Posted on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 19:12 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
While reviewing the low-end Hantol Silent ATX 700W Pro power supply, Hardware Secrets
discovered something extraordinary when inspecting the power supply's components. This power supply supposedly features passive PFC, but instead of a coil wrapped around iron plates, this unit has a fake PFC coil made from cement!
I bought this low-end Hantol Silent ATX 700 W Pro power supply for reviewing for Clube do Hardware, my Brazilian website, since it is quite popular down there. When I opened it, I saw the passive PFC coil (a component that looks like a transformer), and I was wondering how a power supply that probably cost USD 15 in China could possibly have a PFC circuit. Then I remembered the case of the “AOBAMA” (yes, you read it right) power supply that I saw online, which had a fake PFC coil made out of cardboard. In fact, there is an article at http://www.pcpop.com/doc/0/294/294565_all.shtml that shows several power supplies with fake PFC coils. Even though the article is in Chinese, you should take a look at the pictures. So, I decided to disassemble the PFC coil and bingo! Instead of a coil wrapped around iron plates, what I found was a piece of cement (i.e., a rock).
