Ultra is the worst psu company ever!!!!!!

[ryanthesav]

please dont buy one take it from me. It sounds like im trying to talk in morris code whenever i turn my computer on.

 

[Spidubic]

I had an Ultra power supply that began ticking on me one day. Turned out one of the fan blades was cracked which allowed it to droop down and hit the fan guard. Shortly after that I put a 7950GX2 in my computer and promptly fried the power supply. Literally had to put gloves on to get it out. Could have fried an egg on it.

 

[crazypyro]

Sounds to me like you got a bad one of the bunch. Been running my Ultra (see sig) for over a year now, running flawless, with consistent voltages and amperage across all rails.

Remember buying a PSU is a tricky endeavor while some companies have better product yields than others, they're all susceptible to a bad one being put out, just the nature of the product.

 

[orangegator]

I've been using a 500watt Ultra for 6 months with no problems. They feel solid and not cheaply constructed. Best part, it was free after rebate. Of course there are much better PSUs out there, but you pay for it. Sounds like you just got a faulty one. It happens. Get over it. Don't whine. Just get an RMA.

 

[SEALBoy]

I've built three system's around Ultra PSU's, and they've all worked like a charm (including an E4400 @ 3GHz and an HD 2900XT). They may not be Antec's but as far as I'm concerned, they're decent PSU's. And they're very very quite.

 

[slim142]

please dont buy one take it from me. It sounds like im trying to talk in morris code whenever i turn my computer on.

I agree, even though my Ultra power supply has been working nice since I been using it (4 months ago) I cant tolerate the noise coming out of it! I JUST CANT!

This PSU makes my system sound like an airplane engine, so serious. Hopefully I Dont have sleeping problems, if not, I would get no sleep everytime I would leave the pc on leaving it downloading something.

I get more angry when I realize this PSU is only 600 watts, doesnt have cable management and has a lot of cables that I dont need that I thought I was gonna need making less airflow on my case.

I will pretend I never bought this PSU. Next time Ill go for Enermax or Silverstone or Antec which I heard were nice brands.

 

[scubageek]

I had one that fried, won't use them again.

It was a 550W, and just couldn't run my 7950GT, so I put my 7800 back in and it ran that for a bit. May have had the PSU for a year before it melted, so I don't complain much about it.

The light show on my wall though, when the PSU fried was pretty, but the fear that more than my PSU died ended the ohhh's and ahhh's quickly. Luckily nothing else was hurt, just the PSU fried.

If someone asks me about Ultra, I'll relate my story and the fact I won't buy one, doesn't mean I'll try to stop someone else from buying one. It was OK, at best, when it was working, but I was more impressed that when it died, it died alone rather than trying to take other parts of my system with it.

 

[Spidubic]

Same as above. I Won't discourage anyone from buying an Ultra power supply. Mine ran perfectly for 9 months. It was only when I put a new video card in that it choked. And that was partly my fault for not checking first. If I had checked the 7950GX2 power requirements and the Ultra power supplies specs I probably would have bought a new power supply before putting the card in.

 

[crazypyro]

lets also not forget that a majority of all PSU's are assembled by hand, and are prone to human error as a failure point. I just read an article somewhere about Silverstone switching to a robotic assembly line for their high end PSU's.

Buying a PSU i think is the riskiest part of building a system.

 

[doolittle]

Ultra does not make power supplies. They (like many other brands) subcontract that duty to known PSU manufacturers. Ultra has been known to use Andyson, Seventeam, Wintech and Youngyear. Yours is a wintech-OEM unit (like the X2 and v-series).

A quick google search of "Ultra XVS 600W review", the number one "I feel lucky" hit is this techgage.com review, very informative.

techgage.com[/url]"]A little birdy tells me that the XVS 600 is an X-2 with the rails "tweaked" to deliver 600W. Looking inside we certainly see that it bears a striking resemblance to the X-2 internally.
...
The XVS uses cheaper Capxon capacitors instead of the Japanese Koshin caps used in the X-2. I suppose that the budget has to be found somewhere. We can also see that like the X-2 the XVS 600 doesn't use active PFC.

