So about 2 weeks ago my pc would randomly shutdown(well not shutdown but total power loss) at night. I was uploading a bunch of videos and pics to my laptop over an Ethernet connection. It took me a few nights to finish instead of one. Now yesterday I was playing BF2 and it randomly shutdown. When I went to reboot it would not start. So I unplugged it and left it for a few minuets(while I had some cheese cake). Then I went to turn it on and it worked! But after a few minutes of play I started to smell something like toasting transistors, but I continued to play and it kept working(also smelling bad) after an hour of play I turned off the game and let it cool for a while(5min(pc was still on)) When I felt the exhost of the Power Supply Unit it was hot!! What should I do?

Is this a bad Power Supply Unit? Im worried that it will kill the rest of my pc!

I have been looking for a new Power Supply Unit. Heres one that I like.
Its cheap but good. 34A on the +5, 20 on the +12, up to 80% efficiency, modular cables and a big fan.

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Hey Arthur,

This might suprise you, but it doesn't sound like your Power Supply Unit at all, altough it could be a contributing factor. If you put your hand near to the vent, is the fan still blowing out air?

It actually sounds like your whole system is too hot. Looking at your PC spec's, I see you have a fanless 6600 Geforce? You have to be kidding me? Is there no cooling for this card at all? These cards will automatically shut the PC down when they reach their temperature thresholds. This would explain why you were not immediately able to start your PC for a while until your GPU had cooled down.

Download speedfan, which will give you an idea of all your system temperatures: SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

If you ever smell burning, please don't keep your PC running. I'm suprised it is still working at all. If you just have a heatsink on your graphics card, then your PC needs to be very very cool. This means as well as your Power Supply Unit having it's own cooling. There should really be a fan at the back of the PC to blow out the hot air, and a fan at the front of the PC to bring in the cool air. Airflow inside the PC is important, so keep those cables out of the way, and make sure that all remaining vents and heatsinks inside the PC are free of dust.

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I have had a discussion about fans and cooling over here as well(when I had my 6400x2. but I got a 5000x2 and oc'ed to 3.1. now its alot cooler.) It cant be dust, I vacuum the insides of my pc every weekend. The hotest I can run my cpu is 45 with programs like cpu burn in and superpi. How can I test my video card? with out playing a game?

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Is speedfan picking your GPU temperature? If so, you can still run speedfan whilst playing the game. After a short time you can [ALT]+[TAB] or exit the game to find out what the temperature is. What is the current temperature without playing the game?

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It died!

I have used speedfan before, actually I have it on all my computer!
I dont think it read my video card. this is how it looked:
Temp1:44
Temp2:40
Temp3:35
HDD1:25
HDD2:25
core?

I also use asus pc probe. it gave a cpu of 44 and mb of 40
While running speed fan I had a thermometer measuring the video card heatsink. It read 38-40.

I was looking trough some of the options in speed fan and found some thing that said chip. There was 2 for the hd, one K8 ** (something with pci), then the mobochipset. So I think it did not read the videocard.

Then I got a program the tests your pc (forgot the name but it runs tests for only 15min and shows a few jets flying around. After a min or two the pc shut off. It tryed to reboot a few times(only the lights and fans came on there was some hd action then it shut off forever.

So it looks like it was the Power Supply Unit. I will take it out now and test it.

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ok so I removed the Power Supply Unit and opened it up. I found a bunch of dust and a burned out capacitor. It was one of the ceramic capacitors. so how about that Power Supply Unit in my op?
i will upload some photos of the damage when i fix my pc.



---------------------posted with an itouch 8)

The raidmax is a little on the cheap side for a modular. I would be looking at Corsair or OCZ but they are lot more expensive. My OCZ 780 Mod stream cost near on $200. You get what you pay for

Oh dear. Did you find out if the fan was working or not before it died? When looking for a replacement, don't be fooled just because it looks pritty! Would also recommend Thermaltake.

Judging by those temps the rest of your PC seems reasonably cool, but I'm still concerned with gaming on that 6600. When you get things going again, might be worth using NTune to double check before any more capacitors start looking kind of crispy! NVIDIA nTune

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Whats a good Power Supply Unit for <$50?

Oh look its on sale

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none of them at that price will be "good"

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madmonkey agrees: absolutely

why not? it has 4 stars and 122 reviews. I need to choose one today so that I can get it by friday.

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