I do when they die. Back when flat screens were new element put the most god awful power supply in their tv. In fact its the only tv I seen die from power supply failure and I have seen 3 different damn models die from the same crappy power supply failure. In less than 4 years. The only other thing I seen die was my cheap acer monitor that lasted from 2008-2022 with daily usage.
Really glad you talked about the "my needs are probably different than yours" aspect of tech. I often get people complaining about the way I do things because it's not how that one viewer would do it because he's got 200 people who need access to his server.
@@HardwareHavenIt’s definitely not just your comments. It’s everywhere. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, some people refuse to acknowledge that people are different.
It’d be great to see you replace the bad caps since it’s educational and shows the importance of repairability. I think often times many people, including myself in the past, end up replacing things that could have been fixed.
@@autohmae That does not apply here. Capacitors "reform" only when they have been dormant for a long, long time. This psu has been powered up (apparently) 24/7 for over a year. When they bulge, it means they are done for and will eventually pop and/or leak.
Yes, although keep in mind that when people do replace power supplies these days it's usually because they need more power. I've had computers for over 30 years and I think I've only had one in all that time that needed a replacement power supply due to it becoming damaged. Most of the time, it's been due to needing more power.
also educational for those who are not confident but want to get old PSU and learn how to solder, if it break, it was only $5 and can take it to E-waste recycling, nothing lost but knowledge and experience. And eventually might turn into a good job trade and (self) employment.
HP power supplies are usually very reliable. I've only had very few fail at work, and since they are well protected usually nothing much happens, well except for the capacitor giving off some smoke and maybe a small bang, but usually they just die and don't turn back on.
I see this a lot in discussions of power tools. Someone will post about a cordless screwdriver or something that they like, and people will be like "that wouldn't last five minutes building a deck" even though that's clearly not the point of the tool or the reason the person posted it. You don't have to trash something just because it wouldn't be good for the thing you do. I'm also glad you build things that aren't all gaming PCs. I've always been interested in building computers, but for the longest time it felt like there was no point when I barely play video games and all the budget PC builds were at least $500. I think your channel has really inspired me to look into building computers as network appliances or just to use cheap hardware for fun.
i grew up building machines with trash-picked PSUs. you end up developing an eye for what's good and what isn't. turns out, i still have 2 machines running 7 years later with the same PSUs i found on the trash. not the best. but those pcs are used for non-critical stuff, and here any decent PSU (or any decent pc component in general) is expensive af
I have 2 machines running at least 5 year old power supplies. One power supply from a dell optiplex and other from an hp office PC. I also have a machine running a 20 year old power supply. It has like pentium 4 but it's good enough to run roblox or a minecraft server lol.
@@propsekgamer you know what, people say that but ive found unless you like heavily optimize it and turn render distance down and like idk minecraft servers to be remotely usable kinda need a little more than that like idk. idk how do you run minecraft servers on super ancient hardware?
Wonderfully put!! I'm in a similar boat: I've got a nice library of movies I watch via old-school OSMC (Kodi) on some old Raspberry PI boxes. No server-side hardware transcoding, nothing super sexy by contemporary standards, but it is more than serviceable for my needs. Why would I spend hundreds (thousands?) on beefier GPU or other hardware when, in all honesty, I don't need it? Sure, it would probably be a fun technical project, but gotta pay regular bills first LOL. You keep delivering great content and enjoy your style and information!!
Look into replacing those bulging caps..that PS should last ALOT longer as long as the caps stay in spec, caps are usually what causes electronics to crap out...they end up drifting out of spec if/when they bulge Loving the content! Keep em coming!!!!
I had a power supply blow up on me twice. One time when I put a new GPU in my first ever gaming pc. That thing had a cheap 300W office PSU in it without any PCIe power connectors. I had to splice up some sata cables to power the GPU. And sure enough, it went out mid game. The other PSU was actually name brand be-quiet, but I think it was their lowest tier 300W PSU that I installed in my NAS. OMG when that PSU went out I first heard a loud crack at night, i thought it must have been something outside or so. Over the night I slowly started to register this peanutty roasty smell, filling my room. Not only that, but it took out its circuit breaker (seperate from my gaming PC) Without disconnecting the NAS I tried to put the circuit breaker up again, went straight out again. As i took the PSU apart, I noticed this weird liquid dripping down from the PSU through its fan, the main Capacitor in the PSU just exploded. I'll never forget that smell. I still trust be-quiet! but I buy their higher end PSUs only, Another great brand I've never had any issues with is Seasonic and weirdly enough LC-Power's cheap office PSUs! I hear Superflower is another reliable brand.
Yup they're good, I bought a superflower for a new pc back in 06-07 and when I had everything, I plugged the pc to the wall, turn on the switch of the psu and a big bang and flame came out of the back os the psu 😂 Put the breaker up again, try to see if pc worked and what was damaged and to my surprise everything was perfect, the pc ran for atleast 10 years before I replaced
@@PTSeTe HUH That's weird! must've been some small loose wire or component leg that evaporated itself off the PCB or some weird fault like that. It's kind of amazing how long PSUs can last xD
Cool video, i honestly think its best to just use the psu for a testbench or something since it has already proven the point that it didnt explode right away, maybe you could try to repair it but just use it for testing and stuff after
I have this nasty old ATX power supply that I keep on hand for troubleshooting. While I don't have the balls to keep it in use, it really helps to build a quick motherboard box test bench to have an external PSU. It was some thermaltake on the LTT forums F tier, it's only on 20 minutes a year, and is worth much more to me than the $10 I spent on it.
I’ve been checking in on the website every so often, and as the days went by, I got more and more impressed that a $5 power supply was able to stay continuously on without exploding!
It honestly doesn’t surprise me at all. Theres no real load on that thing when it’s only task is running a simple server. I wouldn’t do anything highly demanding with it, but for this? Wouldn’t be a problem for that PSU. I will admit, though, that I don’t know what hardware he’s using in that built, but it’s still pretty much idling all day.
