside of the case, so it could become a space issue for running cables past it (it's fine on my Macase Sunrise medium tower). I think that if your case is that cramped you won't be getting enough airflow to cool this thing down anyway, so it's probably a good time to upgrade your case. The voltage selector is on the inside face of the supply, which is also good - removes the chance of curious kids or nasty LAN-party-goers switching it when you're not looking. It also has the standard hardware switch at the back on the outside. A lot of cheap ATX supplies with monitor power outs don't have the hardware power switch, so it's good to have both. As an aside, I discovered that the monitor power out doesn't switch off with a soft power-off, only the hardware switch at the back deactivates it. This is perhaps the reason why many ATX supply manufacturers don't bother with monitor power outs. It's still good for saving a power board socket at LAN parties though. There are 6 internal power connectors (plus 2 fdd power connectors), which is two more than I'm used to. Probably most 400+ watt power supplies have more than 4 connectors. This is a godsend, because finally I don't have to do any juggling to get everything plugged in. I run one cable to my DVD, burner and floppy, one to my two hard drives, and the last to my fans (all 4 of them including passthrus), leaving one connector spare. When I only had 4 connectors I had to figure out which connectors would reach where, and after finding the one which would best reach the fans, add a double adapter before attaching it so that I could attach my last device. It was quite messy.

I took the computer apart and swapped the old power supply for the new one. There was a slight snag, literally, on my PC's case. Both fans have a grille that is screwed on, rather than being slots cut into the PSU's casing. This caused the rear fan to stick out a bit from its case, and it interfered slightly with the rear of the computer case. There are some fins surrounding the edge of the hole of the PSU enclosure, and I had to bend a few of these slightly out of the way to make way for the grill. It wouldn't sit completely flush with the case from light manual pressure, but moderate tightening of the 4 mounting screws pulled it neatly into place.

I booted up and the first thing I noticed was that MBM reported Fan 3 (one of my CPU fans) as being under-speed. I had the warning set to about 150rpm lower than the nominal amount for all three fans, and upon checking the voltages I noticed that the 12 volt line was slightly lower than the old power supply's. It ran between 11.31 and 11.49, whereas my old one ran at about 11.7. This isn't a major concern because the Athlon only needs the 3.3 and 5 volt lines to run stably. The 5 volt line was exactly 5.00 (Macase was 4.93 typically) and the 3.3 line is 3.39 (about 3.35 for the Macase). The second supply gets slightly more on the 12 volt line (11.49-11.61) and 5 volt line (5.05), with the rest being around the same.

Here are the stats on the power supply as listed on the box, they are slightly different to the ones listed on the web site. I am inclined to believe the ones on the box because according to the web site, the 400 watt version is identical to the 300 watt version apart from being able to draw 5 more amps from the 5 volt line and 20(!) more from the 3.3 volt line. What is listed on the box seems to be more of a graded increase from 235 to 400 watts on the +5 and +12 volt lines, and no difference on the 3.3 volt line.

Summary:

I can't really fault the unit apart from the slightly lower than average +12 volt line, but it could be that my old Macase had a slightly higher than average 12 volt line. Either way I've not seen a power supply that actually has a full 12 volts on the +12 volt line. Even if you don't have an Athlon, this is a good power supply to get if your old one has bitten the dust.

Pros: AMD-approved for Athlon use Good voltage on +5 volt and +3.3 lines (essential for Athlon) Price (US$40 direct from Leadman) 2 noise reducing ball bearing fans Power enough for almost anything (400 watts) 6 power connectors Has both hardware switch and monitor power out (many ATX supplies only have either, not both) Hardware voltage selector on the internal side of the supply Relatively easy to import with speedy postage (credit card orders could have made it easier and cheaper) Click here to discuss this article in the forums!

Cons: Potentially lower than average 12 volt line Potential installation difficulties due to grille on rear fan and space occupied by front fan Not available locally in Australia, requires telegraphic transfer to Leadman's bank account (A$35 from my bank (Colonial / State) - probably varies) Rating: 9/10 Get it from www.leadman.com.tw! If you found this interesting, you may like: Building a Stable Athlon System: Part 1 and Part 2 and ASUS K7M (Athlon) Motherboard Review