Hmm, So they took an X2-550w (review link) and slapped a 600w label on it as well as cheaper caps. If you read JG's X2-550 review it is overstated itself so how can this 600w unit outperform it? shame, shame. Cooler Master did a similar stunt with their eXtreme Power 600W which marred their reputation slightly in a similar respect.

As fun as it is to bash a company, it is largely ignorant to do so in view of the variety of OEM sources that a single company uses and deploys. Of the wintech-based OEM units I have seen the Ultra ones do not perform poorly at all (based on the X2 and v-series units I have had the chance to get my hands on) and I would rate them a very good value overall considering their performance.

They youngyear-OEM based ones really do suck (from any manufacturer) and will fail if stressed to the stated wattage ratings on the label. I have an original X-connect unit brand new in the box I got for free after a mail-in rebate and I have yet to use it for anything else other than a electronics benchtop power supply, I would not consider using it in a PC at all.

 

[jaguarskx]

Buying a PSU i think is the riskiest part of building a system.

That's why I dished out $105 (on sale) for a Seasonic S12 500 2 years ago. Money well spent on a high quality, energy efficient, and very quiet PSU.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I've been using the same one in one of these boxes for years. Mostly on a daily basis. i get the feeling it will become obsolete before it stops working.

I read over at tigerdirect that if you register them, Ultra will give you a lifetime warrantee. Gotta read through the info. not sure if it's with all of them or not.

 

[slim142]

I didnt know that, but now I know and wont do the same mistake again! I SWEAR THEY SHOULD RIP ULTRA PSUS!

 

[mcain591]

How long did it take for you to figure this out? (Idk, fry's selling their products for next to nothing doesn't tip you off?)

I had a ultra, oh, about 4mos ago. It was going fine, and then one day while playing GRAW the screen went into "many different colored and shaded random groups of boxes". I tried restarting a couple of times, and FINALLY I got into windows. However, after a few minutes it would BSOD. Then, a couple of days later it got OK, and I could stay in windows for extended periods of time. But gaming was out of the question.

Well, one of those attempted gaming sessions later, and my system died. On start, only the fans started up. When disassembling for RMA, few interesting things:
1) Around my x850xt's power connections (the part soldered to the board), there was HUGE "rings" of carbon build-up.
2) A few of the mobo connectors were completely fried.

In the end, it took out the PSU (obviously), the mobo, and the GPU. Guess what happened when I RMA'd my AN8 Ultra? I got an AN8 (standard) back, dressed up to look like an AN8. Remove the little sticker? "AN8".

After I got the PSU out, I tossed it on my bed and was interested to hear the sound of a sh**load of sand in the thing. After holding it over my desk and lightly shaking it, many fryed pieces came out.

Final lesson: DON'T BUY ULTRA!

 

[pshrk]

While we are on the subject...

Everyone here should already know this but the Abslute worste PSUs are those offered by Aspire. Next in line has generally been Rosewill but they have improved there standards but still have a ways to go in proving they are make changes.

I second that, of the 15 or so computers I have had (Homebuilt, Dell, Gateway, Alienware) the only power supply I have ever had fail on me was was an aspire one (it was also the loudest so I'm kind of glad to be rid of it). It even started smoking, I was worried it was going to catch on fire.

I bought a 650W Toughpower PSU to replace it, and i was so impressed with it that I bought another one for my HTPC. I also noticed my power bill went down by about $10-$15 (easily more than 10%) after replacing those two PSUs.

 

[I]

Sounds to me like you got a bad one of the bunch.

Not really, The QC on all the Ultra PSU I've bought (wouldn't have bought them at all except they were either free after rebate or nearly so) was horrific, far worse than most generic PSU. Right now I can't think of any brand on which it would be more likely to receive a flawed unit. If it works, it can be a good short-lifespan value PSU. Some caution is warranted.

