Digital Wanderer

   So [cut] calls me up recently. And in a slightly bewildered voice she tells me how her computer keeps freezing. I couldn't leave a damsel in distress, so I rushed over to the rescue. The symptoms were as follows:
the PC freezes, then won't turn on and pitifully squeaks like this: "trrrrrrrrrrrr", that is, rapidly with very short beeps.

   Naturally, I immediately check the motherboard manual. But the Chinese (Taiwanese) consider us to be dumb end-users and therefore do not provide a decryption of the computer's wailings. I had to trudge back home to scavenge Google, although some hypotheses had already formed in my mind by that time. But online I only found a mention that a PC might make such a sound when having RAM issues. However, it was immediately clear - this wasn't the case, because the PC in question was already 2 years old, and the problems just started a week ago.

   As the most likely hypothesis I assumed problems with the motherboard or the power supply unit. As a result, I took apart my own rig, which is packed with fairly high-quality components, pulled out the power supply, RAM, and video adapter, and took them over to test. Just as I expected, despite the characteristic sound, the problem wasn't the memory. Fortunately, it wasn't the motherboard either — because after swapping out the Chinese garbage power supply for my INWIN IW300-A, everything booted up and ran like a charm.

   This reminded me of the following. I am a proponent of choosing quality in everything, even if, whenever possible, not too financially burdensome. But I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who point-blank do not understand why one should buy quality components, and consider it a waste of money. "It works anyway, so why pay more?"

   So here's my answer. A few years ago I had 2 hard drives burn out on me in a row. Luckily, they were replaced under warranty back then, but I lost quite a bit of my data. And now, after reading dozens of forum pages, I understand that the culprit was most likely a killer PSU manufactured by the hellish outfit CODEGEN, which churns out extra-cheap knockoffs of ultra-low quality in droves. After two years of operation, this unit quietly and neatly burned up. Just like an identical unit belonging to my university classmate Inessa, by the way.

   If you do a search on the forums or ask a repairman, you can observe an infinite number of such cases with cheap, low-quality power supplies. It's a blessing if, during their demise, these devices don't drag a bunch of other computer parts down to the grave with them, which also happens quite often.

   I was also told a story where, due to power surges, a PSU burned out along with the motherboard. And this happened twice in a row. Word has it that with a quality PSU, things would have been limited to just the PC shutting down, or only the PSU breaking.

   Ultimately, I made an executive decision not to fix the sick Chinese patient, deeming it fatally flawed from the moment of its creation. Instead, I decided to put my own PSU into the girl's PC, and buy a new one for myself — a more powerful one, with some headroom for the future, where, as we know, multi-core processors and disk array cabinets that consume power like an iron await us.

   With the help of three hours of recon on hobot and searching Google in Latvia, it turned out that the only decent PSUs you can buy in our province are made by the company FSP GROUP (a.k.a. FORTRON/SOURCE). Unfortunately, either the models weren't the ones I wanted, or I had no trust in the company selling the PSU (although in general we have a good situation with this — the companies are quite reliable and responsible).
   In the end, I found FSP units in the price list of an excellent outfit, Jet Computer, but without the exact models specified. One email - and I already have the necessary information, but for some reason without the price. Such are the local quirks. On the bright side, for once they wrote properly instead of using translit. Usually what arrives is a mishmash of Latin letters and numbers, with no capital letters at the beginning of sentences and no punctuation marks.
   However, it was a Saturday, and so they only sent me the reply on Monday. But I cunningly read it right during a lecture from my mobile phone via the Gmail mobile service, and was very surprised by the good price. So I didn't drag my feet, but went straight away and bought it.

And the moral of the story is this.
   Buy quality products, citizens. I'm not advocating for the heavyweights like ANTEC or ENERMAX, which cost $100 for 300Watts. Just for PSUs from respectable brands. Namely: Delta, FSP, and with some reservations, InWIN or Sirtech(HPC). Like my FSP400-60THN-P, for instance.
   It features: compliance with the ATX 12V 2.01 standard, two independent 12-volt rails, a fairly quiet 12-centimeter diameter fan, and passive power factor correction (PFC). Plus a 24-pin connector for newer PCs, with an adapter included in the package. And finally - long cables, 1 SATA power connector, and an honest 400 watts of total power. All while costing $45.
   For those nightmarish $25 Codegen PSUs and other similar "Chinese" units, 400 watts on the label equal a real 200 or 250, plus poor component quality and the risk of losing a PC that costs an order of magnitude more.
Do you really need that?

Related links
PSU section on ixbt