Power Supply Problem?

[jonnyGURU]

ROFL Can't quite decide whether that means "POOF vs. works fine, think about it dummy!" or "Both pretty good, just pick the one you like best!" But anyway, uh...thanks

Just a lame attempt at being funny.

Seriously, I'm not one to ask. I have generally good experiences with FSP/SPI, but in the machines I build I don't really load them up. They're just file-servers, more or less. They just sit and dispense files. The most gaming I've ever done on one was a few rounds of Armagetron while I was waiting on site for a provider to juice up a T1 for me.

That 530W was the first of it's kind that I had my hands on and it blew up, but certainly that has to be an isolated incident. With companies like PC Power and Cooling, XClio and Zalman counting on them, I don't think they can afford to have power supplies blowing up left and right.

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

That 530W was the first of it's kind that I had my hands on and it blew up, but certainly that has to be an isolated incident.

It is... this is only about the second one I've heard of actually popping like that in over a year now. Most of the time, the failures on this unit seem to relate to voltages going out of spec or something else shorting out and then having the oversensitive protection circuitry shut it down and never letting it come back on. Several times I have seen complaints about this unit only to find that the PSU wasn't the problem.

XClio is Channel Well IIRC.

 

[jonnyGURU]

XClio is Channel Well IIRC.

Correct. I must have been thinking of a different brand.

 

[Elec]

Went with the OCZ Modstream 450W (550W ). The specs on it are pretty solid with 45A on the +5v line and 26 on the +12v in case I do decide to try it sometime with newer hardware. Aside from that, the 3 year warranty is nice and I've got a windowed case with a blue theme, so the nice looks, modular feature, and sleeved cables were all appealing. I also liked the 120mm fan - other than the Tornado, my system is pretty quiet and I might swap the Tornado out for something less noisy soon (though it's not awful on the rheobus).

Anyway, thanks for the advice and info, and I'll report back whenever it arrives!

 

[Elec]

Put it in yesterday, so far so good. The Modstream is very pretty with that dark mirror finish and blue fan. The cables aren't the most attractive IMHO, but they're better than the unsleeved red/black/yellow of PSUs past. The sleeved cables are decent length but quite stiff, so they can be hard to route and actually seem to take up more space inside my case than my previous setup. But because they're sleeved, they're still nicer to look at, even if they do twist all over the place.

No more problems on startup, which is good. One of my cheapie 80mm fans is making a funny noise on startup that sounds like it is slowing down. Lasts for only a minute and still works fine. I actually have 2 fans in front of my HDDs and not sure which is the culprit, so I'll have to check that out - don't think it's PSU related.

MBM is reporting +5v between 4.84 and 4.92v and +12v between 12.10 and 12.40v (close to +/- 3% on both if that's accurate). Haven't bothered with the multimeter yet. My board doesn't report the 3.3v rail voltage so I don't really have info on that. Interestingly, the packaging had a sticker on the shrink wrap that said something like "35A peak load on +12v!" Not sure how that works since that rail is rated on the sticker at 26A.

 

[jonnyGURU]

The cables aren't the most attractive IMHO, but they're better than the unsleeved red/black/yellow of PSUs past.

Appreciate what you have. Compared to the A.C. Ryan, Antec NeoPower, and Mad Dog Smart Cable those OCZ cables are BEAUTIFUL. The only cables that look nicer is the Ultras and that's just because they sprung for the plastic caps to go over the ends.