Skyhawk PSU ATX12V & EPS12V Compliance Issue

[Apoptosis]

If you own any of the SkyHawk PowerOne series power supplies this is a must read article. You might own a product that isn't what the box says it was. It also isn't UL approved or tested yet!

This article deals with the following models:

ATX-GM 470PC
ATX-GM 520SC
ATX-GM 570PC
ATX-GM 620SC

After taking a good look at everything before us, Legit Reviews knew the SkyHawk "Power One" PSU's were not what they claimed to be. They do not meet Intel ATX 12V Version 2.0 or Intel EPS 12V Version 2.1 guidelines.

Read the Full article here

[Sublime]

Holy Crap... Great read on a bunch of stuff many don't think about. Good job on thinking outside the box and for letting consumers know what is up.

Once again Legit Reviews holds the community to honesty and high standards. Thanks!

[Apoptosis]

Just got this e-mail from a reader... thought it was worth posting..

After reading your article, I went to Newegg and looked at some pix of SkyHawk PSUs - I noted something that is even more significant to me than the standards compliance you mentioned. None of the labels on the SkyHawk PSUs I looked at showed the symbols for UL/RU or TUV certifications (or anything other than CE and FCC). The UL and TUV certs are minimum requirements of any PSU I use in my systems or those I build for others - in Europe, there may be other certs that are more important..
. Thanks for following up on this. And just a remider of the old adage:
If someone approaches you claiming he is "an honest, god-fearing man", get a tight grip on your wallet. Don't make claims, just deliver - that will do all the speaking necessary.

.bill

Legit Reviews agrees with you and we are glad you are now aware of the issue

[FE@R]

[/b] Well, The Story of my life seems like Folks..I bought this PS 5 Days after buying my new Asus A8N-Deluxe Sli mobo and my New AMN64 3500+ CPU, Not to mention the Sli PCIEX VideoCards. So to Share my Experience with you I installed this PS on A Kick-A** System. Only to have With-in5 Seconds of Powering Up(if thats what u want to call it) It fried A Brand New ASus CR-ROM As well as A new NEC- DVD 8X burner, And the Brand new MOBO will No-LONGER BOOT.AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH. :nut kick:I WANT TO BEAT THE LIVING HELL OUT OF SOMETHING . I have not been able to figure out Why it Fried The CD and DVD burners But If U have ever smelled Burnt Electronics [THE DAMNED WORSE SMELL TO A GEEK] I am Sure u Can Feel My Pain. I just Pulled the System apart and Am Almost afraid to delve any further, but Has to be done....I don't know what damage it has done to the MOBO , but i will post to let u know.Anyway the reviews i read B4 i bought this PS all recommended this PS HIGHLY. of coarse I am just now finding this Site..
Mass Quantities Are in Order Now... I Am EXTREMELY HAPPY To See this Article Tho, As it may Keep someone else From Ruining their Day, WEEK and Month If anyone needs to forward this Post to any potential buyers Feel Free to Do So. I Appreciate your Great Site and EXcellent & InFormative Reviews
FEAR>>>Cries in Beer MASS QUANTIES OF VERY STRONG BEERS OR MAYBE BOILERMAKERS

[infinitevalence]

Sorry for the bad experience, thank god we have not had any problems like that with our review sample. It is still running strong. The only real problem we have had was the miss labeling.

[Apoptosis]

This is the first failure I have heard of by any of our readers. Please contact the retailer you purchased your model from and inform them of our article and hopefully you will have it taken care of.

[FE@R]

