How irritating. When I came home yesterday, my main workstation was simply dead. It appears that the power supply has just given up completely. For the last 14 months it has been running 24×7 without a single hiccup, but now its just ready for the trash bin. Tragic.

Since a good power supply is one of the most important components of a truly stable workstation, I was running an Antec Phantom passively cooled power supply, that cost more than certain netbooks, so I wasn’t really happy at seeing it die unexpectedly.

The funny thing is, after searching the web, it turns out to be not uncommon for a Phantom to die completely after about a year and a half. I guess mine lost a few extra months based on it always being on (and I mean always…). I wish I knew that when I was assembling the workstation…

So on Monday it’s time to go power supply-shopping. I think I’ll go with a traditional big ol’ fan this time. I’m looking at a Zalman ZM-600 HP Silent, or maybe a Corsair VX550 or TX650.

Anyone have any recommendations? Particularly, will the Corsair VX or TX line give me the lowest volume/performance? I don’t have time to scour the internet and read all the reviews this time, I just have to get something fast…