This video appeared on my feed randomly and im glad it did, your point near the end of the video too makes me annoyed at reading stuff online, on social medias like instagram and facebook, i come across a lot of video regarding car repairs or other handy work, and there is always someone in the comments who shouts "just replace it" "too much body filler, it's gonna crack in a week" "bad work for x reason" and everyone behaves like they are especialists and many of the things i see being called out, i've done them and let me tell you, those people are more often than not, dead wrong! For example in cars sometimes you just cant source that part, or that part is still worth fixing up bc you are not a perfeccionist and it's cheaper to use body filler instead of replacing an entire panel bc of a few dents, stuff like that, it's more than acceptable to do things in a different way and there is not just a single way to do things right, and sometimes you just don't bother doing things the perfect way for many reasons, also the majority of keyboard warriors that do this type of comenting, have no experience on the subject matter, all they have is theory because they like the topic and watched a few videos about it
These power supplies are workhorses. Had one running my LED lighting for about 5 years every day, and it was already at least 10 years old when I got it.
Like your channel and agree with comment about internet. Good point. Also with old power supply, I had similar one, which died on me and for fun I have replaced the caps which cost not even a dollar and the PSU runs well with my WinXP retro build. Replace caps and good to go. Office PCs were built like a tank so why throw it away! and bonus point, some of us like watching other people struggling with soldering iron so more content....
and one more thing. Replace that outer shell and use regular ATX. You will get more use out of it. Either do it with dead ATX power supply and insolate it properly OR make 3D print and put components there. Boom, more content and more use out of it.
It would be very interesting if you compared the efficiency between this(though dying) and a 80+ certified reputable one like Corsair CX450. This HP power supply doesn't come with APFC(hence the little red switch for 115V and 220V) so the efficiency should be even worse. If we assume the parts alone consume 30W(The whole E350 platform should consume ~30W at idle), with 60% efficiency you get 50W from the wall socket. With 75% efficiency, you get 40W from the wall socket. 10 watt difference looked small but it adds up considering the server runs 24/7. Power efficient servers are much more fun to explore than whatever powerful parts one can get hands on as low loads kill efficiency on average ATX power supplies. (Unless you go expensive with ones like Corsair RM550x.)
What?! Over a year!!!??? Congrats $5 PSU. I think you should make it into a trophy that sits at your desk...of course making sure the leaking parts are taken care of.
Hey. Awesome video and it's great to see how the $5 PSU and how it is going so far. Coincidentally I was watching this while testing a H61 board I got (not working) :( and was packing up my testing psu for storage haha. I personally think that replacing your caps may be good!
There's definitely a difference between PSUs that are cheap because they're old and ones that are cheap because they were made to be cheap Both are more likely to fail but the older one's (generally) were made with quality in mind, just a longer time ago Kinda like comparing an old flagship and new budget product
Replace the caps and put it to work again in the server. These things can run for ages if maintained properly. I just retired a PC last year that was built in 2003 and was used on a daily basis. The PSU failed when switching on. As I am not a technical expert, I refrained from fixing the PSU. But keeping the PSU dust free helps to keep it alive. Maybe put links from the 5$ Power supply website to your various videos on the channel or a playlist about this PSU. Thanks for all the videos and keep on the good work
My vote is for replacing the caps and putting it back to work. Show that $5 PSU who is the boss! ...And keep on being a nice guy with great content. I came for the PSU, and stayed for the PSA. 😉
Would love to see it repaired and keep the site up until it's not repairable anymore. Might be fun to have this little site up for years to come. As an little reminder to what people can do and keep using, with a little caution and research.
A budget build is a budget build. If it works great, if not no, or small loss.I had 2 of 5 corsairs arrive DOA form the bay, @ $20,it was worth a shot, got refunds and if nothing else, a set of corsair modular cables.
I used an old PSU for my Minecraft Server... Like That PSU was free with an iBall ATX Case... And when I checked the PSU... It was extremely dusty... And from 2010... I first checked it externally to see if it was working... And it did... So I put it in my Minecraft server which ran for 8 months nonstop... Until I had to turn it off for some reason, both the server and its PSU are still working extremely well... (That PSU was never cleaned in its lifetime... And still ran... Old PSUs were good bruh)
My main rig used to use one from the trash! It was some ancient 300W unit that acted as a cooler for my GPU too because it was constructed out of cardboard. It lasted forever. And probably still runs now. (We moved, it got tossed)
I still use a 20 year old power supply in one of my retro PCs. I don't trust it with my life so I just connected it to an extension cord with a fuse. Still I don't see any issues with it.
Since you most likely have already replace the bad caps(for another video :-P) just put it back and restart the test and state you did maintenance on it and what you did. As for fixing the inter net, THERE WILL ALWAYS be those people! So sad but so True... I enjoy your video's and remember the days of 70 subs... 🤣 LLAP 🖖 "Mr. Scott, Mr. Scooot! We need Warp Speeeeed Now!"
According to my opinion i would suggest you to attempt a fix on it!! Like let's just see how long it holds up!! Tho you should be careful as its capacitors have blown up in the past As well as educational purposes for that!!
You can just replace all the caps including the leaky ones, and put it back to service. Until you are overstressing it, those are pretty robust units. I also have a couple running on my clients' site for server applications
I'm all for seeing you "refurbish" the current power supply and letting it go again. I'm running a generic "480 watt" power supply that came with a generic case I purchased some time around 2005 in my home server. The case/power supply was from a computer I previously built for one of my kids The system was built with a then-new Athlon 64 4000+. It was then upgraded to an AM2+ board with a Athlon II X2 250. That is still the board in the system, but since "upgraded" to a low-power Athlon X4 610e. A quick inspection of the system, including the power supply a while back showed no signs of capacitor issues, which is pretty amazing since the computer ran almost 24/7 when it was my kid's computer, and has been running 24/7 since it has been my server, which by the way is Windows Home Server 2011, which I've been running since 2011. The server is shut off about twice per year to give a blast of air, and has been shut down a couple of times to upgrade hard drives. It is just about time to retire the old girl as a server now. It only has SATAII and USB2, which hasn't really been a problem as it is only a file server, but recently having to transfer data from old 4TB HDDS to the new 8TB drives convinced me that it is time. It's time to upgrade to a new-fangled 4th generation i5 and a case that can hold more than 4 drives. AND a brand new name brand high efficiency power supply. And no worries - the old girl is going to be put out to pasture as an XP gaming PC (I have a better CPU and video card) or simply a RetroArch emulator box. Before I get comments about how dumb I am running a piece of junk PS on something important, let me explain. It is a file server. Anything that is important to me (pictures) is backed up. Anything else on the server is considered expendable. All my (and my family's) systems built over the last many years have been built with a good quality power supply as the heart of the system. My kids are now grown and have built their own computers since, and even they have spent good money on a PSU as insurance to protect their expensive Gaming PC parts.
