PSU failing/ choosing new one

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Hello everybody, I am having some weird problems with my PC as of late and I am only guessing it's my PSU failing. What happens is while my computer is on and doing anything from playing games to doing nothing just standing by it might crash. It does that in a way very strange: in some cases the PC might freeze and I cannot do anything other than take the power off (reset/power buttons aren't doing anything). Other times it might not boot up (pressing power button->powering up for a sec-> powering off -> powering up -> off-> on -> off by itself until I take the power off again power/reset buttons seem not to repsond). Other times nothing might happend and sit on it for hours play,work, leave it open, watch movies and it will power up and power off normally. Now from my personal experience with PCs, PC componentes aren't half broken or half fried, they either work or don't. And since my PC has it's "days" of working or not my only guess is the PSU is failing. Having said that I also need to say that the PSU is the only component left on this system from my old system which I assembled back in 2008. Now I might be wrong assuming that my PSU has left us days but that's why I am asking of what do people think about this problem. The PSU itself is a Coolermaster G850M. My specs are:

Intel i7-3770 3.40ghz
Asus P8H77-ve
Asus Geforce Gtx970 Strix
4x 4gb Corsair Vengaence DDR3 1600mghz ram
SSD Sandisk 64gb
and two other HDs I am using only for storage

Now if the PSU is the problem I need to buy a new one

The one I am having right now is a bit of overkill in terms of power output but back in the day I designed the computer to have an SLI of 2x9800GX2

I don't really believe I need that big of a power supply so I am thinking something in terms of 600-650W I don't know.
Please let me know what do you think my problem is and if you agree it's the PSU which one would you suggest?

Joseph DeGarmo · Mar 6, 2015

Replace the PSU with at least an XFX 550w, which is a great brand.

Epsilon_0EVP · Mar 6, 2015

Joseph DeGarmo :

Before I do that, though, I'd check that the PSU is actually the problem. I had some similar issues when the RAM slots were not working on my motherboard. I would run some CPU and GPU load tests, to see if they cause freezing, Memtest+ to check for bad RAM, and possibly try to exchange components one at a time (with spares or a friends computer) to see where the issue is.

If the PSU is the issue, though, the XFX 550W is exactly what I would recommend, too. It has more than enough power for a 3770 and 970, and it is a good quality unit.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

I don't know which psu brand is the best but I am between the coolermaster g750m and the corsair vs650 since both are at sale around 70eur in local shops.
As of the stress test I 've always been afraid of those 3rd party programs putting my system on a loop even if it's for testing. I did a cpu for about 5mins and the same for gpu, nothing happened. Then while I was searching online for memtest the pc froze nothing responded had to mannually take the power out and then it wouldn't start (you know power on-off-on-off by itself). Now I am having it do the memtest, I don't really think anything will pop up but will see.

Epsilon_0EVP · Mar 6, 2015

George1tsn :

Remember these tests take time

I would do the CPU and GPU tests for at least an hour each. Five minutes is barely enough to get up to temperature. And Memtest recommends an hour per GB of RAM, if I recall correctly, so these tests will take time.

As for the replacement PSU, I found the XFX 550W for 58 euro in a German website. I don't know where you are and how the prices fluctuate in Europe, but if you can get the XFX 550W for anywhere near that, it will be an excellent choice, and it is slightly cheaper.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Like I said I don't know about psu brands. I found the xfx ts550 on a shop here on 65+5 shippings but if I am to buy a new psu I'd rather stick to the larger more reputable shops here. Are the coolermaster and corsair models not good? I found this particular corsair very famous amongst the internet.

Epsilon_0EVP · Mar 6, 2015

George1tsn :

Fair enough. The Corsair VS750M seems to be made by Channel Well. They don't tend to make terrible PSU's, but there are definitely batter quality units out there.

I can't find specific info on the Cooler Master unit, but it seems that Cooler Master PSU's similar to it don't have excellent reviews, either. I'd say from what I was able to find that they are of comparable quality, but I'd still choose something else for my own machine.

