This is more or less a call out for information from people who've experienced the same thing... I function as tech support for a local charity which had some P3s in small form factor cases (ASUS Terminator I think, with CUSC mobos) donated a few years back. These sufficed just fine for office systems, so it was never an issue. They had 3 of these. There was also an HP Pavilion of the same 'size'. My mother's friend brought over a very similar Pavilion, same layout again. The problem I've found with all these systems: They all have Bestec ATX100 or ATX120 PSUs. ALL of those power supplies (5!!!) have EXPLODED in the past 2-3 months. I mean arcing flames...serious stuff. In a couple cases they took out all the other internal hardware at the same time, but at least one was 100% functional with a new, standard size PSU. Has anyone had similar experiences with these Bestec units? Seems to me this is a public safety issue... Furthermore...take this as a warning...they seem to have a rather limited lifespan and go out with a bang when they finally do go out.

Failure is consistent with Bestec's reputation. Never heard of one "Going up in Smoke"or Exploding. Not surprised, though. Taking other internal components out when they fail is another noted feature of this fine Manufacturers PSUs. This subject gets brought up at least weekly here. Lots of warnings posted but no reduction in occurance. Thanks for the reminder, I have one, still installed, that I need to replace. There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

I knew it couldn't be JUST ME having this weird problem... It seemed so strange to me though that so many would go in such a short time frame. Big, big coincidence (the timing, not that they failed). A question then must come up...if I was nearly shocked (possibly to death) plugging these things in and having them arc clean out of the case, how do we know nobody has died from Bestec's faulty design? (to be clear, when plugging in a live AC power cord, the PSUs immediately began arcing. many of those arcing 'lightning bolts' were hitting the rear vents, millimetres from my hand) How the heck do products like this even end up on the market...aren't there tests for this kind of thing?