PSU Failure... or more?

R

Random404

Geek Trainee
A few months ago, my PSU was making this quite hissing sound. (it sounds like an electric hum). I contacting PC Power and Cooling and they told me that if it was really quite it would most likely not be repaired because their facility is very load and if the engineer didn't hear anything they would just send it back. SO I said, ok, whatever screw it for now.

Today, my computer started to hiss more frequently and it would get louder when I moved my mouse or used its scroll wheel (USB Mouse). I thought that was really odd, but then my my fans and fan leds started getting slower and faster randomly. I have turned off my PC and sent in my PSU to be RMAed.

Now here is the problem. The first time (months ago) I know it was the PSU making the noises. This time, I swear it sounded like it was coming from the mobo... So what is going on? Could it be the motherboard or maybe even the CPU also? My question is, could either of those cause the power to fluctuate like that? I am just worried that even after I get a replacement PSU that something else might be wrong.

PS: I checked my mobo's capacitors and they all LOOK fine.
 
First replace the power supply, and see if that fixes the problem..What type of pc is this ?
make/model? If it is a standard tower,remove the side door and start up the pc and look to see where all noises are coming from...
 
Random404 said:
A few months ago, my PSU was making this quite hissing sound. (it sounds like an electric hum).
Click to expand...
That is when you should have been on top of it. It is not uncommon for a defective power supply to cause other problems with in your computer. Replacing it then...may have eliminated your current problem.

Good luck after the fact.
 
Random404 said:
Now here is the problem. The first time (months ago) I know it was the PSU making the noises. This time, I swear it sounded like it was coming from the mobo... So what is going on? Could it be the motherboard or maybe even the CPU also? My question is, could either of those cause the power to fluctuate like that? I am just worried that even after I get a replacement PSU that something else might be wrong.
Click to expand...
Bad PSUs can certainly weaken other components. Once weakened, it's typically a downhill slide until they ultimately fail. You might try to run Memtest86+ overnight and see if the problem might be somewhere on the memory buss. That could cause data corruption on top of everything else, so it's well worth checking for.
 
Well whenever I get the PSU replacement back I can always check it for any other problems.

The PC is custom built.

Intel Core2 Quad@ 3ghz
8g DDR2
Nvidia 8800GTS G92
X-Fi Prelude 7.1
2x750gb 7200rpm
Vista Ultimate x64

I would have replaced the powers supply before, but the rep pretty much told me it wouldn't even be replaced because it was so quite (I had to turn off everything in my room, even the case fans to even slightly hear it) and even if it did deregulate they would pay for all the parts that the power supply ruined. Even then, everything is still under warranty. I Honestly don't think the PSU hurt anything else. I never have problems with this PC; never slow, never random restarts, never locks up, never blue screens, the only time it even had a noticeable problem was recently with that noise.

My question was, is it possible that a faulty motherboard or CPU could cause the problems I explained?
 
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