Specs: ASUS M2N-E motherboard 2046MB RAM AMD Athlon64 x2 5200+ ~2.7GHz ATI Radeon 4850 (up to date driver) OCZ StealthXStream 600W PSU Windows Vista Business - meh, it was free Whenever I play games, the fan on my power supply will spike at certain times sounding much like a vacuum cleaner , then dissipate...Only to spike again later. I would describe the pattern similar to a racer revving his engine and then holding it for 10-15 seconds. I read about a problem with the fans on my particular PSU but that problem was solved before I ordered it. The PSU gave me no troubles initially, after approximately 2 months I heard this for the first time. I noticed a pattern in Mass Effect, whenever I approach an elevator or a mover, the PSU spikes. It goes down when I walk away. Not sure if that's of any significance. Possibility that it's from the graphics card? Another thing to note, warm air comes out when it spikes; warmer than normal. Thanks in advance for your time. Let me know if you need anything other information.
The more the graphics card has to do, the hotter it will get, the hard the fan will work to keep it cool. I do remember my ATI card getting tad bit noisier during cut-scenes while playing HL2. Give your PC a clean out, try to get rid of as much dust as you can, which should help lower temps. Are you certain its the PSU and not he graphics card?
I think it's the PSU because when the noise starts, there's more air coming out of the back of the computer; where the PSU is. It's possible that the graphics card fan is just pushing much more air. I turned my graphics card up to 80% and it sounds pretty darn loud, it's possible that's where it's coming from. I checked the temps after playing Mass Effect for a while, it was in the 80s. Is this a problem, or is this just normal? I might just buy a quiet fan for the card if it's normal. the 2 months thing would also make sense because I haven't played any extremely demanding games until then. Mass effect is the first of few dx10 games I've played; having recently upgraded to vista.
