ULTRA Plague

[amerifax]

We have 4 power supplies here in the office that are all made by "Ultra Products." I have 4 power supplies here that are all bad and have failed and crashed my computers. The reason behind purchasing these power supplies is the wonderful "lifetime warranty"...but I guess not in my lifetime. I apparently didn't register properly because they don't have any record of my registration. Well unfortunately being as the records belong to them, I can't tell them they are wrong.

Who would purchase a Power Supply with a Lifetime Warranty and not register for it...really? But even worse who would purchase 4 power supplies with Lifetime Warranties and not register for them. I guess even worse than that...I have 4 FAILED power supplies. And I was only trying to replace 2 of them.

At least the company's employees were very congeniel when they told me to drop dead!! You would think they would be more worried about the issue that I have 4 out of 4 failed power supplies!

If I am going to continue to buy from Tiger Direct they are going to have to be more careful on who they select for their suppliers.

 

[tomoyo]

Uh, tiger direct is actually the owner of the brand ultra. And it's pretty well known that a big portion of ultra's psus are complete junk. Be wise and buy a quality brand next time.

 

[faxon]

Replace with Seasonic and breathe easy for a while . I have a Seasonic super silencer 400w from 9 years ago that only died last summer, that thing lasted forever. I also have a 4 year old antec neo 430w (seasonic built) that survived 3 years of abuse running it at its rated spec 24/7 in a hot room, and the year prior wasnt much better. gonna replace the 430 with an M12II Bronze 520w. They're well built and reasonably priced to boot, gotta love that combo

 

[BoomerD]

"Lifetime warranty" only means the life of the PSU. When it dies, your warranty expires.

I have to agree with Faxon. Buy a quality PSU. You won't get a "lifetime warranty," but as you have seen, that doesn't mean shit anyway. Better to buy a quality unit from a company who will stand behind their product.

The three that I recommend and use are:
(not in any particular order...all are great)
Seasonic
Corsair
XFX

 

[amerifax]

Thanks everyone for your help in this matter. We really appreciate the feedback. At the time when we first started purchasing ULTRA they were deemed to be pretty good. Now I see that we should have continued to research rather than feel safe with the orginal findings!

I never knew that Tiger Direct was ULTRA...

The problem was very strange, once I shut down the computer(s) they wouldn't start back up. When I pushed the power button it would power on for a few seconds and then turn off. I would have to play around and power off the PSU for about 6-8 seconds then turn it back on and try the power button. After going through this process for 1/2 to an hour the computer MIGHT start. Yesterday I found a process to get them to start up. I unplug everything from the power supply except the main power and the atx power and which ever power connector is powering the C drive. Then the computer starts up no problem. When I restart the computer I can plug in everything else and keep going.

I will be replacing all of my PSU's with "reputable" PSU's. Right now I have 3 bad and 3 crippled Power Supplies from them.

I'm on a mission now...thanks for all your input!

Bob

 

[amerifax]

I guess maybe now it's the "TigerDirect Plague" or "Systemax Plague." We used the word plague to make it easier to search out.

We recently found out from ULTRA that they are owned by Systemax. The concensus is that they "claim" if they had a certain percentage of Failure Rate on a product they would look into in. I told them they had a customer with 6 PSU that have failed over a period of 3-6 years. And his response was how do I know you don't have faulty wiring in your house. And I responded "In 2 houses?" I also mentioned to him that he has the abiliity by Model number to send out an email to people who purchased these products. Even if they don't replace them maybe they would understand the problems they may have been having over the years. Believe me I have had so many problems over the years that I have had posted all over the place that people have tried to help us fix. I mean all sorts of responses: reinstalling, memory, motherboard, processor, software, operating system you name it. We have spent countless hours researching problems that have stemmed from this issue. It's unbelieveable.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Crap PSUs are crap.

 

[BoomerD]

When you buy "cheap," you get "cheap."

It's a shame that there are so many "junk" PSU companies out there who sell crappy products...but, it's a "buyer beware" business...so it's on us to research our purchases as best as we can.

 

[infoiltrator]

Supposedly Ultra X3 and X4 are good, also expensive.

 

[wuliheron]

Two power supplies with the same identical watts and voltage can cost anywhere from $18.oo to over $200.oo. They're power supplies, not rocket science or fancy do-dads, and with that kind of price difference it means its buyer-beware time.

 

[tomoyo]

Supposedly Ultra X3 and X4 are good, also expensive.

X3 good yes, X4 not so good. Some of the X4's are pretty iffy quality.

 

[HOOfan 1]

Systemax owns Tigerdirect, Ultra, they bought the rights to CompUSA's name and the rights to Circuit City's name. They run Tigerdirect, CompUSA.com and Circuitcity.com all at the same time and they are basically all the same website. To me that is shady.

BFG also had a lifetime warranty, not the company is gone. To me a long warranty is a bonus when buying a good PSU, I certainly only factor that into a purchasing decision when comparing equally quality PSUs though.

Jon Gerow built Ultra into a quality PSU company be sourcing good OEMs and making sure the PSUs were quality tested before sending them out. As soon as he left, they started selling crap again. I personally would never buy even a decent product from a company that mostly pedals junk. I would gladly watch Ultra, Coolermaster and Thermaltake go out of business to watch decent companies like BFG and Corsair survive.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Uh, tiger direct is actually the owner of the brand ultra. And it's pretty well known that a big portion of ultra's psus are complete junk. Be wise and buy a quality brand next time.

yeah next time go with PC Power & Cooling!!
I personally use a OKIA 80+ Platinum certifed PSU!!

 

[faxon]

Systemax owns Tigerdirect, Ultra, they bought the rights to CompUSA's name and the rights to Circuit City's name. They run Tigerdirect, CompUSA.com and Circuitcity.com all at the same time and they are basically all the same website. To me that is shady.

BFG also had a lifetime warranty, not the company is gone. To me a long warranty is a bonus when buying a good PSU, I certainly only factor that into a purchasing decision when comparing equally quality PSUs though.

Jon Gerow built Ultra into a quality PSU company be sourcing good OEMs and making sure the PSUs were quality tested before sending them out. As soon as he left, they started selling crap again. I personally would never buy even a decent product from a company that mostly pedals junk. I would gladly watch Ultra, Coolermaster and Thermaltake go out of business to watch decent companies like BFG and Corsair survive.

coolermaster, really? they have some crap like every manufacturer sure but they also have some really great units for the price. check the reviews on their new gold series units, jonnyguru has one for the 1200w silent pro gold. it's not the best 1200w by any means, but for the price you get a lot of bang for your buck. same deal with the toughpower XT from thermaltake, though for the most part thermaltake really does only have cheap chinese junk these days

 

[bryanl]

Ultra changed computer systems a few years ago and lost all old records, but I believe their products still carried a 3-year warranty if the buyer didn't register.

Ultra used several suppliers, but their PSUs from Wintech were made with poor quality capacitors from HEC and Canicon, and replacing them often restores normal operation.

 

[gammaray]

go with Corsair PSU or Seasonic, they're expensive but reliable, and if one fails they will replace it with no question asked.