I have an old dell that already ran 24/7 (very lightly most of the time though) for many years running 24/7 as a server for a year now and aside from being a bit rattly it works just fine. On the other hand an equally old PC I found in the trash was randomly shutting off because of its dying power supply, but at least it didn't explode or catch on fire. In general I'd trusy an old office pc's power supply a lot more than a new cheapo psu that might not have any protections at all.
True. I have 2 office power supplies and they're so damn good. They have very low wattage but they're very good. One of them unfortnutaly has proprietary connector. I also got a 20-ish old power supply in a retro pc and it runs without any issues. I also once had to use a 10 year old power supply that might have been left in the rain. It didn't explode or something. It worked quite well. But I didn't trust it so I had to replace it.
With leaking caps....either replace the caps, or recycle the entire thing. Plugging it back in as it is, is a "Bad Idea" (tm). Replacing the caps though, will take time....and I'm sure your time is worth more than that. Hope your day is excellent!!
it's amazing how often people forget that even a brand new top of the line power supply can critically fail as we saw with the gigabyte fiasco. Used to volunteer at a computer repair and to this day still work/build on my PC and getting a faulty product wasn't just limited to no name sellers on the e-markets.
It's funny the hoops we jump through to learn stuff, isn't it? If it's your only spare I'd suggest fixing it, although the expense of the caps + your time are probably greater than the cost of another "cheap" supply for desktop projects. As long as it meets the need, video #4? Not bad for a $5 supply.
When a cap pops, I would call that "catastrophic." The device suddenly stops working accompanied by smoke, smell and electrolyte spewed all over. I have had that happen. Bad caps are a common, widespread problem even with "good" brands. I have HP machines that no longer work due to bad caps that I can see are bulging. I have moved on, but should still replace them because leaking caps will eat away the pcb and traces. Since this project is about experimentation, experiment some more by replacing the caps. Not that expensive now. Use good brands like Nichicon or Panasonic.
My opinion on what to do with it is to replace the caps. You bought it as a project power supply. If it’s working for what you need it to do, but just needs a couple of caps replaced … surely that would be more cost effective than throwing the whole thing out.
this video basically shows something i did on my newest project. i had a cheap power supply malfunction on a low power system. all i had was a very old power supply from 2005.. but since the system only runs a pentium G2030 i decided to install it since it was the only one i had. it works perfectly fine as of writing this. the fans are loud but at least the system works perfectly fine people take a lot of things for granted. even the most expensive power supply can explode or fail. nothing is unbreakable or invincible..
I still use a 500 watt power supply that is modular and 16 years old and it carries on to every build even my newest ones, it just needs a good dusting, caps are good.
I really enjoyed this video - and your thoughts about people on the Internet. There's so much PASSION for things that are ... well ... really not that important. Some perspective is good. As far as old power supplies go - I'm pretty sure the little compact case Pentium based system I've had in my basement for over 10 years running Linux wasn't a premier power supply when it was built - but it was good enough, and that machine is really only used for trying new things out that don't require much power. There are good comments here about the power efficiency of power supplies - and computer systems themselves, and the costs related to running inefficient hardware. Keep up the good work - I enjoy your videos because they're not over produced, you talk like a normal human being, and you make it look doable for a normal human being!
These cheaper power supplies do seem to last under ideal conditions. The problem is that when things like short circuits happen elsewhere, that's when things go south
7:00 great info for everyone to remember, not everyone needs nor wants the latest and greatest, heck if I uploaded a video of me fixing and installing a supported OS for my neighbors PC I would probably get so much flack for it because its probably older then half the average daily viewer base on TH-cam. Yet my neighbor despite my recommendations asked me to just fix it in which it just needed a PSU and its worked for him the last 6 years since I replaced it.
I actually never knew how to port forward things through my router than my friend next to me said "The problem is that you always think you have to know it, just take your time." Now I can after some mental help and lots of research.
I still run my 7$ psu that i bought from acer predator Its an liteon 500w with 80+ bronze unit he supplied an i7 7700 and gtx 1080ti at the time now she runs my i5 12400f and rtx 2060 super
I understand people using cheap PSU, if you're on a budget thats a valid choice. howerver, personally, I had one Eurotech that simply caught fire and another that started to power cycle and enventually just stoped working... It was a nightmare trying to troubleshoot... Again, for me, nothing beat the clear mind or sense of security from a trusted brand...
Put it back together like that and see how long before it breaks with those leaky capacitors , after that replace them and run it again and see how long it holds and what breaks next.
we had 2 PSU's blow up in our school because the sata SSD my teacher was using had some issue with it. I dont know how but it killed a cheap one, and a be quiet one.
I work in IT, & in this business cost rarely means quality anymore. Nowadays you have to go by track-record only. I have an old ATX-type Deer Computing Company Pwr supply (230 Watts @ 24 Amp) manufactured in Feb of 1998, that I use almost weekly to test individual components without having to run them through a newer AT-Mbd combo, or Jumper'd AT supply. I had a much newer Dell (2016 420watt) AT-type that blew a cap & fried the board, SATA-2-USB adapter & the 500GB HD connected to it in one shot.
I had one of these power supplies in my old HP DC7900. I used it to run a minecraft server. It ran fine for a few years then I got better hardware later on.
its grate to see that you understood Used hardware is not all way trash just because it was cheep . i agree with your think as well . Keep doing grate videos . good luck
I actually use power supplies took out from OEM Systems(Acer,Asus,Dell,HP...etc), I have come across various PSU brands like delta,acbel... ,most of them work totally fine over years, although some of them does not have verifications like 80+ or so, they worked totally fine, some times if I couldn't get enough power from a single PSU, I would simply just grab another PSU from my recycled stuff shelf and bridge the connection on the 24 pin header to power up something like 20 hard drives, works fine over the years, I build three servers with dual Recycled Delta PSUs, they work 24 by 7, been three years, no issues at all.
The part about it being an HP PSU is a good point. It's not so much about the price of the PSU that determines if its a good one or not. It's the manufacturer. If Seasonic released a new PSU for budget builds that was cut down to save costs in every way possible while only leaving the absolute necessities to ensure it's a safe PSU, for like... 30$... I'd buy it. Why? Because it will probably suit my needs just fine for what it's actually meant for, and since I know Seasonic doesn't want to tarnish its reputation as being one of the better PSU manufacturers around; it's probably going to work just fine as well for many years to come. But for anything else, yeah, I'm probably going to keep buying the slightly overpriced units instead at higher ratings and wattages, because those are going to be used with the intention of upgrading through the years for the other parts connecting to it. Something cheap like what I just mentioned, wouldn't get that treatment. Likely.
