After having to wait over five weeks to have my original CoolerMaster power supply replaced due to a fault (the fan was making wurring noises), I’ve gone to install the replacement and I’m still having problems – just different ones.

I’ve gone through the installation process for the power supply once more, plugged everything back in, pressed the power button and I receive a very high pitched squeal from my machine immediately. It’s not the kind of noise you get when you plug your computer components together incorrectly, like a beep beep style noise – it’s different again and not something that I really appreciate my machine generating as it’s quite piercing.

Thinking I’ve missed something really simple (and I’m not ruling that out yet), I’ve re-read the manual for the power supply and the Asus P5E motherboard to make sure I’m plugging the right leads into the appropriate connectors and everything seems correct.

I’m not sure what is going on, so I’m about to pull everything apart and reset the motherboard and all components in case while moving everything around I’ve managed to bump something that didn’t take kindly to the bumping.

Please don’t let it be a dead on arrival power supply or I’m going to throttle someone.

Approximately six weeks ago, the CoolerMaster 550w Extreme power supply I bought at the start of the year as part of my computer upgrade to re-establish my geek prowess decided it was a good time to start making wurring noises.

Realising that it was going to be covered by warranty, I took it back to my place of purchase expecting to have it replaced on the spot as they aren’t an expensive item. Despite the fact that the computer shop moves an incredible amount of stock, they weren’t able to replace it on the spot and it had to be sent back to the manufacturer.

No problem, so I fill in the forms to have it sent away and I’m told that I should have it repaired or replaced within about two weeks. A little over a week passes and I haven’t heard anything and then out of the blue I receive an automated email telling me that they have actually processed my power supply to be sent back to the manufacturer. At this point I was pretty annoyed, they’ve burnt up over half their suggested time frame through in-action – but we’ll move past that.

Another fortnight passes from the date that they finally processed it and still nothing, at which point I’ve now been waiting the better part of a month to have a $100 power supply replaced. I give them a call and they tell me that it has now left the manufacturer and should be back to them within a matter of days and I’ll receive another email when it arrives, excellent!

Roughly another fortnight passes and still nothing, so I called again to find out what was going on to rattle someones cage. I inevitably hear the words that I knew was going to happen from the offset – that it was in fact back with them and not to my surprise, I didn’t receive an email when they processed it again.

All in all it too between five and six weeks to have a $100 power supply replaced which they would have had in stock. I’m sure this isn’t a unique story or process in having a product returned to the manufacturer, however when you’re talking about a $100 item and not a $500 or $3000 item – the turn around times become a little hard to accept, when in the end I was given a brand new item anyway.