 

[I]

lets also not forget that a majority of all PSU's are assembled by hand, and are prone to human error as a failure point. I just read an article somewhere about Silverstone switching to a robotic assembly line for their high end PSU's.

Buying a PSU i think is the riskiest part of building a system.

Actually, no. The largest PSU manufacturers in the world do not use sweatshop hand assembly anymore. Only the low end ones do. With Ultra, even that hand assembly is far worse than most. I have seen review after review where they didn't even seat the DIP chips all the way on the board and they were barely soldered down because of it.

 

[I]

As fun as it is to bash a company, it is largely ignorant to do so in view of the variety of OEM sources that a single company uses and deploys.

WRONG. THAT COMPANY that is selling them, is the final say on whether their name goes on some (good or bad) thing you buy. You can quite fairly bash them if what they sold is crap because they CHOSE to sell it, regardless of what their other products are like for better or worse.

 

[I]

While we are on the subject...

Everyone here should already know this but the Abslute worste PSUs are those offered by Aspire.

Don't forget to mention that until Ultra switched their mainstream PSU to wintech, quite a few of their units were very similar to aspire, since made by youngyear too. Oddly, very little was improved upon switching to wintech except for the transformers' current per rail distribution. Bigger heatsinks in some cases but unless your diodes or transistors are frying it's not a big difference. Overall the inherant quality is no better and they are actually still suspiciously similar beyond some minor cosmetic changes. That's fishy.

 

[I]

please dont buy one take it from me. It sounds like im trying to talk in morris code whenever i turn my computer on.

What has this to do with "worst"? If it's still running at all, you haven't hit the bottom of the barrel yet. As you might have gathered by my prior replies, I'm not at all thrilled by Ultra PSU, but since you have it already, it can be reformed to be acceptible if only you have the willingness and/or skills to do so.

Determine where the noise is. It can be eliminated. Common suspects include fan or inductors. Roll up your sleeves and fix it, if you're inclined to. Either are not hard to fix, but be sure you're doing it safely, not crazy hazzards like (not) leaving it plugged into AC while you're fiddling around inside.

I have to wonder though, why after you started the thread did you not follow up with further replies early rather than late?

 

[I]

Well of cource not much has changed even after switching suppliers. Tey are the one who put to gther the specs of the PSU and dictated to the manufacture what they wanted form the PSU. The manufacture just puts it togther for them.

In most cases this is not true. Usually the relabeler (including Ultra) only specs fairly minor cosmetic changes, do not even have the option of build from scratch as that was not even the point- the point was to pick an existing design built to a bid-price-point.

They spec a cheap PSu so that is what the manufacture gives them. If the manufacture happens to get a great deal on slightly better parts then they use them. But like you said the company that sells the units has final say on them. So it's not exactly the manufacturs fault for the poor qualtiy they are just fulfilling there agreement with the company that will sell the units.

I agree that any, even the 3rd world sweatshop manufacturers could build great PSU - it's not rocket science, just a matter of budget and supply contracts for volume of high quality parts. However, each PSU manufacturer has an established market segment, when you want "X" quality level and that is poor/cheap, you don't go to Delta or Andyson for example, you go to Foxcon or Wintech, etc. Some manufacturers do make a larger range of quality between high and low end, for example Channel Well has made both grades even when they barely changed the label they slapped on.

 

[mrmez]

...morris code...

Kekekekekeke

😳 = u

 

[pshrk]

lets also not forget that a majority of all PSU's are assembled by hand, and are prone to human error as a failure point. I just read an article somewhere about Silverstone switching to a robotic assembly line for their high end PSU's.

Buying a PSU i think is the riskiest part of building a system.

Actually, no. The largest PSU manufacturers in the world do not use sweatshop hand assembly anymore. Only the low end ones do. With Ultra, even that hand assembly is far worse than most. I have seen review after review where they didn't even seat the DIP chips all the way on the board and they were barely soldered down because of it.

