PSU Busted?

[krazy_olie]

Does this sound like a PSU problem?

Suddenly after about 5 minutes after booting from standby my computer attempts to reboot itself, after seemingly choking it gets going again but gets no further than the windows login screen.
Then I tried to look at the PC health status in SETUP but rebooted a few times, now all that happens is the LEDs and fans turn on , but interestingly the PSU fans don't, though for some reason the outside fan stopped working a while back.
It's the supplied PSU is 450 W from an Antec sonata II case and is just over 2 years old.
Is it possible that it is anything else? I don't really fancy forking out for a £40+ PSU for nothing. I think the only other PSUs around here are 350W which might not be enough.

Many Thanks, Olie

[Perfectionist]

Owwies :/ This is why I chose a 1000HX for my new PC, it's much better for hardware longevity to have your PSU running at around 50% of total power rather than over 80% apparently, thinking of the future stuff like this happening, maybe this will help you for next time too I dunno:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...ml#post1841064

Can't help with the diagnosis though I'm afraid

[Agent]

it's much better for hardware longevity to have your PSU running at around 50% of total power rather than over 80% apparently

Component quality is far more of a determining factor over power load.

Power load really comes into play when talking about efficiency though (in which case every unit is different). Even then it's not a simple case of saying more efficient = longer life components, as it depends on the components in question.

[Perfectionist]

hmm, well, I pretty much picked all top-spec components.. are you saying this is wrong then? I did ask around elsewhere as well beforehand, hope I didn't screw up, but there's always eBay or whatever

[Stoo]

It depends on what you've got in your system, and how much you're stressing the as a whole..

For instance I did have a 530W Tagan in my system, which ran 4 HDD's and an ATi X1900XT with no issue, I swapped over to an 8800GTS 512 and it was still fine, I even got it to Sli, and it was fine.. until I ran F@H, at which point load exceeded supply, and the PSU literally exploded (seriously, there were bits of glass from the fuse all over the place)..

Oddly enough on my dev box I've got the old X1900xt in with a 5 year old enermax 500W, but that will restart every 15 minutes or so, and will even lock up in a windows or linux install..

Although it's a quality component, it simply isn't designed to be able to supply the correct loading which the card demands, which causes the system to be flakey..

Let us know what your hardware is, and we can give you a more accurate diagnostic

[OilSheikh]

Hi

What's the specs of your system ?

[moogle]

it's much better for hardware longevity to have your PSU running at around 50% of total power rather than over 80% apparently

Plus you usually reach max efficiency around that area on almost all PSU's.

[krazy_olie]

It's a Core 2 6300 on a 965p - s3
I've got an xfx 7600GT in there and an x-fi card too. 2gb DDR 2 RAM

I have noticed that when i turn the power supply switch on there is some sort of internal whining, like a small fan.
One thing also worth mentioning is that a few months ago I plugged it in and it started smoking a tiny bit. Turned it off for 15 minutes and it seemed to be fine.

Cheers

[Stoo]

Sounds like the PSU is shot tbh..

[OilSheikh]

It's a Core 2 6300 on a 965p - s3
I've got an xfx 7600GT in there and an x-fi card too. 2gb DDR 2 RAM

I have noticed that when i turn the power supply switch on there is some sort of internal whining, like a small fan.
One thing also worth mentioning is that a few months ago I plugged it in and it started smoking a tiny bit. Turned it off for 15 minutes and it seemed to be fine.

Cheers

Magic smoke = not good at all. Capacitor's blown or leaking for your PSU

[Stoo]

Yup.. if you can, take it out and have a look at the capacitors, if it looks like the tops are bulging up, they've had it - they should be perfectly flat at the top.