Clio PSU odd behaviour

[pipTheGeek]

Previously when I have had PSU's fail, they have done so properly. The most recent being with a bang and a flash. However, one of my PC's has a Clio PSU of unknown origin in it, and has started to behave a bit strangly. When you press the power button, nothing happens... For a while... then the PC turns on normally. Sometimes it only waits a few seconds, sometimes it can be 10 minutes later before it starts up. I have moved the PSU to another computer, the odd behaviour has followed. The second computer has a power LED on the mobo which is on, even if the PC doesn't start. So I know the PSU's 5v stand by is working.
My question is, has anyone else ever seen a PSU behave like this? Is it worth opening the PSU to look for a bad connection somewhere or should I bin this PSU and get a http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/550w-Corsair-VX-Series-PSU-ATX-PS-2-5-year-Warranty-see-specsCorsair 550VX instead?

Oh, and just to rub it in, it looks like the hard disk in the PC that this PSU is now in has also died.

[Pob255]

New PSU time

best to err on the side of caution esp if you've got a dead hard drive, which was possible killed by it.

[pipTheGeek]

New PSU time

best to err on the side of caution esp if you've got a dead hard drive, which was possible killed by it.

Hadn't thought that they could be related. The PSU is not normally in this PC. The kids PC was waiting for me to do a re-install, the dodgey PSU PC was downstairs. I put the kids PSU in the downstairs PC and put that up in the kids room so they have a working PC again. Then put the suspect PSU in the kids PC to check that the fault followed the PSU. As the PC had started up I thought I would get started with the XP install. It ran though the first part, re-booted then failed to boot. BIOS gave me a disk read error. So I tried the install again, but this time did a full format. The format reached 100% but then failed with an error.

[Bane]

I seen delayed power on in Shuttle barebones, and its been attributed to capacitors degrading. Although I've never opened one up to check for bulging/leaking capacitors, I've read of other people that have. As your PSU is a cheap generic model, you can be sure the components are equally cheap and of short lifespan.