Capacitor leak/Finding right power supply

V

Vexlith

Geek Trainee
At one point I had an old 1.2 GHz motherboard with a 350W power supply, then I upgraded my motherboard to a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 motherboard overclocked board (2.8 Normally), and everything was fine until my power supply started smelling up, kind of like burnt plastic. It started getting worse, so I thought my power supply was bad (it was a cheap one). I replaced it with a 400W one (another no name cheap one), and everything worked fine, until it started up with that familiar burnt smell, usually when I played games (when it was only on desktop, it wouldn't really smell). It wasn't too bad, so I thought I'd still use my computer and get a new power supply later.

My comp would constantly reset when I played games, and then one day it shut down and wouldn't start up again. I opened up the power supply, and saw a black capacitor looking thing leaking a brown gel-like substance. It was similar to what happened with my 350W.

Is this just my power supply? Not enough wattage? Is the overcloaked CPU causing problems? I guess I should probably get a brand name one next time.

Any help would be appreciated.

My comp specs are:
2.8 GHz CPU
9800 ATI Radeon
Creative SB sound card
2GB RAM
Generic 400W Max-Power cheap power supply (I've taken it out now)
 
Vexlith said:
Is this just my power supply? Not enough wattage? Is the overcloaked CPU causing problems? I guess I should probably get a brand name one next time.
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Cheap power supplies are the bane of PC hardware. It's worth it to just spend the extra money and get a reliable PSU. Otherwise, it could take out your expensive hardware next time.

I've had the best experience with Seasonic PSUs. I've also had great luck with Enermax.

Edit: Corrected "Seasonic", I've gotta stop posting in the early AM hours. :P
 
I agree. Going with a cheap power supply is asking for trouble in the same way playing in traffic is.

Seasonic (Seagate make hard drives) and Enermax are good, as well as Antec, OCZ, FSP, Silverstone, PC Power & Cooling (now owned by OCZ), XClio, as well as a few other names that escape me.

I highly doubt you'll find a decent power supply under $50 on-line, and probably at least $70 in town. If you need something on the cheaper side, FSP or XClio would be your best bets.
 
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