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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!