Bad PSU? and recommendation needed.

[smithza]

Hello,
I recently opened up my PSU to oil the fan and noticed something funky happening around one of the bigger capacitors. The brand of the PSU is EZCOOL.

Here is the image:

It looks like the capacitor has leaked, or perhaps there was glue which got very hot. In between the two capacitors there is a resister which has got a brown black coating of some sort also looking a bit risky. Am I being too protective of my precious mobo and cpu? I assume should this PSU give in, there is a risk that it will take my i7 with it.

My system is i7 3770k, GA-Z77M-D3H, 16gb DDR3 1333, Onboard graphics, 2 x HDD and I've had some other issues which I'm wondering is stemmed from the power supply.

I have some speakers, powered by USB and has a standard stereo jack. If I plug the USB into one of my motherboard USB ports for power, I have strange frequency noises that change as I move my mouse or do certain tasks on the computer. The harder I make the computer work, the more noise I hear. Could this be a motherboard issue or perhaps come from the power supply? I am about to order a new PSU, so won't be able to test if it is that for a few days. The only way to solve the issue is to use an external USB power source and still plug the stereo jack into the pc of course...

Now for the replacement PSU I am thinking of going with the Corsair CX430. Will this be sufficient?

Thanks guys.

 

[GhislainG]

Capacitors may bulge, but they rarely leak. If the PSU is mounted horizontally, then something most likely fell into it. A CX430 is enough for that system.

 

[smithza]

Capacitors may bulge, but they rarely leak. If the PSU is mounted horizontally, then something most likely fell into it. A CX430 is enough for that system.

Thanks, the PSU is fully enclosed other than the fan grill which is on the backside. It definitely looks like it could be some sort of yellow glue which is now bubbling when the components get hot and its cooking the resistor... I wont be taking any chances.

 

[adamjosiah]

It's hard to say, manufactures often use a large range of insulators and epoxies and often do a bad job of making it clean. Not sure why it showed up if it wasn't there to begin with but I would get a better make of psu anyway. I'm not a fan of ezcool

 

[davcon]

Yep get rid of the Ezcool(never heard of that brand).
Even a Corsair CX430 would be an upgrade.
Do you ever plan on adding a discrete gpu?
Reason I ask is you might want to go to maybe a quality 500W unit.
Otherwise if you don't game a 400+W unit is fine.
Weird cpu and mobo match dude!

 

[smithza]

Yep get rid of the Ezcool(never heard of that brand).
Even a Corsair CX430 would be an upgrade.
Do you ever plan on adding a discrete gpu?
Reason I ask is you might want to go to maybe a quality 500W unit.
Otherwise if you don't game a 400+W unit is fine.
Weird cpu and mobo match dude!

The system is a hackintosh which probably explains the board choice - the only one I could find at the time with decent support for OSX. I've had it for a little over a year, the system serves well. I have been thinking about a GPU, I try to play a bit every now and then, but it would just be like CS Source, NFS World, Quake Live, nothing that really requires heavy power.

 

[davcon]

Well then a Corsair/ANTEC or an EVGA unit would be a huge improvement over the dubious EZcool.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

An Antec VP450 costs $20 with rebates and is a Tier 2 product. Hard to go wrong with that.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/antec-vp450-power-supply-review/1487