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View Full Version : PSU Explosion! £7 Q-Tec Replacement Extravaganza!


William
11-09-2006, 20:39
Pictures to come soon. ;)

Mark
11-09-2006, 22:56
If it was a Q-Tec, how much else did it kill besides the PSU?

I have pics of my Antec after it went bang. All looks normal until you find the right capacitor. :eek:

Dymetrie
11-09-2006, 22:57
Isn't £7 a bit expensive for a Q-Tec?

Stan_Lite
12-09-2006, 04:29
Isn't £7 a bit expensive for a Q-Tec?

Sounds like the deluxe 1100W model - should be good for nearly 200W and run at only 120 Celsius :D

Stan :)

William
12-09-2006, 18:48
No, twer an Antec which blew up as we had a powersurge yesterday and someone nicked my surge protector. Luckily the only thing which went was the PSU, good job as I feared for the HD and all of it's music, photos and the 'arabic' copy of Cubase and Photoshop; I couldn't give a toss about the rest...


I rushed to the nearest shop in the thunder and rain and got a 400w Q-Tec to last me until tomorrow when a shiny new antec should arrive on the doorstep with a DVD-RW to backup incase of this happening again.

There were pictures but someone thought it was a good idea to wipe the memory card before I got to them; hence the delay.

Basically it doesn't fit into the case properly, so two WHS artist pencils form some rafters which prevent it from crashing through the tower and an elastic band and some paperclips and one massive screw sort of bind it to the case.


http://www.zen64507.zen.co.uk/dodgypsu.jpg

Interestingly if the HD had gone I was considering buying a macbook.

Dymetrie
12-09-2006, 18:55
I spy an Aero 7 :p

rich99
12-09-2006, 18:55
ahhh good old Q-Tec stand-in :D

personally I've not had a problem with them* - though that's probably due to having the 550W model and only using about 250W max, it's also in the GF's son's machine so no big loss if it does go anyway :p

*currenty sitting on a hefty wooden chair just incase - take that as superstitious or electrically insulating as you see fit

William
12-09-2006, 19:04
I spy an Aero 7 :p


You do indeed, a stalwart Aero 7 covered in dust.

I'll tell you one thing though, this Q-tec is sodding quiet. I would say this thing is at least half as loud as when I had the case side on and the antec in.

Mark
12-09-2006, 19:09
Antec's are good at not destroying stuff when they die. I've had two die now (one with a bang, one I just noticed was undervolting one rail by 10% and I replaced it before anything more serious happened.

Q Tecs on the other hand, like destroying everything they get within a cable's length of. I fear for your HDD.

Oh, and I've still got an Aero 7 whrring away. Didn't see any reason to change it (and I hate changing heatsinks anyway - to the point I usually try to find someone else to do it).

rich99
12-09-2006, 19:13
Oh, and I've still got an Aero 7 whrring away. Didn't see any reason to change it (and I hate changing heatsinks anyway - to the point I usually try to find someone else to do it).

arggghhh Socket A heatsinks always bring me out in a sweat no matter what the temperature or time of year - I have a few machines with those Akasa Carnival Coolers which have such strong clips and such a week little tab you're meant to be able to lever on (half have lost the little tab after the first try) :shocked:

Stan_Lite
12-09-2006, 19:47
I found the Aero 7 bloody noisy - maybe just me.

It also seemed to attract dust like nothing I've ever encountered.

Mine is in a storage box somewhere.

Stan :)

William
12-09-2006, 19:57
Yeah they are very noisy, next PC will definately be a silent or a laptop.

Mark
12-09-2006, 20:03
Actually, I just realised mine's an Aero 4, not Aero 7. Close enough though. Whines like hell when on full, which was the case most of the time in the old case. Since I dumped the old beige boxes in favour of a pair of Stacker 810s, everything's quite a lot quieter.

Except, that is, the Vantec HDD cooler on my server, which whines so bad on max speed that I would like to smack it with a golf club, but I'd rather a noisy fan than a hot disk. Come cooler weather it'll be turned down a notch and then it's inaudible.

kaiowas
12-09-2006, 20:43
I had plenty of cheap power supplies in my crunching days and never had a problem with any of the QTecs.

Contrast that with my experience of 'quality' supplies. I've got an Antec Sonata case, the included Antec PSU lasted about 2 hours before it expired with a load bang. Got a replacement which lasted a couple of years before it went with more of a whimper. Only other decent supply I've ever bought was an Enermax which was still going strong last I knew (can't remember if it's currently in vixs PC or in the now unused Sonata under my desk).

Mark
12-09-2006, 20:53
For fear of repeating myself (which I am doing but adding more detail)...

So far I've had one Enermax expire (to be fair, several caps blew on the motherboard and took the PSU with them - this was at the time that blown caps were a common cause of component failure), one Antec expire (went bang and tried to take a UPS with it, but a fuse blew first), and one Antec undervolt enough that I decided to replace it to protect my server. I've never had a PSU attempt hardware murder (save for the UPS which just went into overload)

I simply won't buy cheap PSUs. They tend to lack the protective circuits that the more expensive ones have, so if/when they go bang, they take everything else with them.