A clear cut message: Don't get cheap power supplies, ever.

[Trivium Nate]

okay thanks

 

[alvino]

exactly i have used cheap psu's for say 3 years now and had no problems at all,

Then you're just lucky. If you don't run hardware that doesn't use a lot of electricity it shouldn't overload the PSU, but once you start adding in that 8800 GT, overclocking that C2D E6600 etc it'll start putting a lot of load on the PSU and a lot of cheap PSUs just don't have the internal hardware to deal with that kind of power load.

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

I wouldn't blame the power supply necessarily for those problems, Hipro are fairly good in comparasion to most in pre-built PC's.

 

[Jesusfrk611]

I think cheap ones are ok for basic systems that use integrated graphics. If you get into higher power stuff, get something that is good quality. The 7600GT may not consume a whole lot of power, but I wouldn't put it in with a crappy PSU.

 

[mark thorpe]

seen caps in worse state at work.. lol.. always can tell its the caps by the fishy smell.....

 

[culexor]

yeah, once i got my new video card i decided to accompany it with a silverstone 650w psu. i dont trust my $20 500w "@power" (yes thats the brand name) psu. i never had problems with it, but better safe than sorry.