Hey infinitevalence, Apoptosis I appreciate your Response and Your Concern at my Misfortune. Thnx for Advice also. I just wanted to Follow up on the Post I made the Other Day on this Skyhawk PS... Man , I tell the more I think about it the more I wander What the Hell Happened. I mean I have been Building Systems for 7 yrs now and {I HAVE NEVER SEEN A POWER SUPPLY CAUSE THE EXTENT Of DAMAGE }, That I experienced. I have been away all weekend and didn't get to Delve into it any further the other Day,But I am in the process now of going thru this system with a fine tooth Comb. Something else must have contributed to this Disaster. The System will not boot pass the memory Count, gets there and stops Dead. Seems to me there are enuff built in protections such as{ Rectifiers,Voltage regulators}and the likes, by Asus that should have prevented the surge,short or whatever from Frying the Cd-RW and DVD Burner as well as the mobo, well I can sit here and theorize all day and still be baffled as hell. Well as they Say the " Proof is in the Puddin" so I am grabing My spoon and Digging in.
Well, I'll be Damned,One Other thing Guys,{This Just Figures}This Power Supply Just Checked Out Good!!! I just tested it with my Aspire Power Supply Tester and every 3,5 & 12 Connection Checks out good and Strong. The 20 & 24pin Connector Checks out Just right also. You all Say that you have not had any problems with the ones you are still reviewing? Well, I guess I will have to Call NewEgg and Forward your review to them if i want them to replace a perfectly good PS...Has To be a problem somewhere else also..
Well Anyway Guys Thanks Again, For the great articles and Reviews, and If you want i will post any results that i may turn up here, But If you're tired Of My Babbling, Well Then i Won't...lol,"Either Way Thanks For Your Ears"
FE@R

[Angry_Games]

i would like to add that my Skyhawk 570w psu is still currently running my DFI LanParty SLI-DR, 3500+ newcastle (@ 2750Mhz, 250x11 2-2-8-2), 2x 6600GT SLI, 4x Hitachi SATA II RAID-0 etc.

Im not happy that the Skyhawk labeling seems to be blatantly incorrect/false....but i am very satisfied with this Skyhawk psu as it DOES have a very nice amount of oomph! It is strong strong strong all day long long long basically.

i would still like to see some of the issues with it corrected (namely dual 12v and get some UL approvals etc)

[infinitevalence]

You echo my sentiments exactly. The PSU works and works well the real issue is related to biz practices and false advertising.

[LVCapo]

While I think it is all good and fine that the PSU works adequately..... I think the bigger picture is that this company was dishonest in how they marketed it. A lot of these companies get away with stuff like this because 99% of the consumers they target don't know any better.....and its our job to educate them.
There are PSUs, which are not ATX 2.01 compatible, which offer the same performance, that cost a lot less....the problem here is a company claims it meets a standard, and charges accordingly....which isn't good.

[Liquid3D]

I wonder if I should pull apart the Thermaltake Pure Silent Power? I wouldn't want to insult SkyHawk, but Thermaltake may be considered slightly more established?

I just got a SkyHawk 620 unit, I wonder if my model has the changes?

I had a really hard time getting the thing open because the daughter board seems epoxied to the "lid" or PSU cover? I ended up foregoing internal photo's or an investigation, but tis has me very curious? How'd you get it off? Email me?

[email protected]

Another problem is that Marketing departments often fail to communicate with teir enginnering counterparts. I find this to be true even at some larger companies. The best have free-flowing accurate commincation and are sure to make that avialable. I must give you guys props for making this discovery, it's what seperates professional hardware sites, from others.

[infinitevalence]

all i had to do was unattach the AC plug going from the main PCB to the daughter board with a small screwdriver. Then i removed the fan headder for the 92mm fan, slid the wires for the 12v standby out of the cable bundle to get some more slack and poof its apart.

[Liquid3D]

Thank you, I almost got the connector apart and I actually did disconnect the fan, but when the connector began giving me more problems I got nervous and popped it back in. I never really got it completely detached. Now I feel more comfortable re-trying it. Tonight I'm going to try and identify if my version has been updated although I think it's too early for that.

I see in your signature your using the PSU as well, so I gather you must like it? To be honest I was impressed with the 620, for such a small unit it certainly seems power packed. The article follow up really helped to idnetify where rails split off the board by idfentifying seperate solder points.

Thank you for your reply.

[infinitevalence]

its not a bad unit, im also using it because its the only 24pin psu i have atm. Again the real issue was that they were selling something that did not even come close to meeting the advertised specs.

