Apr 1, 2019
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My PSU (~6-year-old 650W Seasonic modular, not exactly sure what model) has made noises now and again for quite some time but after upgrading my GPU (from evga 950 to zotac 1050ti) recently, it's consistently made a clicking sound which I've discovered persists when I stop the fan. It also has caused some flickering in my house now (just on my roommate's tv), and this weekend I was at a lan, and if my PC was on for more than a minute or so it would shut off the entire row (my PC as well, but only if it was plugged into the power strip). It doesn't seem to be affecting my system at all so far, besides just the clicking of the psu.
I've already looked at ordering a new psu, and plan to do so regardless, but I want to make sure the new one will be okay. The new gpu draws power from the pcie slot, and my mobo is also ~6 years old (am3+ pcie 2.0 Asus motherboard). The GPU is pcie 3.0, but I'm fairly sure they're supposed to be backwards compatible.


Is it possible that there's something wrong with my motherboard that caused the psu to start doing this upon having to supply power directly to the GPU, or was it just this psu's time to go?

Bear in mind that the psu was occasionally making similar clicking noises prior to installing the new graphics card. There's also not much else the psu has to supply power to; 650 is actually a good bit more than I need. I just have the mobo, a couple case fans, standard CPU cooler, two internal HDDs, and also an optical drive and an ssd which both have been unplugged for some time. Any input is appreciated. Also I have a cat and it's possible some hair has gotten inside the rig before.
 
I think what might be happening is some sort of short on the input to the PSU. This might explain the clicking.....as well as the flickering...as well as the power strip issue.
If the short is very brief....you may not see any effects on the output (which is why your PC seems to run OK).
I think what could happen is....it could get worse and then your PSU output might suffer and you WILL see problems with the PC.
I would replace it ASAP.