A while ago I reviewed a power supply tester, and while I found the unit useful, I also mentioned it would be nice to be able to determine the exact voltage outputs rather than a simple pass/fail. Today I am reviewing a tester from CoolMax that offers exactly that... an LCD that displays exact voltage outputs for each of the different rails. CoolMax advertises this tester to be accurate to within +/- 0.1V and with all outputs displayed to the tenth of a volt we can infer the unit is simply rounding up or down. Not quite the accuracy of a digital multimeter but certainly easier and faster to use.



The specifications from CoolMax's website are pretty bland, but then this unit is very self-explanatory. To summarize how the tester works, anything outside the range of +/- 5% for the +5V +3.3V or +5VSB and more than +/- 10% of the +12V1 +12V2 or -12V will trigger an audible alarm and flash a visual indicator. Likewise if no voltage at all is detected on the rail. The tester also has separate +3.3V +5V and +12V LED indicators for the MOLEX, SATA, PCIe, +12V and Floppy power connectors. The main ATX connector supports 20 or 24 pin layout and the auxilliary +12V will handle 4 or 8 pin connectors.

Let's take a closer look at the CoolMax power supply tester.