PSU Buzz

Arterion · 14 Sep 2008 at 01:44

My nearly 3-year-old Tagan 480w PSU seems to be emitting a bit of a buzz under heavier....oddly it's as bad when using PicLens (Firefox addon) as it is during Crysis..

Any advice? Having read some PSU reviews lately, a bit of buzz at higher load is not necessarily out of the ordinary but worried it could be on it's way out...

Cheers for any input...

Berserker · 14 Sep 2008 at 02:12

Might be a bad sign, but components producing new noises over time may just be wear rather than death throes.

Looking for any voltage droop when loading the system might provide further evidence.

Arterion · 14 Sep 2008 at 02:14

Berserker said:
Looking for any voltage droop when loading the system might provide further evidence.

What's the best way to check this? i.e., what program monitors voltages with reasonable accuracy?

Berserker · 14 Sep 2008 at 02:19

I just use speedfan. Pinpoint accuracy isn't required, but ignoring obvious errors (they happen, fairly regularly) if the volts go out of spec by around +/- 5% (10% in the case of 12V) then you have a problem, and if the volts drop noticeably under load then you're probably near the limits of the PSU.

Arterion · 14 Sep 2008 at 12:29

Doesn't seem to have readings for 3.3v & 5v...how very strange. Looks ok on the 12v though?