As we have mentioned in other articles and reviews, the first place we look when opening a power supply for a hint about its quality is its filtering stage. The recommended components for this stage are two ferrite coils, two ceramic capacitors (Y capacitors, usually blue), one metalized polyester capacitor (X capacitor), and one MOV (Metal-Oxide Varistor). Very low-end power supplies use fewer components, usually removing the MOV and the first coil.

The transient filtering stage from this power supply comes with two extra X capacitors, plus one extra X capacitor and two extra Y capacitors after the rectification bridge. This unit, however, doesn’t have a MOV, which is in charge of removing spikes coming from the power grid.

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Figure 6: Transient filtering stage.

Now let’s have a more detailed look inside GlacialPower GP-AL650AA.