Just looking for advice, my current psu might be the cause of a annoying issue, sometimes when i power on the pc, it pops the trip/surge protection or whatever, which kills that part of the houses electricity until its reset :\

if i do bite the bullet and get another psu, im looking for 650+ watts, 4 pci-e power connectors for sli/crossfire futureproofing, not too bothered if its modular or not, as i have a ton of stuff 4-5 hds, 2 ssd, 2 dvd writer, 4 fans, fan controller, 16gig ram, 6950, 2500k, asus soundcard, plus intend to have a lowish power nvidia card for hybrid physx

everything is watercooled, and the psu sits low behind the hd's in my p182 case which also sits on my desk, so looking for something thats very quiet, specialy coil buzz/whine, or fan motor noise, as there so annoying :\

seems like the corsair ax series has those issues for quite a few, any others to avoid/look into ?
id want to spend between £60 and £100 (i live in the uk )

You don't mention your current PSU... but I doubt the turn-on surge is going to change with a different PSU. Sounds more like you need a surge filter between PSU and AC line. Also, why not just use sleep? The surge would be far lower, and the difference in power draw is minimal.

As for a replacement, there are tons of options. Just look in SPCR recommended PSUs list... and the PSU review section.

For the number of hours that a system may be left 'off' the energy usage from any soft off mode can be considerable.

Yes, a possibility is that you have a fault with the current PSU. What actually trips? The UK has a wonderful electrical system (ring circuits were introduced after WWII to reduce Britain's dependence on imported copper in the event of future conflict - really!) and if the fuse in the plug (how many amps is it?) is not blowing and instead a trip on the consumer unit is blowing it shows that you have a very acute inrush current and something on the appliance side is most likely at fault. How many amps is the breaker? We do have properly mental 30A domestic circuits (yes, 30A at home!) so if it is 30A then that shows something is very wrong. I have seen this before however there are other possibilties. How old are the electrics in your house? Have they been modified at any point? Some sort of earthing issue could be a possibility. If you have a multimeter to hand take some measurements of the earth resistence between the earth terminals of different points, domestically you should find it to be ~1 ohm.

my current psu is a akasa 650watt (700watt peak) i think, its pretty old but its big and heavy and was well reviewed back in the day .

I think the circuit on the consumer unit that my room is on, is pretty low, maybe 13amps ?, waking from sleep/hibernate can make it pop the trip too. Ive got a delay switch now which i thought had fixed it, been ok for a long long time, but its come back a few times recently :/

the delay switch basicaly means i turn my pc on, then after ~5seconds the rest of the extension lead gets power, so amp, subwoofer, monitors and water cooling pumps come on then. im pretty sure its a spike as ive not had it pop once its running, even when it would be pulling alot of power, and it was way worse with my old system that was instant on for everything