THEpiGUY
Daemon Poster
- Messages
- 598
I know my psu isn't great by any means, especially since it came with my case and RAIDMAX isn't really famous for good power supplies. But anyways, it's been a pretty decent psu, until yesterday... Here's the story... hope you don't mind all the detail.
I was in bed asleep, my computer off, but still plugged in with the psu on. I awoke (very luckily) to a strange popping noise roughly every 1 & 1/3 seconds. I looked around, then a blue glow coming from inside my psu caught my eye... The popping wasn't really all that loud; I guess I just wasn't in a really deep sleep. So I rush over to the psu to turn it off, then I unplugged the power, just as a secondary safety action. The popping ceased. Today, I took it out of my case and plugged it into a wall in my house. I turned it on, and for a solid 10 minutes or so, which seemed like an hour, I hadn't heard any pops or seen any sparks or anything. So does this mean it's safe to bring it back into my computer, or is there a possibility that it will fry most, if not all, my components upon plugging it in? I was wondering if it was not popping due to there being no output; nothing at all was plugged into it besides the major power cord. Just for the record, the only time when I tampered with the voltages was when I overvoltaged my processor in the BIOS: 1.5V. I didn't tweak ANY voltage settings besides that; so I don't see how that could have screwed it up.
I noticed 2 days ago that my psu was smelling kinda funny through the exhaust fan, but it started to die down to where I could hardly smell it. There is some dust in it, and I haven't bought any canned air to clean it out. If this is what's causing the popping, would it be harmless to my components? And should I buy some canned air and attempt to clean it out?
I'm more than willing to buy a new psu sometime, because I need one for SLI anyway, though I probably won't be doing SLI with my 7800GT considering they're nearly impossible to find outside eBay and I could get an X1900XTX for pretty close to the same price. I was considering getting the OCZ PowerStream 520W; it looks really cool and looks to be a good psu. If anyone knows if it's good, or has another suggestion, that would be great. I know nothing about dual/single rail and what the advantages are of each, so I just picked out a single rail one @ 33 amps on the 12V rail; for the X1900XT(X) on Newegg, it said "30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended." I'd rather not buy one right away; $100ish is kinda a lot for me right now...I want to see if it is possible to keep the one I've got now.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read all this, and any help will greatly be appreciated. I underlined all the questions in here just so you all know what all I need answered...It's just sometimes people read over my questions or forget about them because I ask so many. Again, I apologize for the long post/story.
I was in bed asleep, my computer off, but still plugged in with the psu on. I awoke (very luckily) to a strange popping noise roughly every 1 & 1/3 seconds. I looked around, then a blue glow coming from inside my psu caught my eye... The popping wasn't really all that loud; I guess I just wasn't in a really deep sleep. So I rush over to the psu to turn it off, then I unplugged the power, just as a secondary safety action. The popping ceased. Today, I took it out of my case and plugged it into a wall in my house. I turned it on, and for a solid 10 minutes or so, which seemed like an hour, I hadn't heard any pops or seen any sparks or anything. So does this mean it's safe to bring it back into my computer, or is there a possibility that it will fry most, if not all, my components upon plugging it in? I was wondering if it was not popping due to there being no output; nothing at all was plugged into it besides the major power cord. Just for the record, the only time when I tampered with the voltages was when I overvoltaged my processor in the BIOS: 1.5V. I didn't tweak ANY voltage settings besides that; so I don't see how that could have screwed it up.
I noticed 2 days ago that my psu was smelling kinda funny through the exhaust fan, but it started to die down to where I could hardly smell it. There is some dust in it, and I haven't bought any canned air to clean it out. If this is what's causing the popping, would it be harmless to my components? And should I buy some canned air and attempt to clean it out?
I'm more than willing to buy a new psu sometime, because I need one for SLI anyway, though I probably won't be doing SLI with my 7800GT considering they're nearly impossible to find outside eBay and I could get an X1900XTX for pretty close to the same price. I was considering getting the OCZ PowerStream 520W; it looks really cool and looks to be a good psu. If anyone knows if it's good, or has another suggestion, that would be great. I know nothing about dual/single rail and what the advantages are of each, so I just picked out a single rail one @ 33 amps on the 12V rail; for the X1900XT(X) on Newegg, it said "30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended." I'd rather not buy one right away; $100ish is kinda a lot for me right now...I want to see if it is possible to keep the one I've got now.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read all this, and any help will greatly be appreciated. I underlined all the questions in here just so you all know what all I need answered...It's just sometimes people read over my questions or forget about them because I ask so many. Again, I apologize for the long post/story.