If the XFX unit is not available where you want it, look for Seasonic or another of Corsairs series (which tend to be made by other manufacturers). EVGA's G series are also worth looking at, but try to avoid the B and W series.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Epsilon_0EVP :

George1tsn :

Fair enough. The Corsair VS750M seems to be made by Channel Well. They don't tend to make terrible PSU's, but there are definitely batter quality units out there.

I can't find specific info on the Cooler Master unit, but it seems that Cooler Master PSU's similar to it don't have excellent reviews, either. I'd say from what I was able to find that they are of comparable quality, but I'd still choose something else for my own machine.

If the XFX unit is not available where you want it, look for Seasonic or another of Corsairs series (which tend to be made by other manufacturers). EVGA's G series are also worth looking at, but try to avoid the B and W series.

Well if you could enlighten me on what to be looking for on a PSU. I am gonna say it again and become boring but I don't have any idea about PSUs other than how much power I will be needing.

Epsilon_0EVP · Mar 6, 2015

George1tsn :

Unfortunately, that's a bit of a problem

There is really no way of knowing exactly how good a PSU is without taking it apart, examining the circuitry, and testing it using equipment most of us don't have access to.

This is why we often refer to who actually makes the PSU, versus who sells it, because several manufacturers have much better reputations than others. You can often find lists online that tell you who makes a specific PSU. Brands like Seasonic, Superflower, Flextronics, and others are well-recognized for their very high quality, so we often try to look for those. I would also look at review sites, like the jonnyguru reviews, since they have the testing equipment we don't have, and can help you make a more informed decision.

Karadjgne · Mar 6, 2015

Corsair is a market flooder. Many OEM builders usually stick closer to home, spreading as far as us, Canada, England etc, Seasonic and Corsair did the opposite and went world wide. With their prices in the affordable range, and considering Corsair doesn't actually build anything but mainly uses Asian companies for psu's, this has allowed them to own the market on psu sales. CoolerMaster is trying to compete as are several other companies, but Corsair and Seasonic have such a large base and brand recognition, its not easy.

As it is, anything built by or on a Seasonic platform is great, by any standard, that includes XFX, Antec HCG(m), even Corsair AX. Corsair's lower market designs like CX, VS, CS, are built by Asian companies and are designed to flood the market with mediocre psus at low prices, capitalizing on brand recognition. This means cheaper parts, including low grade capacitors, that'll last as long as it's 3yr warranty, but good luck after that. Many are of the opinion, its so cheap, I'll just replace it when it dies.

The CX, VS, CS series are based on an old ATX design using high 3.3v and 5v current outputs to make up wattage size. Since modern cpu/mobo/gpu use primarily 12v standards with very little 3.3 and 5v usage, the needs of high amperage outputs there are obsolete and semi-useless in a gaming pc. They will also often share 5v and 12v output for stability purposes and to claim more wattage on the 12v rails. Not exactly good. If you add up the shared wattage from 3.3v and 5v outputs, then combine 12v outputs, you'll often find a discrepancy, ie. A 600w psu has a total output of over 800w, not realistic since the wattage overlap from sharing.

Stick with anything built by Seasonic or its partner brands. Brand recognition is one thing, reputation is a whole different beast.

What to look for in a psu. 1. Reliability, often quite visual in just how long it's warranty is, 2. Output. W=AxV, so a 500w unit should have close to 500w on 12v or @20A (500 = 12x40) or close to it. 3. Protections, overvoltage, overcurrent etc, the more the better. 4. Honest 80+ rating. You'll need to Google that, its long, but easy to figure.
5. Word of mouth. Ask a gamer, pc builder. Ask here. Many will tell you what's good at a certain wattage range, and what to avoid.
That's pretty much it.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Epsilon_0EVP :

Well in terms of equipment, my father has anything you can imagine, trust me on that literally anything. Other than that I am not a testing website to be getting loads of components for free to test etc I am simple guy buying something and that's it

