Okay, for those of you who actually frequent the Tech forum, you may remember seeing a thread of mine having to do with my power supply randomly cutting on and off. Well today, my power supply bit the big one. I smelled a bit of ozone in the air, as if some metal were burning, and then looked at my computer. Realizing that something was probably melting, I was about to get out of my game of DotA (Warcraft 3 map) and turn off my comp. Too late--it shut down on its own. Trying to turn it on a while later, it wouldn't go. So now I'm without power supply, but I'm going to go to Circuit City, Best Buy, and even if I have to, CompUSA tomorrow. Any suggestions?

Antec. Never look back.

Considering they may not have that brand, or it may be idiotically expensive.

Not idiodicly expensive. Priced for the quality.

I have a Ultra PSU in one comp, and an Antec TruePower 430W in this one. The Ultra one cost next to nothing and seems to be doing great.

Why don't you just check Circuit City's web site and see what brand of PSU they carry?

You of all people... actually asking for suggestions :p

I have an 350w antec from best buy and it is great (the price wasnt).

By that I mean like 80+ for a 400W, which is what I'm going for.

I don't shop at retail stores.

Pfff... it's nowhere near 80+, it's only $79.96! :p

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Antec-400-Watt-Power-Supply--25400-/sem/rpsm/oid/89852/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

Any reputable brand is good...Antec is good, but not godly like some people make it out to be (it has rather generic parts; good, but generic, nothing incredible). Super Flower/TTGI (SF is the name used in the US as I understand) has the best price:efficiency ratio. I got a 520 SF for $50 after shipping from Directron.com. It's far beefier than most of my other power supplies, at least as good as my Antecs from what I can tell. It's just not overpriced like many companies like to do...

The heavier the better too

Generally, yes. Just make sure they aren't fooling you by making it out of 2mm thick steel.

Antec, Enermax, Seasonic, Fortron Source/Sparke, and PC Power & Cooling are all the best brands on the market. Fortron Source/Sparkle are usually the best bang for the buck. If you can't find any of those, don't count wattage as a factor.

Look at build quality like housing and if you can see inside, the heatsinks, as well as amperage on the rails. The 12V being the most important, you want at least 18A or something close. You can tell the real crappy ones that claim 400-450 watts and have a 12V line of below 16A or similar.

Again, don't factor in wattage that much. There's a couple ways they can fool you with a wattage claim. One, if they test the PSU without a load on it, then they get a higher wattage rating, but you will be putting a load on it when running your computer. Second, some brands will claim a certain wattage, but the PSU will only deliver that at a specific temperature, usually an unrealistic one like 20*C. When the temperatures rise, efficiency goes down and all of a sudden your 450 Watt becomes a 300 Watt PSU.

Just got a 430W Antec TruePower. Love it. Got it used. I got a GeForce 3 64MB, two 18" rounded IDE cables, Antec TruePower 430, and a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu for $125 shipped. Good deal no?

I bought an Antec TrueBlue 480W after my DiabloTek 450W fried one of it's capacitors. The Antec hasn't failed yet, though it's very loud on startup, then it quiets down. I'm not sure if it's the power supply fans or maybe another one of the many fans in my case, but I'm blaming the Antec for now. It gives very stable performace however.

Heh, at least you power supply didn't cause your motherboard and video card to shoot sparks out like fork in a microwave like mine did a while ago. The replacement power supply I got from Best Buy only cost 80 bucks.