OCZ ZT Series 550W

My budget HTPC build’s (I just realized I didn’t blog about it, but no worries I will post it soon) power supply died and it’s only 3 months old. It was a Cooler Master GX 450W bronze. For a couple of weeks, the PC didn’t turn on. At first I thought it could be lose cables or wires. I just never had time to take a look at it until recently. I checked everything and it still didn’t turn on. I decided to buy a Rosewill RTK-PST PSU tester. It’s a very good investment and will save you time and headaches (thanks Jeff).

As soon as I plugged in the GX 450W, the PSU tester beeped and displayed a red color on the LCD with an “X”. It’s definitely the PSU. I’m filing a RMA now so we’ll see how that goes.

I came across another good deal on a PSU so I picked up the OCZ ZT Series 550W. I’ve had good luck with OCZ’s PSU in the past so I’m giving this one a try. On top of the good price after rebate, it’s fully modular. It’s great for my HTPC being that the tower is fairly small and I won’t have unnecessary/unused cables dangling around inside. The 550W will provide more power but I wouldn’t need it. My HTPC has low power consumption. I’ve ran a kill-a-watt on it and it ranges from 38-44W (idle to use). Hopefully this PSU will last me longer than the last and that Cooler Master will replace my broken one. Then I’ll have an extra PSU.

Here’s some pics I took when testing the bad PSU.