Any Computer Experts here ?

[SpiderOne]

whenever i play splintercell . my PSU will start giving out noises like electricity noises and the fan behind it starts blowing out a burning smell . When i play other games i dont experience it . its 480w so i dont think it can be overloaded

heres whats the PSU is directly connected to :

MSI PE*** Neo2 Motherboard

Pentium 4 3.0 processor

1x Cd rom drive

1x DVD rom

1x CDRW

3x Small Fan

2x 40GB harddisk

1x Geforce 6600GT ( the card got the MO socket to plug in the power , i may be outdated but i found it weird ) .

Any ideas what i can do ??

[ervine]

u confirm it's the PSU?

Is it the stock PSU that came with the casing? If it is I suggest you try to change it with something "branded"... I've had instances whereby PSUs died on me... one instance it died and took a HD along with it...

And yes most newer graphics cards need to be powered seperately...

[SpiderOne]

mine came with casing was 350 i think . im using a thermaltake xazer 2 casing . comes with built in 3 fans i already took out the power to 1 in an attempt to try and save power but still ike that. sound is coming from somewhere i assume its my PSU . because got that burnt smell coming out of it . its already 480watt branded . coolermaster i think . What more do i need . when i bought my 480 watt PSU i thought this is really overkill no way would i ever need this much power anywhere now or in the future .

[Ancelot]

Which coolermaster model? Centurion? I personally find Praetorarian the best. Sleek and Nice!

PSU? Do You mean your graphics card?

Believe it or not, Intel chips are also quite hot, therefore it is advisable to give more fresh air to it. Try opening the side of the casing and see what happens. That's the common way to cool down the hardwares inside.

Else, I recommend this. There's a gigabyte fan, not sure if you have seen it before. Replace your chip's fan with this fan. Mind you, it is big and powerful. Does its job perfectly for my buddy's AMD 64bit chip. Cost around 100 bucks.

Also, I do not think more power is a bad thing. If you got less stuffs, your hardwares just draw in lesser power. It doesnt cause harm to the extent of burning smell. However, if you have less power, your hardwares will underpower (think bout 1Gb RAM and 2 250Gb Harddisk, power hingry @rses!) and you will face some problems. Yupp

If talk about graphics card, I am a fan of ATI. Used nVidia before, however, I got trouble searching for their drivers online. ATI was cool, nice and straightforward. So end of the day, ATI rules for gamers! =)

Anyway, hope things work out for you.

Serious stuffs asidde

Hey SpiderOne, have you tried F.E.A.R?

[SpiderOne]

yes i have FEAR . U sure ATI rules for Gamers ? i think ATI is total shit , but as long as i can run doom 3 and quake 4 in 1024x768 and still a playable FPS i dont care . My casing comes with 1 hole in the side for a fan slot and i cut another hole there. in the back of the casng theres slots for 2 fans and side 2 fans and front 2 fans . total 6 fans . i assume im getting enough ventilation . especially since im not running an AMD chip anyway

PSU = power supply unit ... Im using 1GB DDRam , is that taking up a lot of power ?

[coralreef]

In short,

As long as you can find smell or hear noise from your PSU, DO CHANGE!

Reason behind it, simple, it's going blow, soon or later. When it does, who know what will goes along with it due to power surge going around the system when it does. You never know.

I have repaired numerous system till sian....PSU is the most critical, once you feel something wrong, please go change it, if under warranty good, if not...I'm sorry please go get some good ones like BlackCube,Entec, Acbel etc...

Btw, those come with casing, usually they dun give the better ones and under power(not the true power), not sure about Cooler Master.

Cheers!!!

[ervine]

In short,

As long as you can find smell or hear noise from your PSU, DO CHANGE!

Reason behind it, simple, it's going blow, soon or later. When it does, who know what will goes along with it due to power surge going around the system when it does. You never know.

I have repaired numerous system till sian....PSU is the most critical, once you feel something wrong, please go change it, if under warranty good, if not...I'm sorry please go get some good ones like BlackCube,Entec, Acbel etc...

Btw, those come with casing, usually they dun give the better ones and under power(not the true power), not sure about Cooler Master.

Cheers!!!

yup if you CONFIRM CONFIRM it's ur PSU with sound and smell change it!.. if it's branded see if got warranty or not...

strange thing is why it will only have sound when u play game.. HMmmm...

[SpiderOne]

a thing to add . the sound only comes on during graphic intensive moments of my games . when i press esc to reach the menu or what the sound immediately disappears . could my PSU be too low voltage to power my graphics card ?

[coralreef]

Well, actually hard to say if your PSU.

if it's just those normal and not True Power PSU, YES, it's not enough

in another way to check, try to weight your PSU if possible, if it's pretty light, then it's not True Power PSU.

if it's weight pretty heavy, then it is True Power...

Another way to check is to see the label, will say Max Power 480W, true power or something similar...ard 300w or so.

As what u have said, when pausing the game then the sound will stop, more or less it's not enough and not true power loh...

Cheers!!!

[nicholas_yeo]

Spider, 480W PSU is more than enough. In fact, u can run 8xx series Dual Core processor with it.

I dun think it is related to the games. PSU is a difficult part to make and very critical. Cheapo PSU usually do not have what we call good OVP (over voltage protection) and uses lower end component to make up.

Like what Coralreef is saying, u should invest in a better one.. a 480W PSU can easily cost more than $150/-. By the way, higher power rating is always good coz PSU will degrade over time and it will give less power... getting abit of margin will prevent alot of problems down the road like abrupt shutdown / restart issues...

By the way, U dun need the 6pin power for 6600GT. It is build in for 6600 GT only coz GT version carries SLI capability which will need it when u go to tandem cards. For single cards, I understand only 6800 series above needs one.

Anyway, if u need more info, visit VRforum.com

[pegasus1010]

I think it's the PSU & graphic card, esp if the graphic card got the power connector connected to it.

Intensive graphics will draw a sudden surge of extra power from the psu.

http://www.antec.com/info_whyAntec.html