Q-tec

Raikiri · 20 Jul 2006 at 19:40

Psycho Sonny said:
how would a noob know how to fit a power supply? mobo connections, rails, convertors i dont think so, same with graphics cards you need pc knowledge, my dad doesnt know jack if i told him to change the OS to vista he would have a melt down never mind change hardware

Well, we were all 'noobs' at some point... I managed and have built loads since, as have loads of people I know.

If someone who doesnt know anything about computers wouldnt fit a new PSU then why the hell do q-tec sell so many?

Psycho Sonny · 20 Jul 2006 at 20:06

Raikiri said:
Well, we were all 'noobs' at some point... I managed and have built loads since, as have loads of people I know.

If someone who doesnt know anything about computers wouldnt fit a new PSU then why the hell do q-tec sell so many?

because they are normally bought by CHEAP pc shops and sold to noobs who come in, you know the local pc shop round the corner run by the dodgy foreign guy with a tash and a big smile

Andy Pandy · 20 Jul 2006 at 20:40

had my q tec since january still going strong

. Shes a fighter will survive anything

Meatball · 20 Jul 2006 at 20:47

Psycho Sonny said:
yes i know but a lot of people are flaming OCUK for selling q-tec

I wasn't flaming, flaming sounds a bit harsh to me. I was just saying how I thought OcUk was a company who sold only the best etc (for Overclockers

) so I thought they would stay clear of Q-Tecs like they did with the 7950GX2 as they would cause to many problems. I didn't say Q-Tecs weren't ok for slower computers either.

Amidar · 20 Jul 2006 at 21:14

Lost-Prophet said:
I wasn't flaming, flaming sounds a bit harsh to me. I was just saying how I thought OcUk was a company who sold only the best etc (for Overclockers ) so I thought they would stay clear of Q-Tecs like they did with the 7950GX2 as they would cause to many problems. I didn't say Q-Tecs weren't ok for slower computers either.

OcUK do sell the 7950GX2 don't you mean the 7900GX2 :confused:

Duke · 20 Jul 2006 at 21:51

I think it's unfair to say "don't use Q-Tec (or similar) ever" as they do have a place in the market - just generally not you average OcUK customer, imo.

cobxx · 20 Jul 2006 at 23:34

Duke said:
I think it's unfair to say "don't use Q-Tec (or similar) ever" as they do have a place in the market - just generally not you average OcUK customer, imo.

Yeah, I would use one over an el cheapo or just in a very budget rig if there was no room for me to upgrade to an antec or something. Most the time something like a q tec will do, it's just with the top of the range systems with huge 12V and 5V dependeance and stability where it would fall. There is a reason though why PSU's can be 4 times the price of this though.

sargatanas · 21 Jul 2006 at 01:03

Andy Pandy said:
had my q tec since january still going strong . Shes a fighter will survive anything

I have to say, if i were you i wouldnt have a cheap power supply in with all those expensive parts, regardless of if they had high failure rate or not. Theres no point in spending loads of money on set parts just to skimp on something else.

Sean_UK · 21 Jul 2006 at 01:06

My friend running no where near a power hungry system and his Q-tec was screwed up. Opend up the PSU (dont do this at home kids

) and two parts inside have started to show signs of melting.

Allthough i should add; he did'nt buy the Q-tec from OcUK and its not the 650w one either, next one down iirc.

Yewen · 21 Jul 2006 at 01:30

Andy Pandy said:
had my q tec since january still going strong . Shes a fighter will survive anything

Everyone says that until it kills everything.

Expensive rig = £50+ PSU for me everytime.

AndyOcUK makes a very very good point, if a person gets on the system they wont sell you a Qtec for a rig on your level, there is a reason!

Awful lot of money on such a poor PSU, good luck with your my PC is dead thread, maybe not this year, or the next.

t31os · 21 Jul 2006 at 01:36

Psycho Sonny said:
how would a noob know how to fit a power supply? mobo connections, rails, convertors i dont think so, same with graphics cards you need pc knowledge, my dad doesnt know jack if i told him to change the OS to vista he would have a melt down never mind change hardware

A power supply, pretty much up till recently has been, like the rest of the PC, plug everything in where it fits. So its not hard to go wrong.

Common lots of people upgrade and replace hardware without much knowledge of what they are doing. Its really not that hard.

TheVoice said:
If that was policy, they'd have to stop selling a lot more than just Qtec PSUs. What about watercooling ("Runs the risk of leaking"), Maxtor hard-drives (can't be denied that they don't exactly have the best reliability history), and all sorts of other stuff.

