Need a PSU recommendation

JustAnAverageGuy

Diamond Member
Aug 1, 2003
9,057
0
76
My Antec Smartpower II 450W (Sonata II PSU) is starting to act flakey(er).

For the past several weeks, it has refused to turn on if I push the button on the case and I've had to resort to paperclipping the green and black wires together to get it to turn on (works fine after it's on though, been leaving it on for extended periods of time to save the hassle). Unfortunately, even that had started to fail, so I'm guessing it's on its way out. So, I'd like to replace it before it takes anything else with it.

I have isolated the problem to the PSU as the system works fine if I use another PSU in the system and the bad PSU exhibits similar symptoms if I put the it in a known working system.

System specs:

Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Opteron 165 (@ 2.6GHz)
2x1GB DDR400 RAM
Geforce 7800GT
2x 250GB HDD, 1x500GB HDD (two SATA, one molex)
2x DVD-RW
One 120mm fan
4-5 USB devices (printers, flash drives, and such; nothing with a significant power draw)

The Seasonic S12 430W looks fairly appealing, but I'm looking for a second opinion :)
The Antec NeoHE 550w for example also caught my eye, though the NeoHE/Asus horror stories with the earlier revisions put me off a bit.

I would prefer a quiet power supply if at all possible. Opinions?

- JaAG
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
13,704
7
81
For quiet, you can't go wrong with a Seasonic S12--just a matter of finding out what size to get...
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
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Enhance ENP-5140/5150GH at eWiz.com - go there via Froogle and save a buck or two.

.bh.
 

Howard

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
47,982
11
81
Originally posted by: Zepper
Enhance ENP-5140/5150GH at eWiz.com - go there via Froogle and save a buck or two.

.bh.
Pricewatch tends to throw in free shipping.
 

Operandi

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,508
0
0
I say Seasonic or Enhance; both are very high quality units with clean, efficient power while remaining very quiet.

Seasonic is more expensive but will get you a slightly better unit with higher marks in efficiency, build quality, and noise.