feel free to laugh at me now.

[iroc409]

heh... i was sittin' here working last night, minding my own business when CLICK.

computer shut off, rather dramatically. wouldn't turn back on.

something smelled like it fried, so i investigated. the fan in the psu jammed up, and it roasted itself to death. so, death is my $18 L&C 425w, RIP. installed a new fan and tried to get it to come up, it ran power to the board but wouldn't start the machine.

so now i'm running on a WAY overpriced antec 400w i got locally. i think i'm going to order either the same one i've got now, or a 350w enermax from newegg, and send this one back tho (paid almost twice as much locally...). i need to order a new chipset hsf anyways, the fan on mine locked up a while back (the 120mm fan i was experimenting to cool my machine i believe roasted it ).

so anways. yeah, laugh it up, but that thing did last a couple years, so i got my money's worth . the new one's got 2 fans tho, and the cpu runs a couple deg's cooler

[killernoodle]

Originally Posted by iroc409

heh... i was sittin' here working last night, minding my own business when CLICK.

computer shut off, rather dramatically. wouldn't turn back on.

something smelled like it fried, so i investigated. the fan in the psu jammed up, and it roasted itself to death. so, death is my $18 L&C 425w, RIP. installed a new fan and tried to get it to come up, it ran power to the board but wouldn't start the machine.

so now i'm running on a WAY overpriced antec 400w i got locally. i think i'm going to order either the same one i've got now, or a 350w enermax from newegg, and send this one back tho (paid almost twice as much locally...). i need to order a new chipset hsf anyways, the fan on mine locked up a while back (the 120mm fan i was experimenting to cool my machine i believe roasted it ).

so anways. yeah, laugh it up, but that thing did last a couple years, so i got my money's worth . the new one's got 2 fans tho, and the cpu runs a couple deg's cooler

When crappy power supplies exact revenge...

I had a crappy 420w that came with my chieftec take out my old a7n8x. It just surged or something and burned it up (the ATX connector on the board was browned from the incident, im surprised it didnt leave any marks on the rest of the board). The antec is a good idea. Crappy power supplies are not.

Oh yeah.... KEKEKEKE!

[iroc409]

lol.. yeah.

actually, i think i'm going to order an antec or enermax (aren't they teh same company anyways?) and my other stuff, and take this one back.

i don't mind spending decent money on decent parts, but i don't really like the idea of getting raped. and it wasn't like the local company was the kind i'd pay extra from to support them. they charged me almost $90, which i can get the exact same thing off newegg for $50.

and then i'm going to order another cheapie one and keep it in the closet for a backup (so i don't have to buy the overpriced local crap if the next one dies)... all these new boards going to screwy connectors suck.

[superart]

The same thing happened to my P133* system, Last year. I wound up having to strip the PSU from an old Compaq machine my school was going to throw away.

*That machine is running @ 150Mhz, Ill have you know, and can boot into windows @ 233Mhz every other time I turn it on

[killernoodle]

Antec and Enermax are not the same BTW.

[TerraMex]

Not a big fan of Enermax.
A friend of mine toasted 3 in a relative short time period. They just died.
Same pc with a crap OEM psu , still alive and kicking.

Most "brand" PSU's are overpriced, imo.

[Wildfrogman]

Antec psu's are usually very good but has anybody around here used Fortron's? They are built really well and tend to be pretty low cost. They arnt shiny and flashy but quite a few people I know are very happy with them. Why go "cheap/low quality" with a psu when it could literally kill hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment or cause your system to run unstable?

[iroc409]

yeah, i have heard a few people bitch about enermax. heh, and all this time i thought enermax and antec were sleazy bedfellows... oh well.

i'll probably stick with antec, i guess. i think it's powmax, someone posted a review about not that long ago (or maybe i just ran across the review), that they're supposed to be pretty good psu's, and they can be had on the cheap. i think the one local store sells their 500/550's for like $60 or something. not bad, especially comparing it to the prices of some enermax units.

probably consider fortron as well, but i dunno, they just didn't have that uber quality look i guess about them.

it seems all the sudden a year or something ago, everything went to "uber cheap". at least with cases, and a lot of power supplies. they all started using that new ultra-bendy galvanized-ish look crappy metal, and all the cases now are all goofy [read: crappy] looking.

of course, you can buy all these cases for $30 or less, but still. it seems it's getting harder to find more quality stuff.

i'd much rather buy a case i could be happy with, and keep around for a few years than buy some silly looking colored sack of poo i have to bend into shape just to mount the hard drives.

on the flip side, anybody seen the coolermaster mid tower aluminum thingie? i'm talking the square one without the door and rounded stuff. man, that thing looks SWEET, reminds me of my old pioneer receiver. if the interior was built more like a lian li, i'd replace my lian li

lol.. sorry about the rant, doesn't have much to do about power supplies, just something that's been a little frustrating lately. what happened to all the old-school goodness cases??

[guandi]

got a Q-Tec 550 from a freind for my b-day. *not* a good idea if your running a supremely overclocked 2800 Barton on a voltmodded nForce 2 400u chipset. not only that but its gonna have to handle a whole bunch of power hungry stuff. its fine for my brothers xp1800 that draws less power than a mormon vibe.

got myself a Antec TrueControl 550 the other day... i have never been happier with a PSU. *you can control the voltage lines!*

[Boli]

I've blown a total of 3 PSU in the last years... and I can tell you it s NOT funny.

The first one was expected really, a 250W running a shitty case but as many fans as I could run... not Overclocked but HOT (2000+ palmino core that ran 60* IDLE!).. that kind of faded out.