Honestly. Cheap PSUs normally don't explode... Those removed from OEM machines definitely don't but even those PSUs that are built with the cheapest materials will probably run fine for years. The deal is, they are using the cheapest materials and overbranding themselves. So they will have a 500 Watts stick and if you try to plug a 500W load on it, sure, it will blow. But even cheap power regulation is still power regulation. So they use a 10A mosfett you can still pull 120W on the 12V rail. Obviously you have other issues that can show up and some of then can definitely kill your PC or make it unstable. But the fire situation is very rare. When you see the gigabyte PSU blow up on Steve's channel that did happened after a 100% load and recurrent power off. Which sure. Shouldn't happen but I bet that if you run that same PSU on a 10% load it would run for years. I would trust it with a expensive machine? Hell no. But for a budget low end Celeron pet project that I have laying around, yeah, sure, it won't burn my house down... I would be far more worrying about certain PCI-E ryzer thar short to ground than a PSU running at 1/10th of its rated capacity on a machine that I dont care much. That's not an advertising for buying cheap PSU but you should definitely spec the PSU to the project, there's no sense in put a 7950X on this $5 PSU the same way that checking if your 1600 Seasonic has Japanese capacitors to run that DDR3 J1800...
As for the PSU, if it is just for hobby project like your website and nothing serious, I'd keep it running, and perhaps we can learn how long a PSU with leaky cap can last (until it dies or becomes unstable enough). Or if not, perhaps use it in another project like for LED lighting.
Very well said comments on the way people react to videos and posts online. Keep up theee great work. ...and as for the Five Dollar PSU? I say replace the caps and reevive the website, go for another year(s)!!! :)
As a tech savvy 14 year old, I of course want newer equipment. But I am fine with older equipment, as I run it on a daily basis, and I am completely fine with it. I have old HDD's from 2007, and because of the conditions they were in, they are still fine, I write data to them, they work just fine. I have a CPU from 2006, still runs fine, runs fast enough for me to do what I need to do, my RAM is still DDR2, but it is plenty fast for me to do what I need to do. So older tech isn't always crap and junk as some people think.
I haven't streamed in a bit but I did try streaming a game on console (I forgot which one. I think it was Sonic 3 & knuckles on the genesis) and I got someone in my chat asking why I didn't emulate it, since emulation was better and I could mod it and all this stuff. And I was like "I have the console, the still works, why go through all the effort?" So yeah, I get it. People really aren't happy unless your setup or hardware is super optimized or beefy. There's a weird tech fetishization with tech and people don't want to understand that these are tools and you don't need to go out of your way for the most expensive or most power stuff. Humans are weird.
I use an over 20 year old 450W power supply in one of my mashines. My daily driver has around 5 year old dell optiples supply. I also have the exact same machine your 5 buck power supply came from and I am using it for hosting a minecraft server. An old hp office machine is good for playing minecraft, csgo and shit too as long as you have any gpu better than gt 710. This power supply has capacitors in a bad shape but it'll be good enough for 3 - 5 more years for low power projects like running a minecraft server and shits.
old power supplies i like to recap and refurbish, especially in older OEM systems, the only brand i actively avoid is Bestec as they have destroyed numerous Packard Bell and EMachines PCs through the ages. sticking a Corsair inside of an old Dell dimension is my idea of hell, it looks awful
People these days have the belief that everything has to do with ultra maximum specs, high performance and spending a ton of money on computer parts no matter what you want to build. Well personally I've been using old desktop PCs and parts for the purposes of my job in a public hospital in Greece and I got to tell you one thing, if it works it works. Sometimes it only has to do with good preservation of hardware that's all! So KUDOS for your 5$ psu project, I hope more like this are coming in the future.
I would love to see a repair video but why not see how much longer it can last? I am not sure what risk it would pose to your system so don't just go for it. I would love to see how you discharge the caps before replacing them and such for safety.
People judge the $5 PS harsh, meanwhile their laptop, TV, AVR, etc all run cheap as dirt power supplies that nobody gives a passing thought.
I do when they die. Back when flat screens were new element put the most god awful power supply in their tv. In fact its the only tv I seen die from power supply failure and I have seen 3 different damn models die from the same crappy power supply failure. In less than 4 years. The only other thing I seen die was my cheap acer monitor that lasted from 2008-2022 with daily usage.
what is avr pls explain
@@airlyry AVR stands for Audio Video Receiver. The amplifier part of a home theater system.
@@bigsketchyburrito thought u meant an AVR microcontroller LOL
Totally agree on everything except the laptop, cause isn't that just DC to DC conversion?
As a retired IT professional on a budget, I frequently use older equipment on a daily basis. It’s interesting that that PSU has done so well. Bravo
Thanks for the comment Johnny!
Really glad you talked about the "my needs are probably different than yours" aspect of tech. I often get people complaining about the way I do things because it's not how that one viewer would do it because he's got 200 people who need access to his server.
It's so frustrating... glad its not just in my comments haha!
@@HardwareHavenIt’s definitely not just your comments. It’s everywhere. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, some people refuse to acknowledge that people are different.
It’d be great to see you replace the bad caps since it’s educational and shows the importance of repairability. I think often times many people, including myself in the past, end up replacing things that could have been fixed.
Very true
In theory it's possible to do reforming of the capacitors
@@autohmae That does not apply here. Capacitors "reform" only when they have been dormant for a long, long time. This psu has been powered up (apparently) 24/7 for over a year. When they bulge, it means they are done for and will eventually pop and/or leak.
actually, yeah -- that could be really fun and a cool video tbh.
Yes, although keep in mind that when people do replace power supplies these days it's usually because they need more power. I've had computers for over 30 years and I think I've only had one in all that time that needed a replacement power supply due to it becoming damaged. Most of the time, it's been due to needing more power.
Well. The naysayers were wrong. The house wasn't burned down. That's a good thing. Need more Hardware Haven.
Just replace those leaky caps and put it in service to see what else breaks. See it as a super long term test for the $5 PSU
100% agree!
also educational for those who are not confident but want to get old PSU and learn how to solder, if it break, it was only $5 and can take it to E-waste recycling, nothing lost but knowledge and experience. And eventually might turn into a good job trade and (self) employment.
@@Bouipi I made the same choice and turned my repair skills into a business for a number of years. Enjoyed it too.