The fact that Andy mentions that OcUK will monitor orders with Qtec PSUs (and advise a better PSU where necessary) is more than most other retailers would do, I'm sure.

Why is this being dragged out so much? You've heard OcUK's official stance on Qtec PSUs, leave it there.

Water cooling isnt an everyday PC item, its specificly a customisation. This item does require knowledge, and since its not in an everyday PC a noob so to speak wouldnt have the first clue about it, hence more inclined to research, unlike a PSU, apparent in every PC, and again a basic need item, like the CPU, memory, hard drive.......

------------------------------------

If you know there is a risk there, why would you take it?...........

------------------------------------

As i said previously, this is my opinion, and every person and business has its own reasons for how they do business, please do not take this as a statement, its simply a view, we DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE....

manveruppd · 21 Jul 2006 at 02:57

AndyOcUK said:
They DON'T have a risk of blowing anything IF they are suitably matched with low power hardware.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. However, the reason all this ruckus is being made is because due to the misleading power rating on the QTecs themselves, it is perfectly possible (and unfortuantely all too common!) for a user to buy this PSU for a system for which it is not only insufficient, but actually dangerous to run it in (not just for their rig, but for their homes and possibly lives)!
And while it's decent of you guys to try and dissuade customers buying high-end rigs from buying these, I'm sure there's lots of them being bought on their own, perhaps to replace PSUs that stopped working, which are being installed in high-end rigs!
I see your point that OcUK is a business, and that you're not in any way misleading your customers into believing these PSUs are as good as more expensive brands. But the ratings on the PSUs themselves ARE completely misleading and frequently lead to blown, worthless PCs. While I'm a big proponent of personal responsibility and am in no way suggesting that these "accidents" are the fault of OcUK staff, or even that you're morally responsible, it would be very much in the interest of your company to stop stocking such low-quality (and, indeed, mislabelled to a borderline criminal degree!) equipment. Flagging them with a warning on your catalogue is probably out of the question as QTec or their supplier could conceivably sue you for libel, but having people who don't know better going around saying they bought this PSU from OcUK and it blew up and took their Opteron rig with it is VERY bad for your company's image! If people are noobish enough to buy these fire hazards, they're probably noobish enough to not realise that it's their own fault for picking them (especially if they don't want to admit their mistake for fear of losing face), so they'll just go around saying they bought them from OcUK. I realise you need to stock a full range of PSUs, but I reckon the Akasas are cheap enough to be able to fill the "budget" end of your line up without the help of the Qtec white elephants...

And, to the OP, we want pictures of that thing's innards!

Meatball · 21 Jul 2006 at 10:18

Amidar said:
OcUK do sell the 7950GX2 don't you mean the 7900GX2

that's it, thanks.

AndyOcUK · 24 Jul 2006 at 00:40

manveruppd said:
Yes, you are absolutely correct. However, the reason all this ruckus is being made is because due to the misleading power rating on the QTecs themselves, it is perfectly possible (and unfortuantely all too common!) for a user to buy this PSU for a system for which it is not only insufficient, but actually dangerous to run it in (not just for their rig, but for their homes and possibly lives)!
And while it's decent of you guys to try and dissuade customers buying high-end rigs from buying these, I'm sure there's lots of them being bought on their own, perhaps to replace PSUs that stopped working, which are being installed in high-end rigs!
I see your point that OcUK is a business, and that you're not in any way misleading your customers into believing these PSUs are as good as more expensive brands. But the ratings on the PSUs themselves ARE completely misleading and frequently lead to blown, worthless PCs. While I'm a big proponent of personal responsibility and am in no way suggesting that these "accidents" are the fault of OcUK staff, or even that you're morally responsible, it would be very much in the interest of your company to stop stocking such low-quality (and, indeed, mislabelled to a borderline criminal degree!) equipment. Flagging them with a warning on your catalogue is probably out of the question as QTec or their supplier could conceivably sue you for libel, but having people who don't know better going around saying they bought this PSU from OcUK and it blew up and took their Opteron rig with it is VERY bad for your company's image! If people are noobish enough to buy these fire hazards, they're probably noobish enough to not realise that it's their own fault for picking them (especially if they don't want to admit their mistake for fear of losing face), so they'll just go around saying they bought them from OcUK. I realise you need to stock a full range of PSUs, but I reckon the Akasas are cheap enough to be able to fill the "budget" end of your line up without the help of the Qtec white elephants...