I just read an article yesterday that states otherwise.

Most of the western brands either buy or design and then contract to manufacture from companies in China, where all of the power supplies are built by hands on thousands of workers. Silverstone decided to turn up a notch and the company recently started manufacturing power supplies in Taiwan, not on mainland China. Also, workers are replaced by robotic arms that are putting the components onto PCB with equal precision as motherboard components are placed onto the blank PCB.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40089

I hate to cite/quote the inquirer and it wouldn't surprise me if they are wrong yet again (it seems to be the norm with them doesn't it?), but i thought it was relevant to this discussion and worth mentioning.

Overall though I do agree with you, from what I read here the Ultras seem to be a rather poor quality PSU.

 

[I]

lets also not forget that a majority of all PSU's are assembled by hand, and are prone to human error as a failure point. I just read an article somewhere about Silverstone switching to a robotic assembly line for their high end PSU's.

Buying a PSU i think is the riskiest part of building a system.

Actually, no. The largest PSU manufacturers in the world do not use sweatshop hand assembly anymore. Only the low end ones do. With Ultra, even that hand assembly is far worse than most. I have seen review after review where they didn't even seat the DIP chips all the way on the board and they were barely soldered down because of it.

I just read an article yesterday that states otherwise.



There are still mechanical aspects of whole assembly process that require line-workers, but pick-n-place is not done by hand on the larger majors anymore.

 

[doolittle]

You can quite fairly bash them if what they sold is crap because they CHOSE to sell it, regardless of what their other products are like for better or worse.

I much prefer to take a politically correct stance and see what is under the hood prior to making a generalization. My approach is "the glass is half full" and the "brand xxx sux" generalization is "glass is half empty". Either statement is a personal preference largely based on the personality of the speaker.

Not to mention, if you get a youngyear-OEM ultra or aspire and expect to get it to power an 8800gtx that would be the equivalent of putting a trailer hitch on your 4-cyl ford ranger and expecting it to tow your 50' yacht. Looking at the PSU's UL listing is so difficult as opening the hood to make a determination if the task at hand is doable. If you don't know you ask a mechanic. "4-cyl ranger? sux. 8-cyl F350? cool, you're good to go..." No rocket science here.

"PSU Recommendations for High End Gaming PC's"- jonnyguru@jonnyguru forums[/url]"]Recommendations are made on a model by model or product line by product line basis since many companies make such a wide range of product, it is dificult to say things like "Seasonic makes excellent PSU's" or "Coolmax sucks."

Wise words indeed, if you have a andyson-made Ultra 800w+ you will enjoy years of trouble-free service with a server-grade unit - yet IMO it will be incorrect to say "ultra rules" just because you have one.

I recall one incident, a coworker went through three Enermax PSUs I replaced. I didn't say "enermax sux don't get one" I used my brain and noticed every time I went over there to replace it I noticed a truck parked down the street with "PSE&G" label on the side. I bought a line-interactive UPS for him, gave him my Ultra V-series unit and have not heard from him since and he was happy that his equipment was safe from the many brownouts his utility was plagued with.

Don't forget to mention that until Ultra switched their mainstream PSU to wintech, quite a few of their units were very similar to aspire, since made by youngyear too. Oddly, very little was improved upon switching to wintech except for the transformers' current per rail distribution. Bigger heatsinks in some cases but unless your diodes or transistors are frying it's not a big difference. Overall the inherant quality is no better and they are actually still suspiciously similar beyond some minor cosmetic changes. That's fishy.

WRONG. Open up any wintech unit you will find components that can at least live up to the label's stated specs. Hell at least they list decent specs at all, more than what youngyear does. The same cannot be said for any youngyear unit, a 500w rated unit will have components that are lucky to hit 250w at best. Worse, youngyear has been known to slap a variety of labels on their units regardless of the components inside. When the label says +12v@34A you don't see a single 10A rated rectifier in a wintech, only a youngyear.