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danball1976
25 Dec 2006, 6:50pm
My Mom's computer has an Antec 300W TruePower PSU (it has 15A on the 12V line), when I about to place my old TDK 420n 4x DVD+RW drive and install a new eVGA GeForce FX5500 video card, I noticed that the PSU was making a whining noise, of course I know that the noise are the capacitors, but when they start making that noise, that means the PSU will go out eventually?

The computer still runs fine with the new video card (it does require a 250W PSU), but should I be worried about the PSU?
Thrax
25 Dec 2006, 7:14pm
It might be a fan, or it might be a phenomenon called "Capacitor whine" which occurs when a manufacturer uses underpowered caps and/or the caps are old. It's not necessarily indicative of a failing PSU, though that can happen.

//EDIT: "capacitor +whine" -- first four results on Google would've given your answer.
danball1976
25 Dec 2006, 7:35pm
It might be a fan, or it might be a phenomenon called "Capacitor whine" which occurs when a manufacturer uses underpowered caps and/or the caps are old. It's not necessarily indicative of a failing PSU, though that can happen.

//EDIT: "capacitor +whine" -- first four results on Google would've given your answer.

Its not the fan, the PSU only has 1 fan, and it is in the rear. When you turn the PSU off using the switch in the rear (and the computer is off), you can hear the capacitor discharge, as it sounds sort of like a funky electronic sound.

This (http://www.theocacao.com/comment/1205) comment states that the noise is due to capacitor loads in switching power supplies, and a light load causes the caps to resonate because of change of the switching frequency. I did notice that after everything was in the computer, and I plugged it in, the sound changed from a whine to a buzz.

In this (http://forums.amd.com/lofiversion/index.php/t29731.html) thread, one comments that the sound in a PSU is not normally a good sign.
RXRanger
18 Jan 2007, 10:43pm
Ouch! I had some issues with my PSU bought a new one turned out both where bad. But the new one I bought was super cheap and I got super junk from it years ago. You could find some great PSU's for about 50-60 bucks by chance have you had total shut down from booting your PC?