Around summer last year my PC developed a strange "fault", a quirk if you will, where if engrossed in hard gaming (was in a CoD2 clan) for a few hours, it could, sometimes, without warning, just turn off. It would always turn off with ferocity though, a large "click", and gone.
The problem went away with a fresh build when I moved to Vista Beta 2, and has been none-existant until about a month ago when it started to manifest itself again (I'm now on MSDN Vista Ultimate btw). I had started to believe that this was the PSU on its way out (a Hiper 580W Type-R, an early one), as there was a high-pitched squealing coming from either the VRMs on the motherboard, or the PSU (that area anyway). The machine also started just switching off in windows rather than 3D apps, and then eventually started to sometimes not finish booting at all.
I tried various things to see if I could locate a faulty component, or a mis-seated component. Voltages changed on everything (CPU, RAM, Chipset), clock speeds tried overclocked (how it was run for a year and a half), stock, and underclocked. I tried removing a video card, this seemed to help a little, but the machine was still unstable. I then removed EVERYTHING non-essential to the running of the PC; only one stick of RAM (tested working), only the CPU fan, one HDD, no optical drives, one video card (tested working). Still the problem remained, and getting worse, it would only actually boot and stay up once in a blue moon.
I then (due to good fortune) got a free upgrade from my SLI'd 2x Geforce 7800GT 512MB's to a Radeon HD 2900XT, and the problem got worse. Its not actually booted successfully since, and now infact will do the "switch off" even before POST appears, sometimes longer, and I have even seen the login screen once or twice.
I've pretty much settled on PSU in my mind as the cause, and the Corsair 620W as the solution, however in my mind there is a tiny bit of doubt that it could possibly be the CPU. I have been unable to test this theory, having no other socket 939 boards or CPU's at my disposal. The squeaking noise was also coming from the CPU's general location (do CPU's squeak when b0rked?), I mean its not had a standard life, its been clocked since birth, but I'm not sure if the symptoms match a broken CPU or not?
Enlighten me guys.
The problem went away with a fresh build when I moved to Vista Beta 2, and has been none-existant until about a month ago when it started to manifest itself again (I'm now on MSDN Vista Ultimate btw). I had started to believe that this was the PSU on its way out (a Hiper 580W Type-R, an early one), as there was a high-pitched squealing coming from either the VRMs on the motherboard, or the PSU (that area anyway). The machine also started just switching off in windows rather than 3D apps, and then eventually started to sometimes not finish booting at all.
I tried various things to see if I could locate a faulty component, or a mis-seated component. Voltages changed on everything (CPU, RAM, Chipset), clock speeds tried overclocked (how it was run for a year and a half), stock, and underclocked. I tried removing a video card, this seemed to help a little, but the machine was still unstable. I then removed EVERYTHING non-essential to the running of the PC; only one stick of RAM (tested working), only the CPU fan, one HDD, no optical drives, one video card (tested working). Still the problem remained, and getting worse, it would only actually boot and stay up once in a blue moon.
I then (due to good fortune) got a free upgrade from my SLI'd 2x Geforce 7800GT 512MB's to a Radeon HD 2900XT, and the problem got worse. Its not actually booted successfully since, and now infact will do the "switch off" even before POST appears, sometimes longer, and I have even seen the login screen once or twice.
I've pretty much settled on PSU in my mind as the cause, and the Corsair 620W as the solution, however in my mind there is a tiny bit of doubt that it could possibly be the CPU. I have been unable to test this theory, having no other socket 939 boards or CPU's at my disposal. The squeaking noise was also coming from the CPU's general location (do CPU's squeak when b0rked?), I mean its not had a standard life, its been clocked since birth, but I'm not sure if the symptoms match a broken CPU or not?
Enlighten me guys.