So it seems quite unlikely I will be doing any tests on hardware I am going to buy and use. So it seems that I should start looking on reviews online :/ .... The part I have always hated the most on buying anything, reading biased reviews and grinding through the internet on making a good money/value choice. Why doesn't Asus make PSUs

Whenever I am looking to buy something the 1st question I ask is : Does Asus produce that? I love that company, for their quality and their service.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Karadjgne :

Corsair is a market flooder. Many OEM builders usually stick closer to home, spreading as far as us, Canada, England etc, Seasonic and Corsair did the opposite and went world wide. With their prices in the affordable range, and considering Corsair doesn't actually build anything but mainly uses Asian companies for psu's, this has allowed them to own the market on psu sales. CoolerMaster is trying to compete as are several other companies, but Corsair and Seasonic have such a large base and brand recognition, its not easy.

As it is, anything built by or on a Seasonic platform is great, by any standard, that includes XFX, Antec HCG(m), even Corsair AX. Corsair's lower market designs like CX, VS, CS, are built by Asian companies and are designed to flood the market with mediocre psus at low prices, capitalizing on brand recognition. This means cheaper parts, including low grade capacitors, that'll last as long as it's 3yr warranty, but good luck after that. Many are of the opinion, its so cheap, I'll just replace it when it dies.

The CX, VS, CS series are based on an old ATX design using high 3.3v and 5v current outputs to make up wattage size. Since modern cpu/mobo/gpu use primarily 12v standards with very little 3.3 and 5v usage, the needs of high amperage outputs there are obsolete and semi-useless in a gaming pc. They will also often share 5v and 12v output for stability purposes and to claim more wattage on the 12v rails. Not exactly good. If you add up the shared wattage from 3.3v and 5v outputs, then combine 12v outputs, you'll often find a discrepancy, ie. A 600w psu has a total output of over 800w, not realistic since the wattage overlap from sharing.

Stick with anything built by Seasonic or its partner brands. Brand recognition is one thing, reputation is a whole different beast.

I don't wanna be a party pooper nor I am paid by any company but my Coolermaster G850M has lasted me for almost 7 year by my calculations, and I am not entirely sure that PSU is my problem. Is it built by those great parts you described or was I lucky?
I am not being aggressive I am just trying to figure things out before I spend another 100eur on anything.

Karadjgne · Mar 6, 2015

You are running 850w psu on a 500w pc. That's why it lasted 7 years, even with low grade caps. Capacitors have a certain useful life. They degrade a small percentage every year, so if you could measure your actual output right now after 7 years of use, what started out as 850w is probably closer to 600w now. Maybe less. Could it be the psu? Yep. Could it be ram? Yep. Hard to tell without memtest 1 stick overnight, then next stick etc, then repeat in slot#2, slot#3 slot#4. Also can check widows event viewer and look specifically for WHEA errors. That's a prime indication of low voltage to the cpu. It could also be driver error, depends exactly what you mean by it doesn't boot, does it go past bios then stop when Windows loads or just never make it past the button push, fans spin for a second then quit. Good indicator of bad psu.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Karadjgne :

Lets put things in order. Right now I haven't done any stress test long enough to know if it's a CPU or GPU fault which I doubt but you never know. I did a memtest for about an hour with 0 errors but like you said I need much more time to know.
Now the PC might do one of the following: It might start being unresponsive to the point of freezing completely. At that point nothing responds, no commands, not even power/reset buttons. So at that point I have to manually kill the power and then give it power again. Now let me say this: I am a very patient man, so one I day I sat on the frozen PC (looping sound, mouse not moving, nothing responding etc) and I found that the PC wasn't dead but instead it's stuck somewhere and I kept moving my mouse left and right and after like an hour or something the mouse actually moved a little, unfroze for a sec then freeze again. I have read somewhere that this is a very common SSD issue. Then again while sitting there frozen the PC might show me a blue screen with error etc and what's even worse it might freeze there meaning nothing won't work buttons etc memory dump countdown and have to do the powering off manually. Now having said that at first I though it was SSD problem. But my PC has more surprises for me, giving it back the power after having the PC frozen sometimes it will boot up with no issues, sometimes it will boot up in the "freeze mode" meaning displaying the launch windows normally and repair windows choices and after choosing making those letters disappear like we were loading an image with a PTSN line 25years ago

