PSU squeals, what's wrong: cpu, psu or mobo?

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xdotx

Geek Trainee
Alright, this one feels like quite a challenge. I just built a system with the following specs:
AMD 64 3400+ - Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg
400 watt psu - Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg
gigabyte mb - Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg
and an ati radeon 9600 pro, zalmah cpu fan, WD 320 GB HDD, and a NEC dvd drive.

Now, put it together, everything was running fine, installed win xp, drivers, basic apps, then called it a night and shut it down and turned off the psu. I come in the next day to install ubunutu on it, I flip the psu on and get a high pitched squealing noise. Turned it off, waited a few seconds, turned it back on, same noise. Hit the power button- nothing. So I figure the psu went bad ( while turned off, over night ), and today I went out and grabbed a cheap replacement, 400 watts to test it. This psu MAKES THE SAME EXACT NOISE. I slowly started removing parts (to see if I was straining it, though I doubted that's it) and testing them. I pulled it down to a bare min, cpu, cpu fan, mobo. PSU still making the same noise, and the mobo does not get power. Also I tried turning on the psu without it connected to anything, it does NOT make any noise.

So... seems to me the mobo has most likely gone bad... somehow? But I can't seem to rule out the cpu either. And this whole thing makes no sense what-so-ever to me. What could have possibly gone wrong while it's turned off over night??

Thanks for any help!
 
well, sound like the fan in the PSU was faulty aswell, yea i think the psu has died, i dunno what your psu is as at the time of this posts there is problems with newegg server, but it sounds like you got a cheapo PSU, most likely one that couldent handle your system.

It's not WATTS that you should look for, 400w, 500w 600w etc.. its the Amps on the +12V rail (prefrebly dual +12V rail), you need to get a good PSU from a good brand like Hiper, enermax or antec, NEVER BUY A CHEAP PSU!, if you get a decent PSU, and then find nothing works, sounds like it has indeed damaged some of your hardware.

Hmmm, well the PSU sounds faulty, i would not reccomend using that PSU ever again, go out buy a decent one, are you sure the PSU is making the noise, as i cant think of anyhting in a PSU that can make a noise exept fot the fans, sounds more like a HDD or DVD drive or a fan somewere else that makes that loud noise, start connecting parts one by one, maybe its that NEC DVD Drive, i have one, and its faulty.


****EDIT**** *** **
Also, even some of the best PSU's have failed tests, so no matter what reviews tell you, don't mean there its deffo not teh problem, what exatly is the make and model of the PSU, whats the specs, 12v rail etc..?
 
Thats an odd problem. Ive only come accross squeeling PSUs when they are full of dust.

When you said you tried the PSU without plugging anything into it did the fans inside spin up? I think to get the PSU working properly you have to at least plug in the big 20pin motherboard plug, that way the switch on the acse can turn the PSU on. When the PSU is on and doing its job the most obvious sign is the fans in the PSU spinning.

If two separate PSUs make the noise when only the motherboard is plugged in then it can only be the motherboard really. How?, god knows!

When your running a barebone PC the quality of the PSU shouldn't get in the way.
You wont exceed the max output nor drain the current.
 
Willz said:
well, sound like the fan in the PSU was faulty aswell, yea i think the psu has died, i dunno what your psu is as at the time of this posts there is problems with newegg server, but it sounds like you got a cheapo PSU, most likely one that couldent handle your system.

It's not WATTS that you should look for, 400w, 500w 600w etc.. its the Amps on the +12V rail (prefrebly dual +12V rail), you need to get a good PSU from a good brand like Hiper, enermax or antec, NEVER BUY A CHEAP PSU!, if you get a decent PSU, and then find nothing works, sounds like it has indeed damaged some of your hardware.

Hmmm, well the PSU sounds faulty, i would not reccomend using that PSU ever again, go out buy a decent one, are you sure the PSU is making the noise, as i cant think of anyhting in a PSU that can make a noise exept fot the fans, sounds more like a HDD or DVD drive or a fan somewere else that makes that loud noise, start connecting parts one by one, maybe its that NEC DVD Drive, i have one, and its faulty.
Click to expand...

- The psu I first tested on is a decent one, with great ratings and reviews. I already made sure it's got enough power on it... not to mention the same thing happened with the second psu right away. And just on a side note, yes the psu was making the noise, and it wasn't the fan on the psu making noise... did you even read my whole post?

So, no thanks to run-on sentence man (terrible grammar just erks me), but I did get it working. If you're really interested it's posted on another forum: PSU squeals - PlanetAMD64

edit: thanks for the reply though zeus.
 
WHY, WHets wroNg with IT?

I don't know why your asking me if i did read your whole post, of course i did, i just tryed to help, maybe i was wrong, no need to start picking at my grammar, for all i knew your PSU could well of been a pile of crap, as the symptoms indicated a bad PSU.

It just erks me when people think that perfect grammar is necessary
 
It does help...anyway, let's stay on topic, m'kay?

It might be a coil or capacitor on the motherboard making the noise.
 
Big B said:
It does help...anyway, let's stay on topic, m'kay?

It might be a coil or capacitor on the motherboard making the noise.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it was the psu making the noise, 100% sure, but that does remind me...! I was a little skeptical about a couple capacitors. The ones nearer the cpu had some gray/whitish "stuff" around the top of them, though I wouldn't doubt that the substance is thermal paste, since my hand did slip when applying the last bit. But, a little thermal paste on top couldn't possibly hurt anything right?

I think the problem is the spacers actually. The second (and last) time I was putting the board on, I was having trouble with a lot of the spacer's threads stripping and it looked like they were in variable sizes (they seemed cheap as hell). Anyways, I should have noticed that the one screw that's in there right now is the one that had the spacer in, the other screw didn't. I didn't think having one not in was a big deal if it fit in alright without it. I'm going to go see if I can get another spacer in between that second screw, and possibly apply some more.

Thanks a ton zeus!
 
the capacitors look alright otherwise. I installed a couple more spacers and it seems like everything's running fine. thanks guys
 
I've had this problem too from a dead(squealing) PSU at work. The mobo/CPU/RAM were fine as they would work perfectly on another PSU. I took the bad one home out of curiosity and upon opening it seemed like the high pitched sound was coming from the transformer.
 
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