HP power supplies are usually very reliable. I've only had very few fail at work, and since they are well protected usually nothing much happens, well except for the capacitor giving off some smoke and maybe a small bang, but usually they just die and don't turn back on.
That’s good to hear, I’m also using an old hp psu for my Minecraft server lol
I see this a lot in discussions of power tools. Someone will post about a cordless screwdriver or something that they like, and people will be like "that wouldn't last five minutes building a deck" even though that's clearly not the point of the tool or the reason the person posted it. You don't have to trash something just because it wouldn't be good for the thing you do.
I'm also glad you build things that aren't all gaming PCs. I've always been interested in building computers, but for the longest time it felt like there was no point when I barely play video games and all the budget PC builds were at least $500. I think your channel has really inspired me to look into building computers as network appliances or just to use cheap hardware for fun.
I really appreciated this, haha. Thanks!
i grew up building machines with trash-picked PSUs. you end up developing an eye for what's good and what isn't. turns out, i still have 2 machines running 7 years later with the same PSUs i found on the trash. not the best. but those pcs are used for non-critical stuff, and here any decent PSU (or any decent pc component in general) is expensive af
A visual inspection and cleaning would then be in order.
I have 2 machines running at least 5 year old power supplies. One power supply from a dell optiplex and other from an hp office PC. I also have a machine running a 20 year old power supply. It has like pentium 4 but it's good enough to run roblox or a minecraft server lol.
@@propsekgamer you know what, people say that but ive found unless you like heavily optimize it and turn render distance down and like idk minecraft servers to be remotely usable kinda need a little more than that like idk. idk how do you run minecraft servers on super ancient hardware?
Wonderfully put!! I'm in a similar boat: I've got a nice library of movies I watch via old-school OSMC (Kodi) on some old Raspberry PI boxes. No server-side hardware transcoding, nothing super sexy by contemporary standards, but it is more than serviceable for my needs. Why would I spend hundreds (thousands?) on beefier GPU or other hardware when, in all honesty, I don't need it? Sure, it would probably be a fun technical project, but gotta pay regular bills first LOL. You keep delivering great content and enjoy your style and information!!
Absolutely! Thanks dave!
Glad you're growing fast! Very wise words about the whole tech space. I really like your slogan by the way.
Thanks! I love to hear that
What a lovely nugget. Now recap it. It deserves it!
Look into replacing those bulging caps..that PS should last ALOT longer as long as the caps stay in spec, caps are usually what causes electronics to crap out...they end up drifting out of spec if/when they bulge
Loving the content!
Keep em coming!!!!
I had a power supply blow up on me twice.
One time when I put a new GPU in my first ever gaming pc. That thing had a cheap 300W office PSU in it without any PCIe power connectors. I had to splice up some sata cables to power the GPU. And sure enough, it went out mid game.
The other PSU was actually name brand be-quiet, but I think it was their lowest tier 300W PSU that I installed in my NAS. OMG when that PSU went out I first heard a loud crack at night, i thought it must have been something outside or so. Over the night I slowly started to register this peanutty roasty smell, filling my room. Not only that, but it took out its circuit breaker (seperate from my gaming PC) Without disconnecting the NAS I tried to put the circuit breaker up again, went straight out again.
As i took the PSU apart, I noticed this weird liquid dripping down from the PSU through its fan, the main Capacitor in the PSU just exploded. I'll never forget that smell.
I still trust be-quiet! but I buy their higher end PSUs only, Another great brand I've never had any issues with is Seasonic and weirdly enough LC-Power's cheap office PSUs!
I hear Superflower is another reliable brand.
Yup they're good, I bought a superflower for a new pc back in 06-07 and when I had everything, I plugged the pc to the wall, turn on the switch of the psu and a big bang and flame came out of the back os the psu 😂 Put the breaker up again, try to see if pc worked and what was damaged and to my surprise everything was perfect, the pc ran for atleast 10 years before I replaced
@@PTSeTe HUH That's weird! must've been some small loose wire or component leg that evaporated itself off the PCB or some weird fault like that. It's kind of amazing how long PSUs can last xD
Cool video, i honestly think its best to just use the psu for a testbench or something since it has already proven the point that it didnt explode right away, maybe you could try to repair it but just use it for testing and stuff after
Yeah that might not be a bad use. I would definitely want to replace the caps for that though haha
Wow, has it been a year already, I remember when you just uploaded the first video about this power supply
I have this nasty old ATX power supply that I keep on hand for troubleshooting. While I don't have the balls to keep it in use, it really helps to build a quick motherboard box test bench to have an external PSU. It was some thermaltake on the LTT forums F tier, it's only on 20 minutes a year, and is worth much more to me than the $10 I spent on it.
Nice video. You seem more comfortable in front of the camera now.
I’ve been checking in on the website every so often, and as the days went by, I got more and more impressed that a $5 power supply was able to stay continuously on without exploding!
It honestly doesn’t surprise me at all. Theres no real load on that thing when it’s only task is running a simple server.
I wouldn’t do anything highly demanding with it, but for this? Wouldn’t be a problem for that PSU.
I will admit, though, that I don’t know what hardware he’s using in that built, but it’s still pretty much idling all day.
This video appeared on my feed randomly and im glad it did, your point near the end of the video too makes me annoyed at reading stuff online, on social medias like instagram and facebook, i come across a lot of video regarding car repairs or other handy work, and there is always someone in the comments who shouts "just replace it" "too much body filler, it's gonna crack in a week" "bad work for x reason" and everyone behaves like they are especialists and many of the things i see being called out, i've done them and let me tell you, those people are more often than not, dead wrong! For example in cars sometimes you just cant source that part, or that part is still worth fixing up bc you are not a perfeccionist and it's cheaper to use body filler instead of replacing an entire panel bc of a few dents, stuff like that, it's more than acceptable to do things in a different way and there is not just a single way to do things right, and sometimes you just don't bother doing things the perfect way for many reasons, also the majority of keyboard warriors that do this type of comenting, have no experience on the subject matter, all they have is theory because they like the topic and watched a few videos about it
As a long time PC hobbyist I like when stuff like this is done.
Wow actually it just felt like you bought this power supply like a month ago and its been a year!!
Time flies fast haha
It does indeed!
These power supplies are workhorses. Had one running my LED lighting for about 5 years every day, and it was already at least 10 years old when I got it.
