Help please.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Apparently it is also made by humans and probably they make them on Mondays, too. Hadn't it been a brand new Seasonic a failing PSU would have been my best guess for a corrupted fresh install. 

It's not only making, the unit had to pass quality control too. I guess someone at the plant thought that the process is much faster if you just slap the sticker to the box instead of wasting time measuring it!

[Bizman]

@Estes It's quite rare to see quality brand hardware being doa, but it can happen. One reason might be that...

@MrRipley ... AFAIK hardware testing in mass production is done by randomly picking an item off the line unless there's reason to suspect a major flaw in the production chain.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

@MrRipley ... AFAIK hardware testing in mass production is done by randomly picking an item off the line unless there's reason to suspect a major flaw in the production chain.

Dunno, I've seen many 'Q.C. passed' stickers on my PSUs so I assumed they were actually tested.

[Bizman]

Dunno, I've seen many 'Q.C. passed' stickers on my PSUs so I assumed they were actually tested.

Just out of curiosity I checked my pile of used PSU's: The one I trust least had the most Q.C. stamps on it! You may be right, though, that they actually are tested. The question is then, how intensive the testing is in high volume production. This document: http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/AN700.pdf, although not being about PSU's, describes quite thoroughly the level of testing during various phases of manufacturing. Chapter 3.3 on page 10 nails it:

The hardware design and manufacturing process have already been proven, so the product now just
requires a quick “go/no go” functional test to verify operation.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Q.C. stickers only indicate that random items get tested. Time is money, and plugging each connector of a PSU to a tester would take several minutes. Then again, this page: http://www.cougar-world.com/psu_production.html claims that every single PSU is hand tested. Even that won't count out the possibility of human error: In a hurry it's easy to confuse a defective item to a long row of faultless ones. 

[Skuzzy]

It can be hand tested all it wants.  Damage in shipping does happen.

[Bizman]

It can be hand tested all it wants.  Damage in shipping does happen.

Now that you've said it, I remember thinking about that option, too. Somehow it just slipped off my mind while typing the previous post - trying to be accurate in a foreign language can sometimes be very time consuming!