Certification Analysis
We rounded up all the certificates supplied to us by the vendors we featured. As metioned, we asked specifically for certificates that would prove compliance with the EU LVD 73/23/EC. You can see the edited highlights as a section of each PSU's feature table, making it worth some extra commentary here to sum things up in more detail.Pass results
w3 |
Company |
Pass LVD? |
Pass |
| Allied |  |
|
|
 |
AOpen |  |
|
|
FSP Group | |
|
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Etasis | |
|
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Zalman | |
|
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Silverstone | |
|
|
QTechnology | |
|
|
Hiper | |
|
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Akasa | |
|
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Thermaltake | |
|
|
OCZ | |
|
|
Enermax | |
|
|
Silentmaxx | |
|
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Q-Tec | |
|
|
SSM Technology (Elan Vital) | |
|
|
Tagan | |
|
?Pass Analysis
We asked all the vendors, if they had public contact information, for certificates relating to the models we tested in Taoyuan. To record a pass, the vendor's submissions had to first match up with a publically contactable testing house if they used one, so that we could verify the independant bodies doing the testing existed and could confirm the test results. The certificate also had to prove compliance with the correct directives required for sale in the European Union and wider worldwide sale via UL compliance or other compatible certification.Failure to comply with that, or send any certificate at all, resulted in a failure. However, that means that uncontactable companies or PR departments that weren't on the ball might very well have pass certs but simply declined to send them. We gave each company or providing retailer ample time (in the order of weeks) to respond with the information we needed before striking them off, however.
That said, HEXUS are confident, with the exception of the supplies that failed testing, that all the tested supplies are fit for sale and use in a production PC enviroment, observing operational limits where applicable. That's without the submission of certificates proving their worth in legal terms. Passing the high-load testing we performed in Taoyuan is indicative of sterling service in a production PC given the output power needed from even the highest end desktop systems.
Overall, that doesn't excuse the lack of validated proof from an external testing body but generally the premise of sale indicates some fitness testing. We've been hard on the vendors for not producing the output power figure on the box, so we should do the same here.
Our overriding conclusion is that we can only heartily recommend vendors that managed to supply certificates for both LVD and CE compliance. And those vendors mainly match up to the supplies we found to perform strongly. Desktop supplies that did well from AOpen, Silverstone, FSP, Akasa and Zalman, and SSM with their monster server supply, were all backed up by the full compliment of certificates.