And, to the OP, we want pictures of that thing's innards!

Like I said, I give up.

Corasik · 24 Jul 2006 at 10:05

I understand why OcUK stock and sell these PSU's. I mean if they didnt, people who just wanted a cheap PSU would quickly find another shop that sold £20 PSU's which could be even worse than Q-Tec! Thats just part of the nature of internet business. Price checking is really easy. Andy's quite right when he says they are safe in a low power system, anything under 300W or so, and even the Q-Tec's capacitors, and other componants should be sufficient to protect the computers componants from serious damage even if the PSU pops.

There is one thing that concerns me slightly though, and thats the Trades Description act of 1968, here is a small extract.

It is an offence to apply a false trade description to goods, or to supply goods to which a false trade description is applied. If a trader can show that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence, he may escape liability

Nowhere on OcUK's website does it mention that its 650W Peak power, and while it does mention this once on the specifications page of Q-Tec's own site, it still doesnt indicate this is anything 'unusual' compared to other PSU's.

The biggest issue, is that 'peak power' is not sufficiently defigned without knowing its true rated load, which according to most reviews seems to be about 50%. (325W), there is nowhere in the specification of the PSU to indicate what is considered a peak, a 1 picosecond power spike? A few seconds to cover the initial powerup, and spinup time on a few hard drives etc.

Without knowing its true rated load, its hard to know if that 'hard drive upgrade' or a new GPU will push it over the edge. It's hard enough to work that out even when the PSU's honestly labeled up full load ratings.

I think OcUK is a very good store, with fair prices, and good sales, and aftersales support, but if you ask me, the whole Q-Tec issue is a timebomb of legal complications just waiting to go off.

PS. Andy
Personally I think you and the rest of the team do a good job. Just playing at devils advocate.

krooton · 24 Jul 2006 at 14:36

OCUK should stock SilverPowers as their budget PSU range.

Awesome bits of kit, won best budget psu TrustedReviews, and I've built 3 machines with them, no issues at all, and £25 for a 400W PSU is a bargain

manveruppd · 24 Jul 2006 at 15:27

Corasik said:
Nowhere on OcUK's website does it mention that its 650W Peak power, and while it does mention this once on the specifications page of Q-Tec's own site, it still doesnt indicate this is anything 'unusual' compared to other PSU's.

Thanks, you put it better than I could: it's not OcUK's fault that the Q-Tec wattage ratings are misleading (why misleading? downright untrue!), but it IS only a matter of time until it backfires on them. If you think that a total system-building beginner will sit down and say "hang on... it can't be THAT cheap... there must be something wrong here!" then you severely underestimate the power of greed!

cobxx · 24 Jul 2006 at 16:00

manveruppd said:
Thanks, you put it better than I could: it's not OcUK's fault that the Q-Tec wattage ratings are misleading (why misleading? downright untrue!), but it IS only a matter of time until it backfires on them. If you think that a total system-building beginner will sit down and say "hang on... it can't be THAT cheap... there must be something wrong here!" then you severely underestimate the power of greed!

Most things with pc building follow that. Generally, there aren't any cheap shortcuts for good products except a couple of brands (like geil value ram)

Plasmoid · 24 Jul 2006 at 16:22

Got a 400w free with a cheapo case for my Mum's pc.

It died 2 days in under the strain of a Athlon Xp 2700+, pci 8mb gfx card, 1 hard drive, 1 dvd drive and a bare 256mb of ram @ DDR-333

Got a El not as cheapo Codegen 300W from down the road and its been clean sailing ever since even with 256mb more ram, a GF4 and some overclocking.

sidthesexist · 24 Jul 2006 at 17:39

Dutch Guy said:
A few months ago I got a call from a mate saying he was getting low power related issues.
He was surprised though as he had a 450W PSU that should be enough it was a Q-Tec.

So I tell him to buy a quality PSU and don't look at the mentioned Watts and what does he buy ........ a quality 650W PSU for 30 euro's, can anyone guess what brand he bought

Try explaining to him that a 485W Enermax PSU costing three times his Q-Tec and has 165W less is better

my old system had a 450 q-tec fitted originally as well but after 9 months or so it started ctding after 30 mins or so's use ( think my msi fx 5050 ultra gfx card was drawing to much power for it) i replaced the psu with a 650w q-tec and had no more probs, the 450's seem to be weak but from what i've seen the 650's arn't to bad unless you need silly amounts of power.