ADATA HM Series 650W Power Supply Review

1. Introduction2. The ADATA HM Series 650W PSU (Bundle/Cabling)3. ADATA HM Series 650W Power Supply (External)4. ADATA HM Series 650W Power Supply (Internal)5. Testing Methodology and Results6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Many regular readers this will never have seen an ‘ADATA' branded power supply before, however like many companies in this sector, the underlying design is created elsewhere. The HM Series 650W power supply we are looking at today is actually based around a Channel Well Design – a company who have made power supplies for partners in the past such as Thermaltake, Antec and Corsair.

Channel Well Technology (CWT) started to manufacture power supplies in 1993 and have been used as an OEM service over the years. The HM Series 650W power supply that we are looking at today, is targeted as a quality, value for money unit costing only £75 inc vat, but offering 80 Plus Bronze certification with a semi modular implementation.

Product Name	HMSeries 650W
Model	HM-650
ATX Version	ATX 12V v2.2, v2.3,v2.92 standard
Input Voltage	100V~240V
Label	80 PLUS (Bronze)
Input Current	10 amp
Input Frequency	47~63Hz
Hold up time	>16ms
MTBF	100K hrs
Power On Time	100~500ms
OPERATING TEMP	0~50℃
STORAGE TEMP	-20℃ to +70 ℃
OPERATING HUMIDITY	20~90%
PFC SPEC	APFC(P.F>0.9)
Efficiency (%)	82% Conversion efficiency above
RoHS Certificate	100% Process through the introduction of lead-free
Support”s VGA Card	nVIDIA SLi
Case Surface	Special Scratch Resistant Paint
FAN SPEC	2Ball-Bearing Fan of 3 color  Patent
CAP Use	All Japan-Made Capacitors
Protector	UVP/OTP/OPP/SCP/OCP/OVP
Safety Request	CE/CB/FCC/TUV/cUL/BSMI
12V Rail	Single +12V
Dimension	150 x 160 x 86mm
Weight	2.94Kg

The ADATA HM Series 650W power supply arrives in a colourful box with logos highlighting the SLI and 80 Plus Bronze certifications.

The bundle contains a power cable for your region, a user manual, and an excellent, high quality storage pouch for the modular cabling. This pouch folds shut and is sealed with felt.

The cabling is extensive, particularly for a 650W power supply offering four PCI-E cables for full SLI and Crossfire support. There are also a plethora of SATA and molex cables for hooking up to fans, hard drives and optical drives.

The ADATA HM Series 650W power supply is a subtle looking design and will fit perfectly into any system on the market.

While it looks rather bland at first glance, we like the matt paintwork which is both resilient to scratches and doesn't mark with easily with fingerprints. The ADATA brand name is embossed on the side panels, another nice little touch.

The cooling is delivered by a large 140mm fan which is a clear blade design and has the ADATA name proudly positioned in the center. We will look more at the fan when we crack the shell open shortly.

The rear of the power supply chassis is vented to allow for maximum air flow dissipation. There is a power socket and power switch set to the side.

We really like that ADATA have decided to clearly mark the cabling connectors with colour coded areas and writing. This will ensure that even system building newbies will understand exactly where all the cables need to be attached.

There is a three colour output power display for easy access to power consumption statistics (Green for low load, blue for normal load and red for full load).

ADATA HM Series 650W Power Supply
DC Output	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	-12V	+5Vsb
Max Output	25A	25A	53A	0.8A	3A
Max Combined	150W		636W	9.6W	15W

This 80 Plus Bronze certified power supply delivers a very capable 53A to the 12V output rail, which is certainly as good as we have seen from a 650W power supply.

The unit contains a 140mm Yate Loon fan. The D14BH-12 is a quality fan which can spin up to 2,800 rpm while generating a whopping 140 cfm of airflow at 48 dBa. We are quite sure that it will never need to spin at close to full speed, but we will analyse this later in the review.

This Channel Well Active PFC Design is very clean and doesn't cut any corners with the quality of components. It is a double forward circuit design. Inside they are using Nippon Chemi Con 400W, 390uf capacitor rated to 105c which should help the long term stability of the power supply under heavy use.

The ADATA PSU is supplied with automatic output protection to ensure no damage occurs. This includes Total Power Protection (OPP), Over Voltage Protection (OVP), Over Current Protection (OCP), Short Circuit Protection (SCP) and Over Temperature Protection (OTP).

The cabling is fully sleeved inside the chassis to ensure that no long term cable fraying and damage will occur.

Additional technical assistance: Peter McFarland and Jeremy Price.

Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 watt DC load. Due to public requests we have changed our temperature settings recently – previously we rated with ambient temperatures at 25C, we have increased ambient temperatures by 10c (to 35c) in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions.

We use combinations of the following hardware:
• SunMoon SM-268
• CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs)
• CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4)
• Extech Power Analyzer
• Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter
• SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa)
• Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC)
• Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA

DC Output Load Regulation
Combined DC Load	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		+5VSB		-12V
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
152W	2.07	3.34	2.02	5.03	10.03	12.07	0.50	5.05	0.20	-12.08
270W	3.02	3.34	3.01	5.01	19.05	12.06	0.50	5.03	0.30	-12.08
400W	4.04	3.33	5.01	5.00	29.21	12.04	1.00	5.02	0.30	-12.07
523W	6.00	3.32	7.08	4.99	38.14	12.01	1.50	4.99	0.30	-12.05
652W	8.03	3.30	9.02	4.98	48.31	11.97	2.50	4.98	0.30	-12.02

Output load regulation is good from this supply, holding all primary rails within 2.5% of the nominal voltage.

ADATA HM 650W	Maximum Load
	715.8W

The power supply would shut down at 715.8W, gracefully. We found the protection circuitry to work very well.

Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly.

Cross Load Testing	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		-12V		+5VSB
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
590W	1.0	3.31	1.0	5.02	48.0	11.92	0.2	-12.06	0.50	5.02
145W	12.0	3.28	15.0	4.97	2.0	12.03	0.2	-12.02	0.50	5.01

The ADATA HM 650W PSU handled our Cross loading tests without a problem and we didn't experience any issues during this phase. All voltages remained within stated tolerances.

We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum. ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide.

ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance
Output	Ripple (mV p-p)
+3.3V	50
+5V	50
+12V1	120
+12V2	120
-12V	120
+5VSB	50

Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the XFX unit complied with the ATX standard.

AC Ripple (mV p-p)
DC Load	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	5VSB
152W	5	5	10	5
270W	5	5	10	5
400W	5	5	15	10
523W	5	10	25	10
652W	10	10	35	10

Ripple results are well within the parameters set down in the ATX12V Ver 2.2 standard. +3.3V and +5V are extremely impressive and the +12V rail is also very stable, never exceeding 35mv.

Efficiency (%)
152W	82.43
270W	83.62
400W	86.17
523W	84.73
652W	82.12

Very solid results for the ADATA 80 Plus Bronze Certified power supply, hitting just over 86 percent at 50 percent load. At full load the efficiency drops to around 82%, still a good result.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

Today to test the Power Supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa) one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself.

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 Player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Noise (dBA)
152W	28.9
270W	29.9
400W	31.6
523W	34.2
652W	38.7

This isn't the quietest power supply we have tested, but it only really becomes audible in the top 20 percent of load. At realistic load figures between 40 and 70 percent it remains reasonably quiet.

Temperature (c)
	Intake	Exhaust
152W	35	37
270W	35	38
400W	38	44
523W	42	49
652W	45	53

The large Yate Loon 140mm fan helps to generate a high level of airflow across the components inside the chassis, with only an 8c above ambient intake registered.

Maximum load	Efficiency
715.8W	80.4

Pushing the PSU above its rated limits generates an efficiency level of around 80.4%. This is not a viable ‘real world’ situation, but its interesting nonetheless.

We didn't know what to expect when we received this latest HM Series 650W power supply from ADATA. They aren't a company we would normally associate with producing a high quality power supply.

Initial impressions out of the box were positive, the subdued appearance ensures the supply will fit well inside a good cross section of systems. Anti scratch paintwork helps to maintain the good looks over many rebuilds. The modular cabling is very well presented, with colour coded ports, all clearly labeled underneath, and a high quality felt pouch for storing the unused cables. A non modular design causes substantially more cable routing work for the end user, especially if the system is exposed with a side window panel.

Technically, there really is little to fault with the ADATA HM Series 650W power supply. Load regulation shows a healthy Channel Well design and it managed to cope with our Cross Loading stress tests. Efficiency results confirm strong 80 Plus Bronze certification and the ripple results are positive, and well within the rated parameters.

The choice of high quality Yate Loon D14BH-12 fan ensures that the components are well cooled, even in less than ideal conditions. It isn't the quietest supply we have tested, but it won't be intrusive under normal operating conditions.

Pros:

• good efficency for 80 Plus Bronze
• great paintwork
• attractive, understated design
• internal components are high quality
• modular cabling
• we like the storage pouch

cons:

• not the quietest under high sustained load

KitGuru says: An excellent all round modular power supply at a very modest price. Only £75 in the UK.

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