The second was a bit of a shock... a 350W Cheapo (unbranded) that ;lasted a total of two months and that POPPED when it blew... That one took my motherboard with it.

So a new motherboard later I went and got myself a 450W unbranded, Though it isn't like I had a choice really I had to go local and this had two fans so I figured it would last longer... It did though not by much. I sort of took it for granted and loaded it with stuff... well THAT one went but thanksfully the only calsualty was my cathode light.

So now up to 550W with a pretty decent PSU (a Q-Tec 550 actaullly ) that I managed to wrangle for a pretty decnt price (the barcodes where mixed up so instead of paying £55 I paid £18... nice ). Its actually not bad but the 3.3 rail is a bit iffy sometimes over 2v.. you have to keep it 2v or less or you'll have problems.

The moral of the Story: Don't use a cheap PSU on your main machine, or it will come back to bite you in the ass HARD.

~ Boli

[tuxp3]

personally, psu's for me never have had a problem. as long as i dont overload them with fans and shit then most decent unbranded ones shouod work for a few years.. i just sold a friend some local cheapie 350W for his box and its 2+ years old and yes i have shorted it out MANY times. (crappy case is the cause of it) now i just brought a psu from someone 9buy/selling forums) and its a completely modded 350W psu (blue psu mod and blue sleeveing/heatshrink) and its is a foxconn psu i believe...
anyways if you dont abuse the psu then for most people your fine... OC'ing and lots of CCFLs and Fans are to blame for the PSU dieing, they overheat becuase they cant handle the wattage.. and as long as the fan in the PSU works then there is no reason why a PSU should go bad unless it is overloaded..
but thats just my .02$

[guandi]

Boli : watch that Q-Tec, they are not very good PSU's if you are gonna put anything heavy on it. and even then, give them about 2 years *MAX*.

with just my nforce (before the voltmod), a gffx5200, hdd, cd, 2 fans and cpu, MBM5's alarms kept going off, tellin gme my voltages were jumping up and being eratic.

[iroc409]

since we're on the subject then (power and stuff), how do you determine the size psu you need? i mean, i haven't ever seen any specs on power usage from hdd's or optical drives. i assume most people are getting by these days on 350's, with a decent amount of stuff in the systems.

what's the average power usage for hdd/cd/board&proc, vid, or a good "general rule"? i've been using all 400+ for quite some time with no problems, but even "back in the day" my old 250w powered everything decent...

also, something else i need to figure out is some new UPS units. i've got a 350va on my machine now, but the batteries are shot. how big do you generally need for a system with a decent sized crt?

as far as desktops go, i don't _usually_ need a huge uptime, but a few minutes would be nice. the power rarely "goes out", it just does like 2-second drops, and i need new stuff.

would say a 1000 or 1200 (powercom) power 3x desktop, 2x crt and an lcd?

[krazy]

Originally Posted by iroc409

also, something else i need to figure out is some new UPS units. i've got a 350va on my machine now, but the batteries are shot. how big do you generally need for a system with a decent sized crt?

as far as desktops go, i don't _usually_ need a huge uptime, but a few minutes would be nice. the power rarely "goes out", it just does like 2-second drops, and i need new stuff.

Keep the one you have (assuming the electronics work fine and it's just the battery) and hook it up to a spare car battery. The battery in most UPSs is just a typical sealed lead-acid battery. I have heard of people replacing the small stock battery with a larger one or an array of them to get more uptime. I'd do some resarch first, but it should work.

[iroc409]

Originally Posted by krazy

Keep the one you have (assuming the electronics work fine and it's just the battery) and hook it up to a spare car battery. The battery in most UPSs is just a typical sealed lead-acid battery. I have heard of people replacing the small stock battery with a larger one or an array of them to get more uptime. I'd do some resarch first, but it should work.

this is a good and bad idea. the car battery should function, but it's not necessarily the best idea in using in the office.

while it should function, and provide much more power than the factory batteries, there's a slight inherent flaw in the car battery that would not make (most of them) desirable.

most car batteries aren't sealed, like the ups batteries. they have a tendency to give off a nasty gas, that can be explosive (and probably not desirable to inhale a lot).

if you used a car battery, you should make sure you get a totally sealed model - not just a "maintenance free" unit. of course it would be better if you got a deep cycle as well, but you could probably get by just as well off a regular battery (depending on how much you used it).

at any rate, i don't know about the surge perfomance of these units, but i've never had any surges that my equipment noticed, so i'll assume they're good. i assume the batteries are shot because when the power dips, the units seem to switch over to battery and everything shuts off (no battery available, is my guess). i'd assume if i was overloading the ups, it would trip the internal breaker (been there, done that).

although for the price of a new set of batteries, they'd probably be cheaper than a good, sealed deep cycle car battery, but it's worth considering for closet units that aren't around people much. i guess i'm just worried i'm pulling too much power for my 350 & 400, but 1 system, that probably shouldn't be the case..

[Boli]

Originally Posted by guandi

Boli : watch that Q-Tec, they are not very good PSU's if you are gonna put anything heavy on it. and even then, give them about 2 years *MAX*.

with just my nforce (before the voltmod), a gffx5200, hdd, cd, 2 fans and cpu, MBM5's alarms kept going off, tellin gme my voltages were jumping up and being eratic.

Don't worry I am... I know it is the bane of all my computing problems ATM but it is something I'll have to deal with later(hopefully in a few months time) for now I have underclocked my overclock. Sure I may be runnnig 300mhz slower than the maximum OC but at least I can do it safetly.

Though at the time you buy the best you can local.. and for the price it isn't that bad.

~ Boli