Everything You Need To Know About "THE POWER SUPPLY"- Power Supplies Explained

Power Supply Explained

What Is a Power Supply:

A large Box Behind Your Computer Cabinet That powers your Big hefty Rig So that you can watch Netflix or play Crysis seamlessly, Yes your power supply plays a major role in your everyday computing.

The most important and the most underrated component of a computer. This is an important part which supplies power to all of our components. The power supply converts a 110-115 or 220-230 volt AC (alternating current) into a steady low-voltage DC (direct current) usable by the computer and rated by the number of watts it generates. There is also a type of the power supply used in most of our Computers it is the SMPS (Switched Mode Power supply) is a power supply that uses a switching regulator to control and stabilize the output voltage by switching the load current on and off. These power supplies offer a greater power conversion and reduce the overall power loss. 

Working Of A Power Supply:

Almost The power supply is a converter, It includes the following electrical components that does that job.

• A rectifier that converts AC (alternating current) into DC.
• A filter that smooths out the DC (direct current) coming from a rectifier.
• A transformer that controls the incoming voltage by stepping it up or down.
• A voltage regulator that controls the DC output, allowing the correct amount of power, volts or watts, to be supplied to the computer hardware.

Here is A short flow chart to depict the working of a power supply,

Switched Mode Power Supply (SMPS):

This is the most common term we use to describe a power supply, Yes we all know it as an SMPS. The name itself says that it switches between power modes for a smooth and safe power output
They use switcher technology to convert the AC input to lower DC voltages. The typical voltages supplied are:

• 3.3 volts
• 5 volts
• 12 volts

The 3.3- and 5-volts are typically used by Integrated Circuits, Digital microcontrollers, Etc, while the 12-volt is used to run motors in disk drives and fans. The main specification of a power supply is mentioned in watts. A watt is the product of the voltage in volts and the current in amperes or amps

Watt = Voltage X Current, Yes almost everyone knows this formula. The switching power supplies used today are much smaller and lighter. They convert the 60-Hertz (Hz, or cycles per second) current to a much higher frequency, meaning more cycles per second. This conversion enables a small, lightweight transformer in the power supply to do the actual voltage step-down from 110 volts (or 220 in Most of the countries) to the voltage needed by the particular computer component. This thereby reduces the voltage Fluctuations in those sensitive components in our PC.

History Of Power Supplies:

The power supply that came with the original IBM PC only provided 64 watts of power pushed a whopping 5 volts through the CPU which would fry any modern consumer-grade processor and forget about fancy features like standby err soft reset old-school power supplies only had a hard power switch so everything was either fully on or fully off all the time with that said though the really difficult thing about these older power supplies was their physical layouts even in the era of 80 power supplies the predecessor to ATX that lasted from 1984 until the late 90s there were not only multiple different form factors 

ATX:

 There wasn't even one uniform standard for the actual pinouts onto the motherboard amongst these different form factors I mean the power supply scene was basically chaos but the ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) standard saved us from proprietary form factors when it was introduced in 1995 by Intel especially as it actually did a lot more than just make our power supplies mostly the same size, in fact, the ATX standard made things much easier for home PC builders as well as small shop owners who wanted to build or offer something different than what the IBM's of the world were cranking out and not only did it make things easier having just one standard made things cheaper improving competition throughout the industry.

 They've come in large and small varieties with both 80 and 120 millimeter fans yet they're still ATX compliant and can fit in a wide variety of cases combine that with improved efficiency in recent years as we've seen with the 80 plus rating system and ATX has had fantastic staying power in spite of several companies trying to replace it throughout the years such as an tech with their CPX design a few years back and even Intel who tried to replace their own standard with the now-defunct BT X form factor ATX also brought us familiar things that we now take for granted like the 20 and then later 24 pin connector which serves as the primary power delivery for pretty much all modern pc's but the wires that connect to the motherboard to enable smart power management and a greater emphasis on 12-volt power delivery you see older power supplies often delivered most of their power on the 5 volt rail with many actual sensitive components directly connected to it these days the smaller transistors on parts like CPUs and graphics cards play much more nicely with lower voltages immediately think about overclocking your CPU.

Modern ATX:

Voltage regulator modules or VR ends and those will be present on the motherboard or on the graphics card itself this way the components can operate at a safe voltage and still get enough current from the higher capacity 12-volt rail ATX has also changed with the times in other ways introducing PCI Express power connectors as graphics cards went from sipping electricity to becoming the most power-hungry component in a PC, Nowadays all modern power supplies use the exact ATX form factor there are also derivative form factors such as SFX which is essentially identical to ATX electrically and in fact interoperable with ATX motherboards but a heck of a lot smaller making them popular for things like super small mini ITX builds in servers you'll find power supplies that have a couple of EPS connectors so EPS standard power supplies which actually is kind of funny because that eight-pin CPU power connector ended up making its way into the desktop. 

How To Buy A Power Supply:

We must also give as much importance as we give for choosing our Cpu, or other Hardware, Yes they All will be powered only by our PSU. Don't worry now you know some important things to look in a PSU, So you could choose your PSU easily,

The power supply for your PC step one is finding out how much power you actually need for the components inside your PC this is expressed in the total number of watts that the unit is capable of outputting 

First choose all other components you're using to build your Computer, The graphics Card, The Processor, The RAM, and Your Motherboard, Note Down the Power Required for each of the components just do a calculation and you'll be on your way for choosing a motherboard.

 PRO TIP: choose the PSU based On your Motherboard, Search on the internet, Go through some forums, And you'll know whether that PSU suits your Setup.

 Also While selecting your CPU look for its wattage, not its TDP rating, TDP is way more different from the Wattage. Check our Post on CPU to know more about these Terminologies.

 If your total Requirement is 400 watts don't think that you'll be safe after grabbing a 1200 watt power supply but that's not necessarily right either first your wallet will be more empty than it had to be and second your system efficiency will actually be lower than if you bought something more appropriate a power supply operates optimally above about 15 to 25 percent of its total capacity that means that your system will actually draw more power from the wall than it has to and your power bill will cost a bit more 

If a power supply is rated in continuous then that's good if it's rated in continuous with a separate peak rating then that's good too if it only has a peak rating then don't put it anywhere near your system because there's no real standard for what peak means can it handle that for an hour we don't know if a power supply is rated only in peak wattage but not continuous don't even consider buying it which leads us to the final step picking a power supply of sufficient quality it's important. Look for reviews and search in forums reach out your tech dude, in your gang discuss with them. Also look for Ratings not the product ratings, the power Ratings as per standard of your country, Look for a Good Branded PSU so that You'll not get into trouble after your purchase. Some Brands like Coolmaster and Corsair offer very good power supplies and they have a good Name in the market. Here are some links to Buy your Power supplies.

Hope this post helps you to buy your PSU and also the most important thing is the knowledge you gain, I hope this post gave you some idea about the Power Supplies and Check out our post on other computer hardware you need to know, Mention your thought in comments.

Reference: computer.howstuffworks.com