Weird Squealing

MikeF

So I've had my new computer for about 2 weeks now and just a minute ago my power supply (i think) started making a high pitched squealing noise, my monitors turned to a shade of green and everything locked up. I'm a little nervous about this on a brand new computer. Specs are:
core2 Duo running at 2.0ghz
1gb ddr2
200gb hd
geforece 880gtx 768mb
550wt power supply

I was using photoshop cs3 and watching a stage6 video at the time.

pliang

Got a warranty? You might wanna call your technician and get it replaced, I had a similar case but it was after just almost a year and I still managed to get a replacemnt before anything bad happened.

I'm not a real hardware expert but power supplies are mostly really poorly built so this happens a lot.

Rob Galanakis

You're using a mega GPU in a pretty mediocre system... my guess is that its a crappy power supply if you didn't build it yourself or get it from a premium reseller.

MikeF

built it myself, got all the parts from tigerdirect, never had any problems with them before.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/S...CCODE=CANEMSHIP
thats the PS i'm using

sonic

That power supply has plenty of juice for the graphics card. The high pitched noise usually means a capacitor has gone bad or is about to explode. Most likely that capacitor is in your power supply, so try replacing it if you built the comp yourself and if not call and bitch the company out.

PfhorRunner

My vote goes towards the power supply as well. What manufacturer is it?

oXYnary

If you need a new cap...

http://www.digikey.com/

Though they have like a $20 minimum.

Hmm, my ps has been making squelching noises as well. I thought it was one of the fans in it.

Motz

Engineer here just echoing sonic,

most common cause of squealing outside of a fan (which is obvious to test) is a capacitor overheating and about to pop. could come from anything, PS, MOBO cards etc.

Since the screen went green.. that kinda tells me it may not be the PS. Not to be negative but for 75 bucks thats a really crap PS you linked to. You can get a name brand Thermaltake for the same price, and an ULTRA Titanium for about 15 bucks more, worth the cost IMHO.

notman

While, I agree that the capacitor is probably what is squeling, it's also possible that a fan took a shit already also. Not as likely as the cap though.

If the video card relies on the power supply (and I'm guessing it does), then if the power supply when down, the video would follow. If you built your own machines, then typically you have a spare PS laying around. If so, give it a try, even if it doesn't have a massive rating. It should give you enough juice to see if your system comes back up.

r13

I got a keyboard that squeals like kub in a prison shower after its plugged in for 5-10 mins. definitely a capacitor in there thats gone bad. i gotta remember to throw that thing out next time i run across it in my closet of forgotten tech.

Jesse Moody

yeah man...i have built a lot of computers and worked for best buys Geek Squad for a while and sometimes it could be a fan but with a big vid card like that you really should spend the extra money on a good power supply from a known manufacturer. I look at it this way. That is what pumps the life into all my parts. If I buy a shitty / cheap power supply chances are shitty / cheap parts were used and wont last as long and then I risk it blowing up, shorting, whatever and destroying a $800 video card, $600 processor and so on.

See what I mean?

I always try to get a good mobo, cpu, vid card, and power supply.

Try newegg next time. They are always having awesome deals.

MikeF

it finally went on me today, luckily, my new psu showed up at the door about an hour later.
I've got everything back to where i was, but now i'm having some performance issues with certain games that ran great beforehand, is something like this possible?. this is what i got, http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?act=detail&tbcate=173&id=200

Motz

Hmm. New PS shouldn't affect performance at all. Just letting the PSU die while the machine was running, probably wasn't the best idea. It may have caused other electrical damage in the process.

Only thing you can do is pray it's just coincidentally in software, and see what a clean OS re-install will do for you. Anything more and you'd have to have someone take a look at it, or run extended diags on the cards. I'm not sure if nvidia or ati have tools to test the actual chips on the card. Physx cards do, so it's possible.

almighty_gir

i guess this follows the general rule of electronics, whether it's computers, music, home theatre etd.

your system is like a chain, and if you're using high quality components for some links, and shitty ones for others, your system will only be as strong as the weakest component.

Motz

Not exactly gir. You can bottle neck a system but it does'nt degrade other components to the point that the other cards are as weak at the weakest. It may cause 5% overall performance degrade if you use onboard sound vs an xfi card, but it wont affect the actual processing capabilities of other components. That does'nt really make sense. This is a PSU issue here, hardly anything that would cause a performance drain outside of extreme cases.

So it would be less like a chain, and more like a hose with kinks. The kinks don't affect the rest of the hoses ability to handle their water amounts etc.

sledgy

Not sure if this is still true but with my older nVidia 6800 the reference driver would complain if the card wasn't receiving enough current and it would auto-throttle the card's clock way down so as not to damage any components. One way to test this is to get a multimeter and measure the 5V and 12V rails before and after connecting it to the card. If you get >1V variance then it's considered "dirty power". One thing that would work for me is to put the card on its own 12V rail and the drives and other periphs on the remaining available rails. HTH