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Problems with Silverstone "Zeus" ST85ZF?

J

Juardis

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
310
I had narrowed down my new PSU to an ETASIS ET850. Unfortunately, it appears that there are no longer any U.S. suppliers that carry this PSU. Don't know what's going on, but in early February, they were plentiful. Now nothing. Problems maybe?

So instead of the Etasis, I figure I'll just get the Silverstone Zeus ST85ZF since it's the same PSU, just with the Silverstone brand. So I go to Newegg and read the reviews.

There are 13 of them.

4 of the 13 reviews are bad, as in PSUs that arrived DOA or died within weeks. One reviewer is on his 3rd Silverstone, the first two died. So 13 people, 6 dead PSUs between them. This does NOT sound good, slightly less than 50% of the reviews are bad. Combined with the fact that the Etasis PSUs no longer seem available, I'm putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with a bad picture that there is a problem with this particular PSU. Has anybody heard of any horror stories concerning the Zeus 850 or Etasis 850? Or is this a simple case of only the ticked off people posting reviews?

If I was going to buy the Silverstone and put it into a system as soon as it got here, I wouldn't have a problem ordering it. But I'm waiting on the Intel price cuts on 22APR before ordering the cpu and ram, so I won't be putting all my parts together until a month from now and I don't really want to buy one now and have to deal with the manufacturers warranty if I don't have to.
 
Many places still have the etasis, but the silverstone is identical.

Don't read newegg reviews. "I plugged it in and it worked 5/5" "I plugged it in and it didn't start so 0/5".

Performance wise, the Etasis/silverstone is tops. You will see MANY better reviews of the etasis/silverstone than bad.

www.deadeyedata.com is the best place for the silverstone. Usually the cheapest, and discount for coupon code JONNYGURU
 
Juardis said:
Has anybody heard of any horror stories concerning the Zeus 850 or Etasis 850?
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I think I've seen one that could be narrowed down to the PSU since they were released. Most complaints seem to revolve around things like "I went from a Deer to this and now the system won't turn on." Usually, it turns out to be a short somewhere or hardware the previous unit compromised.

The protection circuitry on these seems to be quite sensitive... I remember seeing a case where one wasn't powering up due to Arctic Silver getting down around the CPU pins somehow.

These do die, like every other PSU OEM out there, but it's not as common as Newegg reviews would have you believe ;)
 
I have purchased the Silverstone ST85ZF power supply 4 weeks ago and it works flawlessly.
The only thing is, I can't use the PCI-E cables because I still got the 7600GT card
 
Capt. Canada said:
Man you can trust SilverStone.
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Just because one of their products are good, doesn't mean they're all good. I'm not saying Silverstone are bad or anything, in fact they make some of the PSUs out their, but some of their ranges, like the Strider series, does not even compare to the Zues range.
 
I could list 15 examples of ppl using SS PSUs and that might still not be enough considering the number of computers out there running on non-SS PSUs. Hey SS also makes the Olympia line in addition to the Strider and Zeus series. My friend's been running a Strider 365W ST365 for over a year and a half, never cleaned it and its still running quiet. I'm no expert but I would not turn down a SS PSU.
 
Bbq said:
Many places still have the etasis, but the silverstone is identical.

Don't read newegg reviews. "I plugged it in and it worked 5/5" "I plugged it in and it didn't start so 0/5".

Performance wise, the Etasis/silverstone is tops. You will see MANY better reviews of the etasis/silverstone than bad.

www.deadeyedata.com is the best place for the silverstone. Usually the cheapest, and discount for coupon code JONNYGURU
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link.

Yes, Jonnyguru gives the Etasis/Silverstone his highest recommendation, but I get concerned when I read such a highly regarded PSU having failures, particularly 6 failures from 13 people. That seems high to me, even with such a small sample size. I was hoping this forum would have a lot of people that use either of these that could reassure me that the reviews at newegg weren't indicative of problems.
 
I have a 500 watt silverstone in my rig right now. My hardware probably doesn't even come close to pushing its capabilities, but I myself have had no problems thus far. It's quiet as hell. In fact, the loudest component I have would be somewhere between the fan on my 7600GT or my stock Intel fan.

I firmly believe you can't go wrong with Silverstone. If it's Jonnyguru approved, then I am confident in its abilities. But that is just my opinion.
 
Zeus 850 user here coming up 5 months, no complains so far, well maybe 1, wished SS had come out with the 1kw or 1.2kw earlier :D ....single rail to boot, next psu...definitely SS
 
cablesguy said:
Zeus 850 user here coming up 5 months, no complains so far, well maybe 1, wished SS had come out with the 1kw or 1.2kw earlier :D ....single rail to boot, next psu...definitely SS
Click to expand...


There is NO proof that 1 rail is better than 2 or 4 rails? ;)
 
Mansize_tissue said:
What's yours powering?
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overkill atm, but its powering a C2D e6600 @ 3150MHz, 2 x raptors 150Gb Raid 0, 1 x 500Gb WD, 2 x opt drives, 2Gb Crucial ballistix pc2 8000, 1 xfi elite pro, 1 x EVGA 7900GS KO plus a mixture of fans, waiting to see what Ati has in store before i commit to the latest power hungry cards.


VE2007 said:
There is NO proof that 1 rail is better than 2 or 4 rails? ;)
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dont remember saying a single rail is better, its more of a personal preference.
 
I have it running and my system, my only complaint would be that it can get a bit noisy when the fan spins up, but that may be more the result of my older coolermaster case (201bxt, its all 80mm fans font and back) not providing it enough airflow than anything else.
 
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