Yesterday my dad rang me and said his PC wouldn't turn on. I'm in Hull for another... six days so I knew I had to take a look at it sharpish, so today I popped round.
Absolutely no life so I gave the PSU a sniff and although I don't make a habit of sniffing PSUs had a feeling it had gone. The fuse in the plug had blown so I replaced it, then before turning the PSU on again unplugged a few essential internal components to be safe.
When I turned it on at the mains (so running on 5V stand-by) I heard a sizzle and shortly afterwards was the KABOOM. Made my dad jump... but I was expecting it.
The real fun came when we were looking for a local PC parts shop that had recently moved. We popped into PC World on the way for a laugh. £30 for a PSU with a 'peak power' of 300W. We promptly left.
We got to where we were looking for and I asked what types of PSU they sold and who made them... then the words of terror were spoken.I whimpered, audibly. I don't think the guy behind the counter actually understood why. I said I had an aversion to the PSUs but that it didn't concern him.The majority of our stock is Q-Tec
In the end we bought another equally cheap and crap PSU (might not even be as good as a Q-Tec) but it was rated well above what my dad's PC will ever use, so I considered it safe enough.
Now it's all working again, but it seems as though those damn Q-Tec's just won't disappear. When will people learn?