MASSIVE hardware failure. The kind that goes BANG! Help!

If you can change it, I'd say get a Corsair HX620.

 

Oooolld PSU these days. Still good, but things have been upgraded in the world in the last 2 years.

 

alternative?

 

Take your pick:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/psus/

Be Quiet? (expensive but truly silent) Enermax Modu 82+? (again quite expensive but UK RMA base but better modular cables imo) BFG are pretty good and not too expensive iirc, and the new (upgraded so we've been told from CM) Cooler Master Silent Pro's should now not have the crappy rubber lip on them - I'll see if I can get an update from them on this on Monday. I haven't really done much ~650-700W ish for a while tbh, we did do a Hiper recently but I thought it was quite loud and they've taken it back and the OCZ EliteXStream 800 is very nice (review to come) but not modular unfortunately.

Im not saying the HX620 is not "good" but all these have better efficiency and modern tweaks these days.

 

hehe. MASSIVE DAMAGE!!!

sorry i'll leave now.

 

had TWO Antec PSUs go bang/flash/smell in my folks PC so far - no harm to the rest of the PC fortunately. Whether this is tied in with their turning off the mains supply every night to all their kit I have no idea.

All covered by Antec 3yr warranty BUT Antec have a 3rd party UK outfit that do the logistics and that 3rd party "can" ONLY deal with you ONCE the reseller has told them to.

First one : reseller couldn't be doing with that and just refunded without an issue and even collected (ebuyer.com) .

Second one (which I'd passed on to folks when I got a Corsair replacement) is currently on its way to Antec Rotterdam as Amazon UK don't have an arrangement with Antec and their 3rd party to initiate that UK replacement - at least they agreed to pay the postage to Rotterdam, "which was nice".

Moral is that Antec UK's 3yr warranty isn't really as valuable as you might imagine - they want return to be prepaid anyway and so far TWO resellers/retailers had nothing to do with it!

Can't imagine myself volunteering to buy another Antec product with that nonsense = geared to their internal admin and NOT to customer experience/satisfaction = the sort of brand behaviour that deserves to be punished.

MKD

 

LOL ... mk-donald ...

should be punished

 

An update on my Antec 3yr RMA:

Very pleased to add that Antec DID live up to their AQ3 warranty - albeit only available via RMA'ing to Rotterdam NL - very quickly: ie UPS delivered a new replacement Earthwatts 380W GB supply today, just 6 days later - "a £30 value" as the adverts would say.

Had a 'moment' when the packaged faulty PSU weighed in at first over 2kgs last Friday - as you can't send anything "that" heavy via Royal Mail to The Netherlands! Found a smaller box and stripped the packaging right back - got it down to 1930g - ie ONLY c£11 postage as a Small Packet!

Still REALLY disappointed that Antec have this daft 'via reselller notification only' in-UK warranty system for THEIR convenience not their CUSTOMERS. Why on earth they can have an online "trouble ticket" and RMA system that integrates to their centre in Rotterdam, but NOT to their UK repair/replacement outfit is completely beyond my comprehension. It isn't as if ebuyer.com and amazon.co.uk are 'small' resellers either - though both did their bit via collect/refund and/or paying for the postage fairly enough as regards me as a customer of theirs!

So as I said : Antec's daft UK Warranty procedures mean they won't be on my list for any future PSU, nor on any recommendation list to friends/family/newsgroupers.

MKD

 

I've had this problem before too, fair enough it was self induced! Back in the day of windows 95 and i was younger and stupider and learning my way around computers i saw a little switch on the back of my psu that said 110 on one side and 240 on the other, not knowing what it was i happened to flick it while it was turned on...

We all know how that ended lmao a room full of smoke, ears ringing and a scorched desk and wall behind the psu, and this happened at 1am in my bedroom haha the family were NOT happy!

 

I have that Thermaltake 430W PSU which really isn't 430 watts, but I have much less powerful hardware (3800 X2 & 6600GT). Your system deserves a quality power supply, like something from Corsair. I also wouldn't recommend that store if they built your system with that pitiful power supply.

Another thing, my brother had a power supply in his computer go out with a bang and all of the hardware was fine.