[FE@R]

Heya Guys, Hope everyone is Good!! I just wanted to Give you all A follow-up on my earlier post. After digging into my computer or what was left of it I found a few surprises, that both angered me and had me crawling for the nearest Hole to hide in. I pulled my system apart ,slowly one connector and screw at a time, I found one problem that i apparently hadn't seen at the time and really don't know how i could have seen it, with 4 hdd's 3 CD and DVD burners, and wires tied off {in what I considered} tidy fashion. One of the Molex connectors had a pin that had popped out of the back and was hanging loose. Apparently, after connecting all components and wrestling them around the case ,tying them out of the way, one worked free,unbeknownst, to me.Then Again it may have come loose while disassembling the unit, who knows huh? I looked throughout the box to see if that pin had maybe left a charred or burnt place on a sidewall of the case or maybe on the Mobo itself , Nadda spot anywhere. This has to be what happened though, because I can't think of anything else that may have gone wrong.(if anyone else here can Please let me know),lol.Oh BTW, After finding this ,The 4 Hdd's I had in this Machine (2) 74gig WD Raptors in Raid 0 cfg, (2) 36gig WD Raptors in Raid 0 cfg all Checked out DEAD, not to mention the 3 Cd and DVD burners. They were not all Brand new but they were not very old either, because I took these out of The system I was replacing to put them in this Brand New Sli Rig . So To Say the least this has been an "EXPENSIVE UPGRADE" , and lesson I Guess I should Add. I don't know how i could have avoided this and seen this DASDARDLY PIN. ( I can assure I know how to avoid this in the future), Hindsight, hehe..Fortunately i had a few new 80gig Sata hdd's laying around to use. Oh well, Anyway the power Supply that was in question has been plugging along in the NEW System Without any issues in the last , Almost 3 weeks now... Seems to be holding it's own, which gets back to the origional Gripe ,that u guys uncovered, which was the Company just Not being up front and Honest with The Public, and Claiming to have a product it didn't....
Well guys Thats my Story and I am Sticking to it..As bad as I hate to say...Again thanks for all the hard work,great reviews and Mostly for your Diligence in Persuing these matters. The Show sounds like Fun wished I could make it. l8r
FE@R

[Liquid3D]

There's one thing I remember when i first started building PC's (not that I'm saying your a NOOB (althought that shouldn't be an insult)) ANYHOO, I always re-check the standoff's to ensure there's not one left under the motherboard where there's NO corresponding mounting hole. Even if the stand-off does clear the bottom of motherboard, not making contact (hence short) with any solder points, what can happen; is if you turn off your system for a moment, lets say to install a stick of memory. When pressing in the memory this could, and usually does flex the board enough so a random stand-off left behind would make contact with the bottom of the board. Now you may think, "well the board's shutdown how could that be dangerous?" we must remember even if the baord is shut down and unplugged capacitors are designed to "store" current. If a circuit is created current will flow.

From my High End audio working with Jadis, or Krell streo or monobloc poweramps I've heard of tech's getting fried as those capacitors are Coke Can sized and store current for sometime. The same is true to a lessor extent with the larger cap's in the PSU. Just a belated thought, but a good thing to remember nonetheless. Bottom line: check your stand-offs my friends removing any unecessary ones. Each board may have different mounting holes. Better safe then sorry.

[infinitevalence]

Sorry to hear of all the distruction, i think that the loose pin is somewhat skyhawks fault as the pin/molex are not the highest quality. There really is no way you could have checked for that either...

Keith im with you on the standoffs, i left one on several years ago and killed a mobo, i felt like such an idot after that. I also check the backsides of motherboards now. I was very supprized to find mosfett's soldered to the back of the MSI Neo2, the kinda worried me as some motherboards have indents to help remove heat and with low profile standoffs i can see these mosffets makeing contact with the motherboard tray.

When it comes to cap's generaly you can hear them discharge in the PSU. so the way to know MOST of the power is used is to unplug your psu but not dissconnect your motherboard. Then just listen for a little wizzz pop as the caps discharge any remaining power to the motherboards standby. Then you can be fairly sure that the board is safe to handle.

[Liquid3D]

Thanks. whenevr I have to switxh out or adjust hardware I power down, and un-plug from the rear of the PSU (using the PSU shut-off switch on the rear may not be enouhg) then I wait a few seconds and depress the power switch on the front of the case, Eeven after a few seconds sometimes this will cuase lights to flash, and fans to spinn a few turns showing there is power stored in there.

Depressing the power button is the surest way to make sure any remianing current is discharged. I've started doing this recently again. I used to but became complacent.

[-mogwai]

wtf, yo? that's lame of skyhawk...

does anyone else feel proud to be part of this watchdog community? not only do they have legit reviews on things, they have legit concerns and findings/investigation.

wtg, lr team

[infinitevalence]

Well acording to Skyhawk they had no idea that it was not compliant. Even now they are saying that they are updateing the desing and making sure it meets the specs. I only wish they would send us another unit to review.