Verdict and Conclusion
The day before the package containing the Dr. Power II showed up from Thermaltake I had been contemplating buying one of this sort of unit to play with. I haven’t run into very many dead power supplies, and the one that I did run into recently was far from subtle. However I have talked to plenty of people that were driven absolutely nuts by power supplies that looked like they were working fine, were working well enough for the computer to boot, but weren’t actually putting out enough power for the computer to stay running.
All of them eventually went through the stuff-a-jumper-in-the-24p-connector-and-hope-you-don’t-cross-the-wrong-wires-then-use-a-multimeter-and-try-not-to-short-anything-out routine and eventually found that the PSU output voltages weren’t even close to spec. It would have been far easier for them to simply plug their PSU into this Dr. Power II and push a button!
I’m impressed with the build quality, the case feels nice and solid, the soldering is good, and the connectors are firmly attached.
The voltage reading accuracy isn’t as tight as I’d like, but it suffices for the task at hand.
The screen is very legible and has a nice blue backlight if things are working well. The bright red for failures is a nice feature, you’re not likely to miss it.
Price wise the Dr. Power II comes in around the $30 (plus tax, and shipping if you buy it online) mark, which seems pretty reasonable to me for what you’re getting. Sure you can buy a cheap multimeter and a paperclip and test a PSU that way, but that doesn’t put any load at all on the PSU and can cause you to get bogus results from your testing. The load resistors built into the Dr. Power II prevent that issue.
All told, there are PROS:
- Easy to set up.
- Very clear and easy to read screen.
- Load resistors to keep PSUs happy.
- Not at all subtle if it detects a failure.
The world liking perfection even less than a vacuum, there are cons too:
- 12v voltage reading off by 1.5%.
Really that’s about it, I guess there’s “con”, not “cons”.
To summarize, the Thermaltake Dr. Power II does exactly what it says it will do, it will tell you if your power supply is out to lunch, and point out what part is out to lunch as well.
There are lots of pluses and only one negative thing, though it does irk me. As a result, the Thermaltake Dr. Power II PSU tester gets a rating of 8.8/10 and a Recommended badge.
SCORE
8.8/10
