Got my replacement 750W power supply after a stupid mistake on my part fried the old one. This time I made damn sure I plugged the main power cable all the way into the back of the PSU.
Anyone think I should not use the old Dell speakers? They don't have their own power supply but instead plug into the back of the motherboard via USB and get power from it. They're only 2.5 watt speakers but I can't help but wonder if that could have been the cause behind my fried PSU.
Should I turn off Intel Turbo Boost Mode in the BIOS? I wonder about that being the cause, but then again it barely increases the CPU clock from 3.4 to 3.8, though at the time my PSU fried my PC was idle.
I'm asking these questions just in case it was something other than my mistake with the power cable.

It is possible a power supply can fail for no good reason, and or become susceptible to something minor like a loose plug whereas a power supply in good condition would not.

But probably the biggest cause of power supply failure is people starting off using the bare minimum to begin with! Then over time when you add a HDD here and a CD drive there, update the graphics card, play newer more resource demanding software/games etc etc..... POP!

^ Like he said, they do fry for no good reason at times. In my case, in the very first computer I had built from scratch, the case I bought had some cheap off brand PS I had never heard of. Couple years later it just fried....very fortunately for me, it was apparently circuit protected, and didn't toast anything in my machine. Replaced it with a decent, more pricey model, that I read reviews on, and considered it a lesson learned (and luckily, not painfully so). Don't cheap out on the Power Supply!

If I was you I would get a different speaker, one with external power. That turbo boost should not be a problem, afaik it just ups the clock speed but if it passed factory testing enough to even be in use with the amount of CPU's it is in today, I think it will be fine. :)

Well, I was running a Gigabyte motherboard, Gigabyte GTX 670 GPU, Intel Core i5 3570K, Western Digital Caviar Black HDD, LG DVD optical drive, 8GB (2 X 4GB) 1600Mhz (though it's running at 1333Mhz at the moment) Corsair Vengeance Low Profile Memory, Cooler Master 212 Hyper EVO CPU Cooler and 3 case fans.

As far as the PS goes, I've had good experiences with Corsair, matter of fact, that's what I have in my current gaming rig I built, and it's works flawlessly. For speakers, I have been using a relatively inexpensive 2.1 Cyber Acoustics set, similiar to this one (mine is much older, but the same basic set-up). It doesn't sound like movie theater surrond sound, lol, but it works fine, and sounds pretty decent considering the price :):

http://www.epinions.com/prices/S0477673_Cyber_Acoustics__LLC_CA_3090

I kinda went overkill. We have an original set of Klipsch ProMedia 5.1s from 2001 but the amp mounted in the subwoofer crapped out and, try as I might, I could not find the problem. So then we went with some old direct-powered speakers like you're using now. They sucked for our purposes, but were old so I guess I shouldn't gripe about them.

Anyway, they started getting buzzy so I turned back to the fried Klipsch setup. The satellites were still good, as was the subwoofer itself. Turned to www.partsexpress.com and bought a subwoofer plate amplifier; dropped that into into the sub box and got that thing powered again. After that, we had to figure out how to power the satellites. Solved two problems at once by buying a regular Pioneer surround amplifier: the satellites are now powered, plus I got a second zone for the kitchen. Works like a champ for the media we play on the PC, plus the connection with satellite TV. Couldn't be happier. That said, kind of the hard way of doing things. ; )

Anyway, back to your question. For me, it would depend on how you plan to listen to the audio. For gaming it's tough to beat decent headphones, especially if you want to keep the noise down for others in the house and if you don't want more wires strewn around the room. You looking at 2-channel, 2.1, or 5.1 surround? Does bass matter? Plan to use them for music and movies?

I'm not really that much of an audiophile, a simple two speaker setup that's good for gaming, that doesn't have muddy sound, doesn't develop a buzzing or humming noise and won't crap out on me will do fine, though I am considering a good gaming headphone set with mic as i'm really the only one that uses the PC.

Edit: My main concern was that I thought the 1.2 watt speakers I have may have fried my PSU and I just wanted to take every precaution in case that was the cause.

Well, I'd be very surprised if the speakers would do this. The signal is quite low and the amplifier setup on the motherboard will have protection built-in for short circuits. And it would take a short circuit, not an open circuit, to cause a problem. I suppose you could hurt the amp by using speakers with too low of an internal resistance (speakers are typically rated as either 2, 4, or 8 ohm), but again, the protection circuit should take over and it would likely only matter if you really had them cranked all the way.

Either way, the mobo amp would take the abuse and it shouldn't make its way back to the power supply. Without question, I'd chalk up the power supply's early demise to the loose power cord.

Thanks, that puts me at ease.

I'm tempted to ask what is a good headset, but I also want to replace my keyboard and mouse so I may just make a separate thread later on.

Definitely do a search for headset / headphone. There have been a few very informative threads on here for those. Myself, I'm rocking an old set (2003 or so) of Sennheiser HD590s. Love 'em, but there is likely new stuff just as good, with more features (like microphone), for half or less the price.

This should work better than gOg's search: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site%3Agog.com+headphone&ei=UTF-8&fr=chr-greentree_ff&type=971163

Happy shopping!

Edit: if you have the opportunity, TRY ON the headphones before you buy. Comfort is more important than some think it is. If they aren't comfy you won't wear them, and thus the money would be wasted.

Unfortunately, the vague answer "it depends" applies. Namely, it depends on your budget; once that has been established, you can pretty much google "Best $X headphones", look up a few links and buy whatever they recommend. Some websites do comparison tests among a few headsets in a particular price range, but since you're not an audiophile these are probably unnecessarily confusing. And yes, you should try them on. If they're uncomfortable in prolonged use, return them to the shop.

I also seriously doubt your speakers could've done caused any damage to your PSU. Things break down for no apparent reason sometimes, it's just a fact of life. For instance, I went through two motherboards in five months without plugging anything special into the PC or opening the case.

I see. I once tried a pair of headphones with mic from Best Buy that cost more than the low end ones I have now, but they turned out to be no better than my old ones so I returned them. Unfortunately, I don't currently really live anywhere that has decent shops with headphones I could try before buying, I usually don't have a problem with comfort very often despite that I wear glasses which can have an effect on comfort with headphones.