Regular crashing, is my PSU to blame?

[Oliver M]

Hi all,

You'll have to forgive me, I'm not a computer whizz, I just enjoy tech and fancied challenging myself by upgrading my tower PC.

I recently upgraded it from 4gb RAM to 8gb, I added in an SSD (keeping the old HDD in use for storage and constantly connected) and I added in a wireless card (god knows how I managed before!). I also have a GTS 450 graphics card and plenty of peripherals plugged in, including a printer, wireless mouse, keyboard, external Blu Ray drive, Xbox 360 controller for Windows.

Gradually, my PC has started crashing more and more. It is as if the power cord is tugged out of the PC, the power just goes, it doesn't go to a shut down screen or freeze or anything like that. This leads me to believe it's a problem with my power supply, but that was only replaced a year ago! The shutting down is unpredictable and very frustrating, although it seems more likely to occur either a few seconds after turning the PC on, or during gaming. Could someone please offer their opinion on whether you think I should opt for a new power supply? I was looking at a £55 Corsair one from Amazon, are there any things I need to be careful of when buying/installing a new PSU?

I am also looking at getting a new CPU, hopefully a Haswell i5, to replace my ageing Core 2 Duo. Would the PSU advice be the same for this CPU too?

Specs:
Windows 8 Pro
2.40Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Quad Core
Nvidia GTS 450 graphics card
8gb RAM
256gb SSD
1tb HDD

Need any more info, just shout.

Thanks very much for taking a look, I appreciate it!

 

[Big B]

Well, that depends on the PSU you have now. A quality name unit with 30A or better should still be fine, but since you're moving to Haswell, having a PSU capable of the extreme low-power states would benefit from a PSU able to support that. What you have is comparable to my main box, which I currently pair with a Corsair HX520.

If nothing else a new PSU will give you more elbow room. If you don't plan for a heavy, high-end upgrade with a multi-GPU setup, a solid 600-700 W or so should be fine. I like Corsair, but also look at Antec, Thermaltake, Seasonic of Silverstone.

 

[Oliver M]

Thanks for the advice. I actually decided to go for a Corsair Builder 750w supply, and it seems to work really well now - no crashes!

I am having problems with my speakers/sound card now, it's one thing after another!

Hopefully the power supply will be more than capable of handling the new processor when I get it.