Question Power Supply dying?

[Wilcal]

From my experience power supplies can cause phantom problems and i am am having some right now. I thought i was having intermittent monitor or graphics card issues(screen would blink to black for a second or 2, then it started not coming on at at start up intermittently) I was also experiencing USB mouse issues but it was rare. I tried a borrowed monitor and had no problems for a couple days. Went and got another monitor and all was good for 1 day. Fired it up this morning and it was fine for an hour. Then the usb mouse quit and the pointer got a wierd shape. Then it disappeared . Cou;dnt get it back so did a power off. After restarting and running a few minutes with multiple open windows, i got some screen flickering as i scrolled. Then the screen went to white with colored verticle lines and no mouse. The optical light was out . Power off, restart...no usb keyboard, no mouse, no hub no video. But if i plug in a usb wireless adapter to the front, back or the extra usb port card i have installed it lights.
Older Cooler Master RS 450 ACLY ATX12v. Got to be 7 yrs old or more. I looked at my board, no bulging caps, connectors all wiggled seem fine.
Does any one else suspect the PSU. 450w is over what i need now and will likely need less if i move to a GPU with lower power needs.

 

[PCMDDOCTORS]

I would suggest a new PSU

EVGA PSU $58.88 USD

Gives you some future wiggle room in case you decide to upgrade more than just a GPU later. I wouldn't go for anything cheaper as it would probably be a bad PSU.

 

[Wilcal]

So you have the same thought line as me...

 

[King_V]

Look at the first link in my sig.

1 - Cooler Master generally doesn't make good PSUs.

2 - EVGA makes some good PSUs, and some not so good. The BR is not among the good ones.

Knowing the full specs of your PC would help in verifying wattage needs.

 

[refillable]

Cooler Master Real Power... A budget PSU from 2004. How on earth did you managed to have it still working? It's probably bricking components right in front of ya.

For me get a Corsair CX at the minimum (or System Power U9 if you have an ultra budget system).

 

[Wilcal]

Mine is pretty old, I dunno, maybe they were better at one time way back when, I know looked at reviews before I bought it way back when. I have an old intel dg33fb MB with a Q9550 processor. 2 DVD rw, I sata hd, a floppy! A power meter and a hd 5750 GPU. 8 gb dual channel memory on the way and looking to replace the gpu with a gtx 1050 to 4gb or rx560 4gb both of which use less power than the current gpu with its extra power connector. I like my classic box that runs W10 and XP. XP is for my very old racing games.

 

[Karadjgne]

Actually the Evga BR is respectable, the only Bronze rated Evga that is unless you have a need for larger which would be the 750/850 B2. Any of the other Evga Bronze are small office use or OEM replacements and if the pc has a discrete gpu ID look elsewhere for a psu.

Electrolytic caps are the main failure points, but not the only one. Any of the polymers can fail, transistors, mosfets etc. There's honestly no telling with a board that old unless you have the engineering sheets with all the specs and components listed, diagnosis of which isn't worth what a replacement board costs. It could be the board, as that's where the problem is going through, the usb mouse doesn't attach directly to the psu. A failing port can cause shorts, and drive that old and almost protection less psu into fits.

Visual artifacts like black screens, white or banded screens are most common with a gpu with failing vram.

All of which can possibly be a direct result of a failing psu or a psu with such lousy voltage regulation (yep, that's what you have) that it's degraded the attached components irreparably. That can include the mobo, ram, gpu, cpu or anything else that requires power but more commonly those that require tighter voltage regulation.

At this point, there's simply no easy answer, no 'yep, for sure'. The only obvious solution is to start replacing parts based on priority. Psu being #1 as it's responsible for powering everything in a healthy manner.

But that beggars the most important question. Just how far are you willing to go to fix this. Before replacing anything decide if the gamble is worth it, or if getting a replacement pc will overall be cheaper and better. If it's just a bad psu, that's a relatively easy and somewhat cheaper fix, but if the motherboard is bunk, bad ports etc, that'll need replacing, if you can find one that old that's still going to be reliable to warrant the expense. You maybe better off getting something like a refurbished and warranteed older Dell or similar, that'll have a newer, stronger cpu, more ram etc.

 

[Wilcal]

Replaced the the PSU( Corsair450M-just wish it had the p14 connector for my power meter) and got the same result. (BTW, the cooler master i had did not resemble the pictured unit at all. I tried to open it for a look and pic, but something was holding it back). Pulled out the video card fired up and the board posted a memory error(3 beeps). Shut down and pulled out the memory putting the sticks back in 1 at a time. booted to w10 on 1gb. Put the second back in its slot...3 beeps. Removed both sticks and put stick 2 in slot 1...it fired up. Ok, im thinking bad slot, not bad stick...put stick one in slot 2 fired up! Put sticks 3 and 4 in and it is working. Windows sees all 4gb. Am not putting the vid card back in, running off the on board vid chip. Meanwhile. did the windows memory test...no issues and am running a CPU test and have been for quite a while...
This week the 4 matched 2gb sticks will be here. Hoping to get a 4gb Vid card soon. May still buy a working board for backup