Cybenetics SAFE is a safety and correct-operation certification for affordable AC-DC power supplies. It is a companion to our ETA (efficiency) and LAMBDA (noise) programs, but it answers a single, different question: is this power supply safe to operate, and does it behave correctly under both normal and reasonably foreseeable fault conditions?
Unlike our performance ratings, Cybenetics SAFE has no tiers, scores, or bonus points. A power supply is either Cybenetics SAFE Certified or it is a FAIL — it earns the certification only if it passes every mandatory requirement below, in full. A single failure in any sub-item fails the whole unit. The Cybenetics SAFE mark is a supplementary verification that is displayed alongside, but never in place of, the mandatory regulatory safety certifications (UL, CE, CB, etc.) a product must already hold.
All tests are performed at a standard ambient of 25–30 °C (fault-condition tests are repeated at an elevated ambient where required). A Cybenetics SAFE Certified result is valid for a specific period and includes a full component (part) analysis delivered alongside the pass/fail report.
What a PSU must pass
| Category | What is verified | Key pass requirement |
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| A — Electrical Safety Bench Tests | Hipot (dielectric strength), insulation resistance and ground continuity from the manufacturer's accredited ISO/IEC 17025 report, plus Cybenetics' own leakage (touch) current measurement. | A current ISO/IEC 17025 report shows a PASS for the exact model across every isolation boundary, and Cybenetics' measured touch current stays within the limit for the unit's class and target market. |
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| B — AC Input Protection & Tolerance | Line fuse, surge protection (MOV/TVS), inrush limiting (NTC), startup under load, and brownout / low-line survival. | Correctly-rated fuse on the line conductor; MOV/TVS present (mandatory); inrush within the declared rating; the PSU starts and holds 50% load for 5 minutes at minimum rated input voltage; and it survives low input voltage without damage and recovers normally. |
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| C — PSU Protection Features | OCP, OPP, OVP, SCP, OTP and no-load operation. (Fan-failure behaviour is tested and reported, but is an optional, non-pass/fail item in this revision.) | OCP trips at ≤130% for single +12V-rail designs (≤135% multi-rail) and never below 100%; OPP ≤130% of rated power; OVP engages before the ATX v3.1 limits (+12V 15.6 V, +5V 7.0 V, +3.3V 4.3 V, +5VSB 7.0 V); SCP shuts down safely on every rail; OTP engages before the hot-spot reaches 190 °C — all with safe shutdown and normal recovery. |
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| D — PWR_OK Signal Correctness & Timing | The PWR_OK (Power Good) signal's assertion and de-assertion behaviour, timing, and its margin to the PSU's actual hold-up time. | PWR_OK must never stay asserted after any rail has left regulation, and must de-assert at least 1 ms before the PSU's real hold-up time is exhausted. A false “power good” signal is an automatic FAIL, regardless of the absolute hold-up time. |
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| E — Regulation, Ripple & Turn-On Overshoot | Load regulation, ripple & noise, and turn-on overshoot across the rated load range. | Every rail stays within the applicable ATX regulation tolerance from 40 W up to full load; ripple & noise stay within the latest published ATX limits (e.g. 120 mV on +12V, 50 mV on the minor rails); and turn-on overshoot stays within the ATX limit. |
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| F — Cabling & Connector Safety | Minimum wire gauge on every connector, a cable thermal check, and the dual-EPS restriction. (Applies identically to modular, semi-modular and non-modular designs.) | Every power conductor meets the SAFE minimum gauge (18 AWG for the 24-pin, EPS and PCIe 6+2; 16 AWG for the 12V-2x6/12VHPWR connector); cable-jacket temperature stays within the insulation's rating with a ≥15 °C margin at full load; and no single cable carries two EPS connectors on a PSU rated above 550 W. |
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| G — Agency Certification Marking Verification | That the regulatory safety marks printed on the unit are genuine and internally consistent. | Every mark corresponds to a valid, current certificate for the exact model, rated voltage range and power; the manufacturer's ISO/IEC 17025 report is authentic; no mark is fabricated, expired, or for a different model. A unit sold into a market requiring a mark it does not genuinely hold is an automatic FAIL. |
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Any single FAIL, in any category or sub-item, results in an overall FAIL for the unit; partial results are not published as a certification outcome, and a manufacturer may resubmit a corrected unit for re-testing.
A Cybenetics SAFE certification covers the full test battery above and includes a detailed part analysis (PCB revision, primary/secondary capacitor brands and ratings, PWM/PFC and protection ICs, transformer, bridge rectifier, and the specific MOV/TVS and NTC parts used). The PSU's hold-up time is measured and reported for information, but is not itself scored — only the PWR_OK-to-hold-up margin in Category D is pass/fail. Manufacturers are encouraged to enrol SAFE-certified models in the CybenPass multi-sample program for ongoing verification of retail samples.