Like your channel and agree with comment about internet. Good point. Also with old power supply, I had similar one, which died on me and for fun I have replaced the caps which cost not even a dollar and the PSU runs well with my WinXP retro build. Replace caps and good to go. Office PCs were built like a tank so why throw it away!
and bonus point, some of us like watching other people struggling with soldering iron so more content....
and one more thing. Replace that outer shell and use regular ATX. You will get more use out of it. Either do it with dead ATX power supply and insolate it properly OR make 3D print and put components there. Boom, more content and more use out of it.
It would be very interesting if you compared the efficiency between this(though dying) and a 80+ certified reputable one like Corsair CX450. This HP power supply doesn't come with APFC(hence the little red switch for 115V and 220V) so the efficiency should be even worse.
If we assume the parts alone consume 30W(The whole E350 platform should consume ~30W at idle), with 60% efficiency you get 50W from the wall socket. With 75% efficiency, you get 40W from the wall socket. 10 watt difference looked small but it adds up considering the server runs 24/7.
Power efficient servers are much more fun to explore than whatever powerful parts one can get hands on as low loads kill efficiency on average ATX power supplies. (Unless you go expensive with ones like Corsair RM550x.)
I'm glad that little guy held on for so so long.
When he put the poll up, I voted for let it retire.
And I learned something.
Thanks! Not just for this video but for being my favorite channel.
Woah, thanks Keith! Means a ton ❤️
@@HardwareHaven You're welcome. Get yourself a couple more PSUs or maybe a couple of beverages. Anything that powers you to keep making vids.
That 5 buck PSU is better than new chinesium ones. It could fetch a premium here (PSU built up)
What?! Over a year!!!??? Congrats $5 PSU. I think you should make it into a trophy that sits at your desk...of course making sure the leaking parts are taken care of.
I was thinking of taking it (at least the chassis) to LTX and trying to get signatures haha
@@HardwareHaven There ya go. 😄
Hey. Awesome video and it's great to see how the $5 PSU and how it is going so far. Coincidentally I was watching this while testing a H61 board I got (not working) :( and was packing up my testing psu for storage haha. I personally think that replacing your caps may be good!
There's definitely a difference between PSUs that are cheap because they're old and ones that are cheap because they were made to be cheap
Both are more likely to fail but the older one's (generally) were made with quality in mind, just a longer time ago
Kinda like comparing an old flagship and new budget product
Very true
Replace the caps and put it to work again in the server. These things can run for ages if maintained properly.
I just retired a PC last year that was built in 2003 and was used on a daily basis. The PSU failed when switching on. As I am not a technical expert, I refrained from fixing the PSU. But keeping the PSU dust free helps to keep it alive.
Maybe put links from the 5$ Power supply website to your various videos on the channel or a playlist about this PSU.
Thanks for all the videos and keep on the good work
My vote is for replacing the caps and putting it back to work. Show that $5 PSU who is the boss!
...And keep on being a nice guy with great content. I came for the PSU, and stayed for the PSA. 😉
Would love to see it repaired and keep the site up until it's not repairable anymore. Might be fun to have this little site up for years to come. As an little reminder to what people can do and keep using, with a little caution and research.
A budget build is a budget build. If it works great, if not no, or small loss.I had 2 of 5 corsairs arrive DOA form the bay, @ $20,it was worth a shot, got refunds and if nothing else, a set of corsair modular cables.
Repair and run the server for longer. Too many people throw away easily repairable equipment these days.
I used an old PSU for my Minecraft Server... Like That PSU was free with an iBall ATX Case... And when I checked the PSU... It was extremely dusty... And from 2010... I first checked it externally to see if it was working... And it did... So I put it in my Minecraft server which ran for 8 months nonstop... Until I had to turn it off for some reason, both the server and its PSU are still working extremely well...
(That PSU was never cleaned in its lifetime... And still ran... Old PSUs were good bruh)
Recap the 5$ PSU it's a good idea,I'm curious how long does this OEM PSU last?
My main rig used to use one from the trash! It was some ancient 300W unit that acted as a cooler for my GPU too because it was constructed out of cardboard.
It lasted forever. And probably still runs now. (We moved, it got tossed)
I still use a 20 year old power supply in one of my retro PCs. I don't trust it with my life so I just connected it to an extension cord with a fuse. Still I don't see any issues with it.
It feels like its been a week instead of over a year! I've had the website bookmarked since day 1 and check up on it every now and again!
recap the power supply and turn it into a desktop dc supply, cheers😁
You should replace the bulged cap and let the PSU run for as long as possible , in the process of doing that you learn something new and fun .
Since you most likely have already replace the bad caps(for another video :-P) just put it back and restart the test and state you did maintenance on it and what you did.
As for fixing the inter net, THERE WILL ALWAYS be those people! So sad but so True...
I enjoy your video's and remember the days of 70 subs... 🤣
LLAP 🖖
"Mr. Scott, Mr. Scooot! We need Warp Speeeeed Now!"
Amazing video! I still have and use a 320W Antec psu for testing! Going strong!
NICE!
According to my opinion i would suggest you to attempt a fix on it!!
Like let's just see how long it holds up!!
Tho you should be careful as its capacitors have blown up in the past
As well as educational purposes for that!!
You can just replace all the caps including the leaky ones, and put it back to service. Until you are overstressing it, those are pretty robust units. I also have a couple running on my clients' site for server applications
I'm all for seeing you "refurbish" the current power supply and letting it go again.
I'm running a generic "480 watt" power supply that came with a generic case I purchased some time around 2005 in my home server.
The case/power supply was from a computer I previously built for one of my kids The system was built with a then-new Athlon 64 4000+. It was then upgraded to an AM2+ board with a Athlon II X2 250. That is still the board in the system, but since "upgraded" to a low-power Athlon X4 610e.
A quick inspection of the system, including the power supply a while back showed no signs of capacitor issues, which is pretty amazing since the computer ran almost 24/7 when it was my kid's computer, and has been running 24/7 since it has been my server, which by the way is Windows Home Server 2011, which I've been running since 2011.
The server is shut off about twice per year to give a blast of air, and has been shut down a couple of times to upgrade hard drives.
It is just about time to retire the old girl as a server now. It only has SATAII and USB2, which hasn't really been a problem as it is only a file server, but recently having to transfer data from old 4TB HDDS to the new 8TB drives convinced me that it is time.
It's time to upgrade to a new-fangled 4th generation i5 and a case that can hold more than 4 drives. AND a brand new name brand high efficiency power supply. And no worries - the old girl is going to be put out to pasture as an XP gaming PC (I have a better CPU and video card) or simply a RetroArch emulator box.
