Well seeing another thread here gave me an idea as to a guide as to what psus are well known for being generic/crap, feel free to add to the list Crappy generics that i've come across: A-Power Achieve Aerocool Allied Cleverpower Codegen Coolmax CWT Deer Demon Devanni Duro Dynapower E-power Eagle Enlight FuturePower Hairong HiPro Hyena Icute Inwin Kingwin JSP JustPC L&C Leadman Linkworld Lion Logic Concept Macron MGE Mustang Novia Olympic Power-Up Powmax Q-TEC Raidmax Rhycom Skyhawk Turbo Links Ultra Viomax Yahoima PSUs from reputable names that i've seen TOO much failures to be normal: Antec Truepower : 430W version of this series, tens of failures in the last 2 or so years, not average imo Antec Smartpower : No matter wattage, i would immediately change this from any case i get with it. All of mine are dead and alot of my clients have been hurt from it as well, from simply not working to smoking up the place and carrying components with it or simply chirping to death.
-moved to Power Supplies and UPS's- CWT- ChannelWell Technology. Antec and Thermaltake use CWT designs as the basis for their units. The Thermaltake Toughpower line are one of the better units out there. Demon, last I heard, is a derivative of Powmax (remember, they go POW! when you use them). A lot of the list is covered in the power supply sticky. Antec definitely drops the ball on the SmartPower. The TruePower's are generally good.
funny you should mention the Truepowers. My Truepower2 430W failed on me a couple of months ago. From what I could tell it seemed like the fan had stopped working and it eventually overheated and blew. Luckily for me it did no damage to anything else. Contacted Antec who replaced it with a 480W version without charge. Very nice customer support that although it begs the question why the 480W and not a replacement 430W. Could it be that they no of an issue with the 430W version?
Don't know off-hand. Maybe they had discontinued the 430W version, I'm honestly not sure. They might've had some design problems with the particular model and pulled it. I've had to RMA an Antec unit before, and it was pretty smooth. Having said that, they've also been the PSU company I've used the most, so that can skew the results. Like I said, TruePower units are generally pretty solid. Enermax, who is generally one of the better power supply companies had some problems with their Liberty line. There's no company that hasn't, or won't, at some point dropped a real turd of a product. While Antec probably has more failures of the reputable brands, they're also the one brand I can count on being available anywhere in the world. I try to look for FSP, but even they sometimes don't come up. Antec always does, so you have to wonder how widespread the problems really are as a percentage, if they're the most widely available reputable brand around.
Very true, although i did have trouble with that one PSU I have used Antec all the time when buying new power supplies. On the whole they have been rock solid and their customer service has been second to none