At that point I know the PC won't start so I press the restart button or power button but as expected nothing happens, sometimes though it might wake up and execute my command of reset with some seconds delay. Other things it might do is press the power button and the PC starts powering up for a sec or two and then powers off, power up then off, up and off and it will keep doing that until I decide to cut the power manually. Now I don't think all these are SSD problems cause the PC won't start even when I have taken the SSD off. Now after all these I didn't quit. I found that if I get in the motherboard environment it will never freeze no matter what. That's what can happen to me and also those don't happen every day, there are days nothing will happen, there are other days the PC doesn't wanna go to work no matter what. There are times it will do it once, I restart it and nothing happens again other times it will do it twice other it will do it 10times, so there is no point in trying to predict how often this happens or when. Also the windows event viewer is empty in the kernel-WHEA errors and also I am typing all this from that PC having it running with no problems till now for about 2 hours.

Karadjgne · Mar 6, 2015

Hard to diagnose. On one hand it sounds like a psu error, but on the other it could also be a motherboard problem, the psu could be fine since you aren't showing any whea errors. Testing via multimeter would be inconclusive unless you could get voltages at the exact moment of failure. The only way to solve this dilemma is do every test you can on every component, running memtest, occt or prime95, updating all drivers/bios, etc, to try and pin down any commonality. Even then, all you'll have done is narrow the choices to where swapping out the psu for one known to be good is a last option. If that clears up the issues, it was the psu, if any of the tests fail, why? Bad socket or bad ram, etc, if they all pass, its the mobo somewhere.

George1tsn · Mar 6, 2015

Karadjgne :

Still running without any crushes. Haven't changed anything. The thing I don't get is how can something be broken one day and the next working in terms of hardware other than PSU. For PSU I can get to be failing under load or whatever, but for everything else shouldn't there always be a constant issue?

Karadjgne · Mar 6, 2015

Not really, if it's a driver issue for example, affecting hardware, all it takes is the exact wrong mouse click at the exact wrong spot on the monitor, addressing the 1 bad sector of ram that happens to feed through the 1 bad section of cpu cache or any of the above and pc will freeze in a loop not being able to get to the next instruction. Quite often, the results are software based on a hardware malfunction, that may or may not be seen, depending on the right set of circumstances.

Imagine it's sector 63 of 64, on the 7th gig of ram, your driver's and software only using 52 sectors of that ram for hours, then 'poof' 1 mouse click uses the full 64 sectors, and you get a freeze cus the mouse instruction never gets past 63, and you can't override the instructions cuz the mouse is frozen at 63. Ram error, corrupted file, faulty hardware, unknown till the full gamet of tests is run. And even then, the ram could be bad because of over voltage spike from a failing psu.

It's a pain, it sucks, but without testing, you won't find all the bugs.

George1tsn · Mar 7, 2015

Karadjgne :

Well that's the thing though isn't it. Like I said I sat on the "frozen" computer for some time thinking myself it was the ram. Then by moving the mouse left and right it "unfroze" for a sec then freeze again, so when it happens it's not completely unresponsive but sometimes it's actually completely dead. I remember with my 1st DDR3 RAM sticks that actually had problems and took the guarantee back, if it froze it froze and that's it but this is something different. But no matter what I still have to restart and then face the no-power up problem (fan spin for a sec then stop etc).