Before I get comments about how dumb I am running a piece of junk PS on something important, let me explain. It is a file server. Anything that is important to me (pictures) is backed up. Anything else on the server is considered expendable. All my (and my family's) systems built over the last many years have been built with a good quality power supply as the heart of the system. My kids are now grown and have built their own computers since, and even they have spent good money on a PSU as insurance to protect their expensive Gaming PC parts.
I have an old dell that already ran 24/7 (very lightly most of the time though) for many years running 24/7 as a server for a year now and aside from being a bit rattly it works just fine.
On the other hand an equally old PC I found in the trash was randomly shutting off because of its dying power supply, but at least it didn't explode or catch on fire.
In general I'd trusy an old office pc's power supply a lot more than a new cheapo psu that might not have any protections at all.
True. I have 2 office power supplies and they're so damn good. They have very low wattage but they're very good. One of them unfortnutaly has proprietary connector. I also got a 20-ish old power supply in a retro pc and it runs without any issues. I also once had to use a 10 year old power supply that might have been left in the rain. It didn't explode or something. It worked quite well. But I didn't trust it so I had to replace it.
With leaking caps....either replace the caps, or recycle the entire thing. Plugging it back in as it is, is a "Bad Idea" (tm). Replacing the caps though, will take time....and I'm sure your time is worth more than that.
Hope your day is excellent!!
Hey thanks for this precious observation about communication in tech-related forums and comment sections, I wish that would change too :)
it's amazing how often people forget that even a brand new top of the line power supply can critically fail as we saw with the gigabyte fiasco. Used to volunteer at a computer repair and to this day still work/build on my PC and getting a faulty product wasn't just limited to no name sellers on the e-markets.
6:59 GIBBERISH IN ALL CAPS
There, I met the quota.
It's funny the hoops we jump through to learn stuff, isn't it? If it's your only spare I'd suggest fixing it, although the expense of the caps + your time are probably greater than the cost of another "cheap" supply for desktop projects. As long as it meets the need, video #4? Not bad for a $5 supply.
When a cap pops, I would call that "catastrophic." The device suddenly stops working accompanied by smoke, smell and electrolyte spewed all over. I have had that happen. Bad caps are a common, widespread problem even with "good" brands. I have HP machines that no longer work due to bad caps that I can see are bulging. I have moved on, but should still replace them because leaking caps will eat away the pcb and traces. Since this project is about experimentation, experiment some more by replacing the caps. Not that expensive now. Use good brands like Nichicon or Panasonic.
Amen brotha... people do need to just relax. I mean, that's why I watch videos in the first place. Thanks for entertaining us!
My opinion on what to do with it is to replace the caps.
You bought it as a project power supply. If it’s working for what you need it to do, but just needs a couple of caps replaced … surely that would be more cost effective than throwing the whole thing out.
this video basically shows something i did on my newest project. i had a cheap power supply malfunction on a low power system. all i had was a very old power supply from 2005.. but since the system only runs a pentium G2030 i decided to install it since it was the only one i had. it works perfectly fine as of writing this. the fans are loud but at least the system works perfectly fine
people take a lot of things for granted. even the most expensive power supply can explode or fail. nothing is unbreakable or invincible..
I still use a 500 watt power supply that is modular and 16 years old and it carries on to every build even my newest ones, it just needs a good dusting, caps are good.
I really enjoyed this video - and your thoughts about people on the Internet. There's so much PASSION for things that are ... well ... really not that important. Some perspective is good.
As far as old power supplies go - I'm pretty sure the little compact case Pentium based system I've had in my basement for over 10 years running Linux wasn't a premier power supply when it was built - but it was good enough, and that machine is really only used for trying new things out that don't require much power. There are good comments here about the power efficiency of power supplies - and computer systems themselves, and the costs related to running inefficient hardware.
Keep up the good work - I enjoy your videos because they're not over produced, you talk like a normal human being, and you make it look doable for a normal human being!
It would seem to be a nice project to repair it. I also have a few psu's tucked away, looking forward to it.
These cheaper power supplies do seem to last under ideal conditions. The problem is that when things like short circuits happen elsewhere, that's when things go south
7:00 great info for everyone to remember, not everyone needs nor wants the latest and greatest, heck if I uploaded a video of me fixing and installing a supported OS for my neighbors PC I would probably get so much flack for it because its probably older then half the average daily viewer base on TH-cam. Yet my neighbor despite my recommendations asked me to just fix it in which it just needed a PSU and its worked for him the last 6 years since I replaced it.
Your spot on about being helpful and not condescending
I actually never knew how to port forward things through my router than my friend next to me said "The problem is that you always think you have to know it, just take your time." Now I can after some mental help and lots of research.
Great content ! Please fix old and faithful psu and add price of parts on web server . Thanks and all the best.
I think you should recap it and keep using it.
I remember to see the original video just after some weeks that get posted and now is a year old.
I still run my 7$ psu that i bought from acer predator
Its an liteon 500w with 80+ bronze unit he supplied an i7 7700 and gtx 1080ti at the time now she runs my i5 12400f and rtx 2060 super
Repair it.
Free video, and it keeps things outside the landfield.
From my experience, fans often get noisy and thermal paste under transistors dries out.
I understand people using cheap PSU, if you're on a budget thats a valid choice. howerver, personally, I had one Eurotech that simply caught fire and another that started to power cycle and enventually just stoped working... It was a nightmare trying to troubleshoot... Again, for me, nothing beat the clear mind or sense of security from a trusted brand...
Woahhh your channel is growing so fast!! I am not keeping track with the subs, man remember your early days
Its crazy.. haha. And don't worry, I won't
@@HardwareHaven I am watching from cheap gpu video
Put it back together like that and see how long before it breaks with those leaky capacitors , after that replace them and run it again and see how long it holds and what breaks next.
we had 2 PSU's blow up in our school because the sata SSD my teacher was using had some issue with it. I dont know how but it killed a cheap one, and a be quiet one.
great video, and good point about comments online, people need to be more open minded
Very cool message! Love your channel.
I work in IT, & in this business cost rarely means quality anymore. Nowadays you have to go by track-record only. I have an old ATX-type Deer Computing Company Pwr supply (230 Watts @ 24 Amp) manufactured in Feb of 1998, that I use almost weekly to test individual components without having to run them through a newer AT-Mbd combo, or Jumper'd AT supply. I had a much newer Dell (2016 420watt) AT-type that blew a cap & fried the board, SATA-2-USB adapter & the 500GB HD connected to it in one shot.
