Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 400 W Power Supply Review
Transient Filtering Stage
Contents
As we have mentioned in other articles and reviews, the first place we look when opening a power supply for a hint about its quality, is its filtering stage. The recommended components for this stage are two ferrite coils, two ceramic capacitors (Y capacitors, usually blue), one metalized polyester capacitor (X capacitor), and one MOV (Metal-Oxide Varistor). Very low-end power supplies use fewer components, usually removing the MOV and the first coil.
Even though this is an entry-level power supply, it has two MOV’s (installed between the two electrolytic capacitors from the voltage doubler) and three Y capacitors and one X capacitor more than the minimum recommended.
Figure 7: Transient filtering stage (part 1).
Figure 8: Transient filtering stage (part 2).
In the next page we will have a more detailed discussion about the components used in the Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 400 W.