As I was going to check my e-mail this morning, I found that the screensaver wouldn’t wake up after shaking the mouse. I then noticed that the PC was off and the power switch wasn’t having an effect either. I had a hunch that it was another dead power supply.
I dug out my power supply tester and, sure enough, it was dead. Dead power supplies are fairly rare, but I was especially annoyed that this was the second time this brand had died on me. Around this time last year, my original power supply died and I replaced that with a 300 watt power supply from JGE. Then, that replacement died only a week later and I replaced it with the same model.
That replacement last until today, apparently. But, I wasn’t going to be fooled again. I wondered about JGE’s quality control at the time and I’m now convinced that it’s not very good. So, I drove down to Fry’s and selected a 350 watt Kingwin power supply (I would have gone with 300 watts again, but the 350 was about the lowest wattage I could find.)
So, $50 later, I had a new power supply. I took it home and installed it: voila, a happy PC once more. Interestingly enough, a sticker on the box said “Silence”, but I figured that was just marketing hype. However, it was actually markedly quieter than my old power supply.
So far, I’m pleased with Kingwin. And, it’s bound to last more than a week ;). In any case, I won’t be buying JGE again.
Wow! And I thought only me office had that many problems with power supplies.
For the record, though, we use Sparkle and Zippy/Emacs supplies here and we’ve had one failure of each brand (not counting the ones that go within the 48-hour burn-in).
We had a power supply problem with our HP 761n just a month before their 2 year warranty ran out on 5/5/04. We smelled something electrical burning then a crackle noise and out went the computer. They replaced it with a 200w JGE which lasted only till today 7/16/04, we started to smell that old burning smell and shut it down this time not waiting till it died. It could have burned down the house with us in it. Nowhere could I find out what power supply came originally with the computer. No more JGE power supplies for us.
I gotta join the consensus here. The reason I even found this thread is ‘cuz my JGE 300w is dying a slow death. While they have lasted longer than a couple days/weeks/months, this is the 3rd JGE power supply I will have to replace in the past 5 years. (ya’d think I’d catch the hint, wouldn’t ya… lol). AFter a little more research, I’ll be heading down to Fry’s, too.
No More JGE for me, either
Well, I too have been stung by JGE and their crappy power supply. I was burning a DVD while I was taking a shower, came back to the PC and thought… this shouldn’t be through burning yet. Then I smelled that familiar cooked electrical stench. I can’t even find a way of contacting JGE about this. I can’t locate a web address or anything. I still have 2 years of warranty left on this hunk of crap. I went to HL Computers here in Stone Mountain, GA, where I purchased the thing 14 months ago. And just for the record, HL Computer is STILL selling this same exact power supply. They told me they couldn’t help me. (Seems as though I’ve heard that one from them before). So here I am… stuck with a power supply that I paid $89.00, plus tax, and it’s deader than dead. Does anybody know how I can get a hold of JGE on this ??