I had one of these power supplies in my old HP DC7900. I used it to run a minecraft server. It ran fine for a few years then I got better hardware later on.
its grate to see that you understood Used hardware is not all way trash just because it was cheep . i agree with your think as well . Keep doing grate videos . good luck
I used a cheap psu too before, it had no over current protection and filled my entire garage with smoke. Never again lol it was onlt a 65 watt load
Do a stress test with the power supply and let it run for a bit
I actually use power supplies took out from OEM Systems(Acer,Asus,Dell,HP...etc), I have come across various PSU brands like delta,acbel... ,most of them work totally fine over years, although some of them does not have verifications like 80+ or so, they worked totally fine, some times if I couldn't get enough power from a single PSU, I would simply just grab another PSU from my recycled stuff shelf and bridge the connection on the 24 pin header to power up something like 20 hard drives, works fine over the years, I build three servers with dual Recycled Delta PSUs, they work 24 by 7, been three years, no issues at all.
The part about it being an HP PSU is a good point. It's not so much about the price of the PSU that determines if its a good one or not. It's the manufacturer. If Seasonic released a new PSU for budget builds that was cut down to save costs in every way possible while only leaving the absolute necessities to ensure it's a safe PSU, for like... 30$... I'd buy it. Why?
Because it will probably suit my needs just fine for what it's actually meant for, and since I know Seasonic doesn't want to tarnish its reputation as being one of the better PSU manufacturers around; it's probably going to work just fine as well for many years to come.
But for anything else, yeah, I'm probably going to keep buying the slightly overpriced units instead at higher ratings and wattages, because those are going to be used with the intention of upgrading through the years for the other parts connecting to it. Something cheap like what I just mentioned, wouldn't get that treatment. Likely.
Honestly. Cheap PSUs normally don't explode... Those removed from OEM machines definitely don't but even those PSUs that are built with the cheapest materials will probably run fine for years. The deal is, they are using the cheapest materials and overbranding themselves. So they will have a 500 Watts stick and if you try to plug a 500W load on it, sure, it will blow. But even cheap power regulation is still power regulation. So they use a 10A mosfett you can still pull 120W on the 12V rail.
Obviously you have other issues that can show up and some of then can definitely kill your PC or make it unstable. But the fire situation is very rare.
When you see the gigabyte PSU blow up on Steve's channel that did happened after a 100% load and recurrent power off. Which sure. Shouldn't happen but I bet that if you run that same PSU on a 10% load it would run for years. I would trust it with a expensive machine? Hell no. But for a budget low end Celeron pet project that I have laying around, yeah, sure, it won't burn my house down...
I would be far more worrying about certain PCI-E ryzer thar short to ground than a PSU running at 1/10th of its rated capacity on a machine that I dont care much.
That's not an advertising for buying cheap PSU but you should definitely spec the PSU to the project, there's no sense in put a 7950X on this $5 PSU the same way that checking if your 1600 Seasonic has Japanese capacitors to run that DDR3 J1800...
As for the PSU, if it is just for hobby project like your website and nothing serious, I'd keep it running, and perhaps we can learn how long a PSU with leaky cap can last (until it dies or becomes unstable enough). Or if not, perhaps use it in another project like for LED lighting.
But ... a leaky cap will eat away the pcb, probably ruining it.
Very well said comments on the way people react to videos and posts online. Keep up theee great work.
...and as for the Five Dollar PSU? I say replace the caps and reevive the website, go for another year(s)!!! :)
As a tech savvy 14 year old, I of course want newer equipment. But I am fine with older equipment, as I run it on a daily basis, and I am completely fine with it. I have old HDD's from 2007, and because of the conditions they were in, they are still fine, I write data to them, they work just fine. I have a CPU from 2006, still runs fine, runs fast enough for me to do what I need to do, my RAM is still DDR2, but it is plenty fast for me to do what I need to do. So older tech isn't always crap and junk as some people think.
I haven't streamed in a bit but I did try streaming a game on console (I forgot which one. I think it was Sonic 3 & knuckles on the genesis) and I got someone in my chat asking why I didn't emulate it, since emulation was better and I could mod it and all this stuff. And I was like "I have the console, the still works, why go through all the effort?" So yeah, I get it. People really aren't happy unless your setup or hardware is super optimized or beefy. There's a weird tech fetishization with tech and people don't want to understand that these are tools and you don't need to go out of your way for the most expensive or most power stuff. Humans are weird.
Next 5 dollar power supply video should be you going office space on it.
Replace the caps!! Bring it back to liiiife 👍👍
Use it for future projects and make videos about it when you do.
I use an over 20 year old 450W power supply in one of my mashines. My daily driver has around 5 year old dell optiples supply. I also have the exact same machine your 5 buck power supply came from and I am using it for hosting a minecraft server. An old hp office machine is good for playing minecraft, csgo and shit too as long as you have any gpu better than gt 710. This power supply has capacitors in a bad shape but it'll be good enough for 3 - 5 more years for low power projects like running a minecraft server and shits.
old power supplies i like to recap and refurbish, especially in older OEM systems, the only brand i actively avoid is Bestec as they have destroyed numerous Packard Bell and EMachines PCs through the ages.
sticking a Corsair inside of an old Dell dimension is my idea of hell, it looks awful
I would say repair it repair all of the leaky caps and anything else that needs to be repaired on it and continue using it
Swap the old capacitors, and enjoy a perfectly working PSU for the next decade :)
It'd be really cool to see a PSU restoration video.
My setup for jellyfin and a nas currently runs 24/7 on a old hp desktop, been running perfectly for over a year on a new but still hp power supply.
Did your server run basically idle all the time? If so it could be years before the PSU fails.
Basically. Running a simple flask api was pretty easy on it haha
I am in favor of repairing this power supply :)
People these days have the belief that everything has to do with ultra maximum specs, high performance and spending a ton of money on computer parts no matter what you want to build. Well personally I've been using old desktop PCs and parts for the purposes of my job in a public hospital in Greece and I got to tell you one thing, if it works it works. Sometimes it only has to do with good preservation of hardware that's all! So KUDOS for your 5$ psu project, I hope more like this are coming in the future.
I would love to see a repair video but why not see how much longer it can last? I am not sure what risk it would pose to your system so don't just go for it. I would love to see how you discharge the caps before replacing them and such for safety.