Is power supply the cause of my problem?

[jamesphalanx]

Hello, I was given this computer from a dear friend of mine who moved back to his country and there seems to be a problem with it that I could not solve.

Well the problem is that the computer seems to make a loud single click mixed with powering on and off noise sometimes. if the computer didn't make the noise at start and is not touched further it runs smoothly, but if it did make a noise it seems to freeze and sometimes repeats the noise until shut down.

I did some tests to narrow down the problem, I switched the hard drive and it still caused the sound

I took down the dvd rom drive and it seems to cause the freeze less frequently

I also bought a new CPU, graphic card and ram around a year ago, but the freezing occurred before and after the upgrade.

Sometimes when I play a game it makes the sound but dose not freeze the game itself, only when I try to escape back to windows everything is frozen

It seems like when ever I plug in a internal hard drive or cd/dvd player it seems to freeze.

here is my spec

AMD Phenom 9750 Quad core 2.40ghz

8.00gb of ddr2 ram

ga-ma770-s3 motherboard

Nvidia geforce gtx460

500W Vpower PSU

Ask me anything, I only had this computer for about 2 years and had this problem ever since. It was more frequent at first but now it only happens once or twice a week randomly.

 

[kajabla]

So in-game it clicks and then nothing happens until you go back to Windows? That doesn't sound very PSU-like. If it were the PSU I'd expect weird graphics issues and sudden shutdowns, but not anything related to software. Remember that the PSU doesn't know when you're in-game.
With that said, the fact that the same issue (was it exactly the same?) happened regardless of the CPU, GPU and RAM eliminates those as suspects, leaving only the PSU and mobo, so I won't eliminate the PSU completely.

 

[Guest]

I would say its the motherboard

 

[CaedenV]

It sounds to me like it is definitely a PS issue. The clicking in the HDD you are hearing is the HDD parking, which it does when it turns off. If it is getting undervolted, or not enough amps then it could cause this.
To be sure, take out something power hungry like the GPU and see if that solves the issue.

 

[CaedenV]

if it was a mobo/HDD/software issue then the problem would have gone away (or at least changed) when he upgraded the system.

 

[Guest]

He didn't say he upgraded the motherboard..

 

[kajabla]

Right. The mobo's still in the running. I get the park noise in the course of my normal boots sometimes. I think that a faulty mobo could undervolt the HDD as well as a faulty PSU.
Big +1 on removing the GPU and seeing what happens.

 

[Guest]

Agreed, i think the motherboard is bugging out the voltages, but try with a different (low end) video card to see if its the psu. (His motherboard has a 770 chipset/ no onboard)

 

[kajabla]

Ah.
Do any of your friends have cheap cards?

 

[Guest]

I also bought a new CPU, graphic card and ram around a year ago, but the freezing occurred before and after the upgrade.

Hmm, what was the old graphics card?

If it wasn't that energy consuming, i'm putting all my money down on motherboard

 

[jamesphalanx]

The old graphic card was 9800gt nvidia. Ill try taking out the gpu and try more tests

 

[jamesphalanx]

Well I can't seem to get my hands on my old graphic card which is 200km away, and everyone of my friends has a higher energy consuming graphic card then me. I tried to turn it on without the graphic card and everything ran fine, but the freezing is so random that I can't be sure. I tried replugging my graphic card and it still runs fine, also I ran some graphic tests last week and ran the system on high for around 1h without any problems, but only when turning on the computer I seem to get the noise and the freezing.

What would be the best solution? Buy a PSU or a new motherboard. and if I were to buy them what would be the best purchase to go along with my other hardware?

Also thanks for the quick replies.

 

[Guest]

Well, the psu can be used in new future systems, as for the motherboard, the cheapest one or if you can and it hasn't been 3 years yet, rma the motherboard to gigabyte (3 years warranty)

 

[CaedenV]

ah, when I saw the upgrades I thought the mobo was upgraded as well. Yes, the mobo could be the issue... though the HDD gets power directly from the power supply, so it would be odd to have the mobo effect the power going to the hdd.

 

[jamesphalanx]

thank you, ill replace both motherboard and the psu.

 

[jamesphalanx]

if anyone is still reading this I just had the problem again, but this time I was playing a game it made the sound but the game kept on running fine so I quit the game to see if anything else was wrong.

The desktop would not respond, clicking on folders and other stuff it all did not respond. But after few seconds it all popped up and everything is running fine, hopefully that might narrow it down?

 

[jamesphalanx]

also it seems like microsoft office comes with the error
"There was a problem sending t he command to the program."
and opens a black office word, donno if thats because of this problem but posted anyhow because it was running fine before.

 

[jamesphalanx]

o also, I overclocked my video card and it gave me a memory dump blue screen. maybe its still the psu? because I overclocked according to my friend who has the same card overclocked with the same specs with no problems.

 

[Guest]

Same suggestion

 

[delluser1]

Hello, I was given this computer from a dear friend of mine who moved back to his country and there seems to be a problem with it that I could not solve.

Well the problem is that the computer seems to make a loud single click mixed with powering on and off noise sometimes. if the computer didn't make the noise at start and is not touched further it runs smoothly, but if it did make a noise it seems to freeze and sometimes repeats the noise until shut down.

I did some tests to narrow down the problem, I switched the hard drive and it still caused the sound

I took down the dvd rom drive and it seems to cause the freeze less frequently

I also bought a new CPU, graphic card and ram around a year ago, but the freezing occurred before and after the upgrade.

Sometimes when I play a game it makes the sound but dose not freeze the game itself, only when I try to escape back to windows everything is frozen

It seems like when ever I plug in a internal hard drive or cd/dvd player it seems to freeze.

here is my spec

AMD Phenom 9750 Quad core 2.40ghz

8.00gb of ddr2 ram

ga-ma770-s3 motherboard

Nvidia geforce gtx460

500W Vpower PSU

Ask me anything, I only had this computer for about 2 years and had this problem ever since. It was more frequent at first but now it only happens once or twice a week randomly.

The fact that it hasn't died is amazing, that psu has to be one of the worst pieces of crap on the planet ( I only say this because the 400 watt unit I had on my desk claimed 17 amps for the 12v and registered 11.3 on the DMM )
I imagine you've been pushing that thing to it's limit from the beginning with that Phenom Quad and 460