Power supply squealing at certain wattage range

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Drummer16161616

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Apr 1, 2012
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I am having a problem with my CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W power supply. At least I think it's a problem.

I have been getting weird squealing noises coming from my power supply under certain load. The sounds are not that loud, but they are definitely noticeable. It makes different pitch sounds and sounds like a faint grinding/squealing. I recently plugged in a kilawatt meter and noticed that the sounds only happens when the power supply is in the 150-179 watt usage range. It turns out that my PC idles at 140 watts and when the disk and CPU are being used together under load the sound happens. So, this tends to put the watt usage right smack dab in the middle of this range under these conditions. Otherwise, I don't really hear the noise because the usage is either above or below that range.

This has been going on for over a year and have recently begun having issues with my graphics card, so I wanted to see if this is something that is abnormal or normal. The PSU hasn't failed on me yet, but I have had some weird errors and system restarts so I wanted to see if this indicates a problem with the PSU that I should be concerned with or not. Please let me know.

Thanks for the help!
 
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Chaz21
"weird errors and system restarts" could certainly be an early indication of PSU troubles. The noise isn't normal either. Now while you didn't say how old your PSU is you've had the problem for over a year so I know its not a new PSU. It is a "good" PSU and if you are still within it's 5 year warranty I'd probably go that route. If not I'd keep my eyes open for a replacement and it would be another "good" one.
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"weird errors and system restarts" could certainly be an early indication of PSU troubles. The noise isn't normal either. Now while you didn't say how old your PSU is you've had the problem for over a year so I know its not a new PSU. It is a "good" PSU and if you are still within it's 5 year warranty I'd probably go that route. If not I'd keep my eyes open for a replacement and it would be another "good" one.
 
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It would be a good idea to leave that computer unpowered until you have a replacement psu if possible. Two of my brothers fried their mb/cpu over the last couple years by using them when the psu was making unusual noises. If you do keep using it make sure the fan on it is working and that it isn't getting unusually hot. If you see sparks or smoke inside it then you need to turn it off immediately and leave it that way until you replace it.
 
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Yea, I've always wanted to return it but assumed they wouldn't accept an RMA for it if it was still working lol. Yes, I have had the PSU since I built the PC, in Oct of 2010. That kind of scares me about it frying the CPU/mobo, but I doubt it's going to happen by the time I get a replacement.

It's funny because I have googled this problem before and people have been on both sides of the fence. Some people are like, "yea, power supplies make noise when they they are switching frequencies" and some are like, "no, that PSU is bad you need to get it changed right away."
 
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Coil whine is a manufacturing defect so what are you waiting for?
 
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New power supply completely died after 2 days. FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU. Corsair is amazing and offered me free shipping on all 3 my PSUs there and back, gave me an advanced RMA, and are extending the time before charging my card. Exceptional customer service, but I am really getting tired of tearing apart my computer and putting it back together. I will have taken out and put in my power supplies 6 times before this is done. I have the worst luck with hardware EVER. 4 bad power supplies (3 completely failed), 2 RMAed GFX card, 6 failed hard drives, 3 bad sticks of ram, 2 laptop screen failures, 1 failed mobo, 3 bad 52" TVs, and I am on my 4th xbox to top it off (and that's all I can remember from the last 5 years). Every time I go to a casino, I lose all my money without even winning more than a dollar during the process. I am CURSED! It's funny because old computers I have from 2001 and earlier never failed once even when they were full of dust.
 
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Sorry for all your trouble. The good news is that you didn't build the TVs or the xboxes or any of that other stuff that failed. Don't blame yourself for something you really have no control over. Some of us are the same as you when it comes to luck, probably most of us really.
You know reading your post, a certain Christmas song came to mind. Did it with you also? :)
 
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5 silver bells, 4 something something, 3 blah blah...and a partridge in a pear tree? 😉 Haha, I didn't think of that until now.

Well, thanks for the pep talk...lol Yea, it's really frustrating to always be RMAing something, taking apart some device, or going to my parents house and asking my dad to fix it when it's out of warranty. Maybe, I just care too much about when stuff breaks more than most people (where they just throw it away) and always vow to figure out a way to make it work lol.

To add to the fun, my power supply failing corrupted my boot sector when the PC died and failed to start up. That was just lovely having to research how to edit it with BCD so I could get my windows 7 install up at least....it never ends! :)
 
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I've never heard of capacitors making noticeable noise. I'd guess it's the coil. I would advise not even wasting the time, money, and effort in trying to debug this situation and try to fix it when you can do either

A) Replace it if it is under the warranty for free
B) If it is out of warranty, purchase a new power supply since they are so cheap, and if it's that old (I think the warranty is 3 or 5 years, I forget), you might as well get a new one anyways.
 
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