- May 5, 2013
- 7
- 0
- 10,510
The Problem
After an over demand on my PSU when rendering some HD video (and running lots of other stuff at the same time) my PC shut itself down and smelled like electrical burning. It wouldn't power up again until the next day when it began working again without any noticeable problems apart from the fact that the fan in the PSU no longer spins and hence it overheats. When trying to push the fan round manually (by sticking a plastic pen in and pushing it round) there's a fair bit of resistance.
The make-shift solution
I've been running it fine with an external domestic fan blowing into the back of my tower and with one side of the case removed... but obviously I want to replace the PSU so it will be able to handle such power demands in the future and so I don't need to run a separate fan. I understand that it was probably the GPU that would have been drawing lots of power to do the video rendering so any thoughts on whether the GPU is not able to handle this task would also be welcome.
My PC Usage
I use the PC for various low power tasks and also do relatively intensive internet browsing (I usually have 20-30 tabs open), downloading/uploading through a bit torrent client, streaming HD video and more recently editing and rendering video from various HD sources into one HD finished edit. I often do several (or even all!) of these things simultaneously and ideally would like a power supply that will enable me to continue doing so. I don't really know which of these activities is most power intensive or even which bits of my PC they are working most intensively (CPU, GPU, PSU, memory etc.) so any info on any of that would be really useful (and interesting!).
My Basic Spec
PSU: Win Power SL-8460BTX with total output 450W (complete with broken fan)
Motherboard: ASRock G31M-GS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400
memory: 4Gb (2x2Gb) 800Hz DDR2 RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
HDD: Maxtor STM3500418AS SATA 500Gb
A Better Solution?
I'm mostly interested to hear suggestions on which new PSU to buy and any suggestions about safely installing it, as I've never built a PC before. In fact adding the GPU myself after buying it 3 years ago was the only bit internal fiddling I've done (other than cleaning). So suggestions on required wattage/brand would be very welcome, as would any suggestions on whether my GPU ought to be able to handle the rendering of basic HD video (and whether I should only do this without running other programs simultaneously).
Thanks very much for any help!
Adrian Peenball
After an over demand on my PSU when rendering some HD video (and running lots of other stuff at the same time) my PC shut itself down and smelled like electrical burning. It wouldn't power up again until the next day when it began working again without any noticeable problems apart from the fact that the fan in the PSU no longer spins and hence it overheats. When trying to push the fan round manually (by sticking a plastic pen in and pushing it round) there's a fair bit of resistance.
The make-shift solution
I've been running it fine with an external domestic fan blowing into the back of my tower and with one side of the case removed... but obviously I want to replace the PSU so it will be able to handle such power demands in the future and so I don't need to run a separate fan. I understand that it was probably the GPU that would have been drawing lots of power to do the video rendering so any thoughts on whether the GPU is not able to handle this task would also be welcome.
My PC Usage
I use the PC for various low power tasks and also do relatively intensive internet browsing (I usually have 20-30 tabs open), downloading/uploading through a bit torrent client, streaming HD video and more recently editing and rendering video from various HD sources into one HD finished edit. I often do several (or even all!) of these things simultaneously and ideally would like a power supply that will enable me to continue doing so. I don't really know which of these activities is most power intensive or even which bits of my PC they are working most intensively (CPU, GPU, PSU, memory etc.) so any info on any of that would be really useful (and interesting!).
My Basic Spec
PSU: Win Power SL-8460BTX with total output 450W (complete with broken fan)
Motherboard: ASRock G31M-GS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400
memory: 4Gb (2x2Gb) 800Hz DDR2 RAM
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
HDD: Maxtor STM3500418AS SATA 500Gb
A Better Solution?
I'm mostly interested to hear suggestions on which new PSU to buy and any suggestions about safely installing it, as I've never built a PC before. In fact adding the GPU myself after buying it 3 years ago was the only bit internal fiddling I've done (other than cleaning). So suggestions on required wattage/brand would be very welcome, as would any suggestions on whether my GPU ought to be able to handle the rendering of basic HD video (and whether I should only do this without running other programs simultaneously).
Thanks very much for any help!
Adrian Peenball
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