Hello, you may think that your new computer system is pretty sweet. You may have thought you got a good deal on your parts and that all those good reviews that got all your little components a five out of five eggs rating on Newegg meant that you were getting a solid, reliable system that would never fail you.

This PSA is just to let you know that YOU can become the victim of nerd hype and misinformation and to always ALWAYS put QUALITY power supplies in YOUR computer!

Don't be a jackass and spend $50 on a PSU, even if it has great reviews still to this day, or else THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU!!!

Now for the carnage!



Dead Windows XP Pro CD (got the carbon cleaned off but the disc won't read any more)



The most spectacular destruction, this is one of two microcontrollers that was burned. This one was way worse than the other though.



This is the other side of that same board looking at the area where that same microcontroller was. Burned the shit out of it I tells ya!



The metal plate with the little thermal pads for the microcontrollers that was on the bottom of my DVD burner. The big burn spot is the chip I've been showing you. That little burn mark on the one to the top right is the chip that had started to catch fire before I pulled the plug on my system.



The two burn marks in this picture (big one on the left, smaller one on the right) were right underneath where the stuff caught fire. My DVD Burner was burning for a good four minutes before it finally stopped smoking.

SO, spend more on your PSU's or else you'll hook up something and lose a LAWT of money!

I will provide the backstory on what led up to this in a bit if there's enough interest. If you're wondering, the PSU that went up was this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104954

Was fitty bucks when I got it and I got it February 2006. My review should be up there in a bit. It worked great for about a year to a year and a half, then I started having instability issues that I attributed to me wearing out my components by running them hard all the time (and because I hadn't reformatted in about 2-3 years), but I realize that when that carried over to my NEW system as well that that wasn't the case.

Here's what I got to replace it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371010

Quite a good price and it shouldn't set my shit on fire.

[Edited on March 30, 2008 at 7:35 PM. Reason : ~ /]

3/30/2008 7:35:29 PM

I've said it before and you can search my pass posts to verify the fact: don't cheap out on the one component that can destroy all the others.

3/30/2008 9:21:35 PM

Breaking news, this just in: you get what you pay for.

3/30/2008 9:52:46 PM

this makes me feel better about the $170 i spent on my power supply...

3/30/2008 10:08:54 PM

^ I'm all about quality, but for $170, the power supply better beat up neighboring computers and steal their electricity.

3/30/2008 10:39:43 PM

I finally spent over 50 on one the last round with newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002

3/30/2008 11:57:28 PM

And also verifies my point the newegg ratings are fucking worthless

3/31/2008 1:11:59 AM

^ Yeah I gotta agree. I finally went through and read every last one of the ones for that power supply. Almost every single 4 or 5 egg post was from somebody who had owned it less than a month, and half the time there it was probably less than a week. I saw an unfortunate trend of these things shitting out after the warranty period was up.

I'm using more useful sources for my hardware reviews from now on. You make one mistake when buying a computer part and it's pretty easy to just throw $50-150 away. I guess I had to learn that the hard way.

3/31/2008 1:33:52 AM

OH GOD MY DVD BURNER IS BURNING!

3/31/2008 7:15:45 AM

antec, ocz, and thermaltake (atleast several years ago) are the ONLY psu's worth spending money on.

3/31/2008 11:13:21 AM

OCZ!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341007

3/31/2008 11:47:24 AM

fortron and sparkle make awesome psus for the $ i remember toms hardware tested the 350w to put out like 420w before they failed

3/31/2008 1:28:34 PM

gah! anyone who buys based 100% off ANY product reviews is an idiot, it's not limited to newegg

why not actually LEARNING about what makes a good power supply instead of just thinking one brand is good thus you buy that brand, if you look at the spec's alone you can tell a lot about the quality and build.

in case you didn't look.... the PSU only had +12V1@14A, +12V2@13A which is VERY low, even for a 450W, and NO PFC, WTF, why would you even want to buy something with these specs....???? because YOU bought based on newegg reviews?

3/31/2008 2:45:16 PM

mine is PC Power & Cooling and they're supposed to be solid PSU's also

3/31/2008 3:03:37 PM

^ They make reliable power supplies look like crap. I love them so.

3/31/2008 3:06:59 PM

^^^ Man I can smell the desperate nerd rage all the way through the internets.

Nah forget it, I'll address your question. I thought those rails sounded low.

http://www.computergiants.com/items/one_item.asp?part=153144

Newegg swapped the product without changing the item number, so what I linked to was a 450R not a 450PN. I looked up the part number from my old PSU which, if you check the specs on that link, are a good amount higher than the 450R which replaced what I bought (and the 450R still costs the same too).

I guess that's just another reason to avoid this company.

Oh, I bought the PSU based off a review for 3 mid-range priced PSU's that I found using google. The FSP power supply was the most efficient and had the most stable rails of the 450 watt power supplies they were testing, so it wasn't necessarily a bad buy. It's a warranty watcher.

[Edited on March 31, 2008 at 3:47 PM. Reason : ]

3/31/2008 3:37:09 PM

^now see that's an entirely different attitude than i got from reading your OP.

i just get pissed at people who assume everyone makes their buying decisions based entirely on newegg reviews.

and i am ALL for buying nice power supplies, but I (like you) am frustrated that people don't educate themselves on what they are actually buying first.... people assume all they need is appopriate wattage and that's it.

[Edited on March 31, 2008 at 7:18 PM. Reason : .]

3/31/2008 7:17:02 PM

Quote :

"Cons: In the last year that I've had it it slowly started dying, causing instability issues and performance degradation. After I changed how I had everything hooked up (using a series of connectors I'd never used on any drives before, just fans) the DVD-RW I had caught fire, destroying a CD and signaling the demise of this power supply. "

user error

4/1/2008 12:44:39 AM

No, I'd never had that line of power connectors hooked to anything important. The moment I do hook it up to something important the whole thing goes up. The thing was probably defective/waiting to crash and burn for a good period of time that I've owned it.

Thanks for playing though.

4/1/2008 1:19:52 AM

Problem with a DC-DC buck converter is it only takes one element to fail shorted for VIN to go to VOUT. At least it will go through an LC filter first!

4/1/2008 8:10:43 AM