George1tsn · Mar 7, 2015

I have got one more update to make here. Today while I was playing Diablo 3 and having the PC left running all night long without any "freezing", I stumbled upon the "freeze", it didn't completely freeze the system but it started freezing here and there, looping sound etc to the point nothing was responsive (at that point power/reset buttons didn't respond) so I cut the power off manually. Then it didn't want to open when given the power back it power up for a sec (fans spinning etc) then power down, power up then down till I cut the power off again manually.
Then I thought I 'll leave it be and do a memtest for 4hrs each RAM stick by itself, so I took the RAM sticks off and when the system booted up in Windows I saw in My Computer that my SSD had 10gb of free space. The funny thing here is that I have a very small/old SSD only for my OS and drivers and I always had a space problem. Experimenting around with the RAM sticks I found for some strange reason that when the system has only one stick the SSD has almost 10gb of free space. If I go on adding sticks to the system the free space goes down to the point of 800mb. Could it be the either the RAM or the Mobo RAM slots have problem and the system "steals" space from the SSD to run as RAM. The thing that makes me say that is the fact the every singe bit of RAM get recognized no matter the combination. I am off to a BIOS update now. The power up/down stills troubles me thought for my PSU.

George1tsn · Mar 11, 2015

Ok guys finally I have taken the decision to buy a new psu, my pc won't turn on it just powers up for a second then powers down , powers up then down etc etc.
Now I am between the XFX pro 650w and the XFX ts 750w I found them both around 90eur. Do the pro series have any difference with the ts series or they are the same. Which one you recommend regardless of the power output?

Epsilon_0EVP · Mar 11, 2015

Either of those is more than enough. I think the Pro series might have slightly higher efficiency, but in the end all XFX PSU's are made by Seasonic, so quality should not be an issue. I'd just get whichever is cheapest. Do note, though, that the 750W would let you run dual graphics card, if you ever plan to do that.

Karadjgne · Mar 12, 2015

Clean out the SSD, move anything and everything you can to hdd. Lower the size of recycle bin, lower the size of restore point to @3%, if you have hibernation enabled, get rid of it, its useless for a desktop, its for laptops, use hybrid-sleep instead. You want to keep at an absolute minimum 10% free space on the SSD for the Windows temp cache. If you don't have that space, its very likely you are getting corrupted files at shutdown and boot as drivers etc are trying to load/save and it's not happening. This is guaranteed to affect Windows, and consequently anything loaded through the SSD in a huge way, even causing shutdowns, bsod, blackouts etc. If you have corrupted the Master Boot Record in any way, your pc may not even boot. Hmm all this sounds familiar. Make sure ALL media, libraries, games, Anything not absolutely needed is either re-routed to another drive, or reinstalled on another drive. Look for duplicate files, dump them if not needed, library media is good for copying media to user favorites etc, that needs to go. I'd be happier with 20% min free space, but if you only have a 60Gb SSD, for instance, everything but OS needs to be on hdd. Windows itself can easily eat up 50Gb. Get it cleaned, then worry about the psu. If you need to temporarily use just the 1 stick of ram to free up some space, do so. Whatever it takes.

George1tsn · Mar 12, 2015

I m sry but I can't quote through my mobile phone. Thanks for all the solutions but the system can't boot at all apparently something is blocking it from getting even to bios . As of the psu I'll probably go with the 750 since I might be running double gpu in the future.

Karadjgne · Mar 12, 2015

Let us know how it turns out. The 64Gb SSD should be fine for OS only. If it becomes more worry and work than is acceptable, you could always start over, using the hdd for boot drive with the SSD as cache under C: using Intel fast storage tech. Your boot times will be slower as they'll revert back to hdd speeds, but Windows will be loaded into cache memory so will run at SSD speeds after boot, as will anything else that is in cache. Basically you create your own hybrid drive, which has much faster performance than a hdd alone, and since OS is on hdd, you won't have to worry about space issues.

George1tsn · Mar 12, 2015

I'm sry looking around on the internet I realized I was using the wrong terminology. What I meant to say is the pc won't post not boot. Anyway just ordered a new xfx ts 750 (thinking in the years to come I might get dual gpu and also the difference with the 650w was less than 10eur.) , I'm expecting it by tomorrow. Also today while powering up the pc I kinda smelled the sweet smell of fried psu. Also on one freezedown the system managed to get a note of what was wrong and from what I could tell with my little knowledge it was not enough power on the cpu but unfortunately I didn't manage to open it the pc froze and now I can't open the whole system.

PSU failing/ choosing new one

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