We've used over 30 of these at my work and so far they've all worked perfectly. Excellent units for the price.
Update Oct 31st only. FREE after rebate again, $15 less $15 rebate, + shipping, limit 3.
Not worth the risk but may be worth the parts (fan, cables).
HEC 485/585 power supplies, available for years, do not meet ATX specifications, are built with poor to bad quality Chinese capacitors, lack proper protection circuits, and lie about power available. These do blow up taking components with them.
This does not seem to be the case with some current units.
Still, anyone familiar with older HEC units have reason to be doubtful. HEC lied about power ratings and protection.
HEC rates their units at 25 degrees C. Not 40 or 50 as is usual industry standard.
Oh, and warranty claims were impossible.
There may be a misunderstand about this PS as having a Bronze rating. It's possible that it refers more to being constructed using Bronze Age technology.... rather than to an efficiency rating.
Looked, skipped, nothing I build I would want this low of quality PS in. I could see using it for some applications, like building 20 cheap systems for work where you can amortize a few failures or a shorter average life, but in a "one for yourself" situation removing the variable of issues due to poor PS far exceeds the cost of something decent.
Hmmm, I view it the opposite. I would never put this into a client/family/friends box but one for myself yes. At least if it goes I already have a very good idea whats wrong.
I've used a few HEC psu's in the past and free is about the most I would pay for one.
I like the fact this PSU has four SATA power connectors, I only wish it had the P4 power connector. With that mentioned, most (if not all) Asrock and ECS low power boards (atom, Celeron ULV, Kabini, bobcat, VIA) do not have the 4 pin 12V on them.
ATX 1.3 lack the P4 connector. ATX 2.01 and newer should have the P4 (ATX12V) connector.
I would be very surprised to find it missing on these PSUs.