Apevia LCD Power Supply Tester III

Ratings: Ease of Use, Performance: 24/25, Look & Feel: 24/25, Features 23/25, How much I enjoy 25/25
Total: 96/100

The Apevia Power Supply Tester III is an easy to use and affordable alternative to buying a multi meter to test the output of any ATX PC power supply. Using state of the art solid state circuits and an easy to read display you can quickly test any ATX power supply for proper voltages and all the power outputs on the peripheral and drive connectors.

The Apevia Power Supply Tester not only tests output from any power connector of an ATX and SATA ready power supply but also has an LCD readout for the main connector voltages so you see exactly what the voltages are. No guessing or having to use a separate multi meter to see what those voltages are and if they are fluctuating or within tolerances for your motherboard and system.

One thing I learned from the military working on electrical test equipment for nuclear missiles, correct power to any electronic equipment is the start of testing any problems. In computers having a good power supply is the first step of a good computer system. If you have incorrect or fluctuating power to any system of your computer you will have problems with everything else in your computer. One of the first places to check for problems with a computer other than the obvious is correct voltages from your power supply and the Apevia Power Supply Tester III makes this very easy and quick.

The Apevia Power Supply Tester is so easy to use; simply start by unplugging your supply and ensuring power is off to it. Then plug the main motherboard connector to the tester on the end, it accommodates both 20 and 24 pin connectors. Plug in your power supply and turn on any external power switches the supply may have. If no other power switch is on the supply the tester has the correct wires shorted to start the supply to read voltages. It will also beep to let you know that the tester is on and plugged in.

The 12 vdc, -12 vdc, 5 vdc and 3.3 vdc will be displayed on the Liquid Crystal display showing the output voltages from the main motherboard connector. You can observe these voltages to ensure that they do not fluctuate or drop below or climb above an acceptable tolerance according to your motherboard specifications.

You then plug in each of the P4, P6 and P8 connectors, which ever your supply has, one at a time to ensure each of these voltages are within tolerances according to the power supply manufacturer and your motherboard specifications. When you plug in another connector after the main motherboard connector the LCD screen will be backlit a bright blue. When you plug each new connector of the main ones the LCD voltages will automatically display the new voltage of the connector being plugged in. If any of these voltages are above or below the specifications of the tester an alarm will sound and the appropriate voltage will be showing an indication of the fault. You need to check the directions for these indications and alarms.

You can use the other connectors on the Apevia Power Supply Tester to check if there are output voltages to the 4 pin peripheral connectors, floppy drive and SATA drive connectors. You should not plug any more than one of these other connectors as it will probably be too much of a load for the tester. It is probably not meant to be a fully load testing device and adding all of these voltages would probably not be good. You can check each of the drive and peripheral connectors for voltage. If the voltages are not present, high or low both an audible alarm or beep will occur as well as an indication on the LCD. The included directions give precisely the indications for what fault is present.

The voltages will be present when the green LED's come on after plugging the appropriate connector into the tester. If the LED does not come on or there is an error indicated on the LCD for any voltages that a particular connector is supposed to have you need to troubleshoot the power supply or use a different one.

The directions that come with the tester also explain the step by step procedure for testing your power supply as well as precautions. You should not leave a power supply plugged into this tester and leave it unattended. It is a tester and for short periods of time such as a few minutes. Prolonged use on a power supply could cause over heating and damage to the power supply as they are not meant to be used without a load. The directions include a table with the precise over and under voltage tolerances that the tester will have as faults.

I tested three power supplies; two older ATX power supplies and a new Apevia Iceberg which I have reviewed in a separate article. I am showing the results below as the differences between the Apevia Power Supply Tester III and my Fluke 75 multi meter on one of the older ATX power supplies.

The results show that the Fluke multi meter and the Apevia Power Supply Tester are very close to each other in their readings. I found this to be the same for the other two power supplies with this power supply having the largest difference in the 5 volt supply.

12 vdc with Apevia Tester 12.1 vdc
12 vdc with multi meter 12.12 vdc
-12 vdc with Apevia Tester -11.8 vdc
-12 vdc with multi meter -11.81 vdc
5 vdc with Apevia Tester 5.3 vdc
5 vdc with multi meter 5.17 vdc
3.3 vdc with Apevia Tester 3.4 vdc
3.3 vdc with multi meter 3.42 vdc

I was very pleased with the results of testing using the Apevia Power Supply Tester comparing them to my Fluke 75 multi meter. I was in the military and this would be an acceptable range of error for test equipment for uses just like this. A simple device like this would have been extremely handy to have and use when testing the same equipment over and over again.

Using the Apevia Power Supply Tester is very easy, much easier and faster than using a multi meter. I find that this is a must have piece of test equipment for anyone who does their own computer repair and testing. To quickly find out if your power supply is having a problem is much easier with the Apevia tester.