Could this be a PSU Fault?

Daston · 5 Oct 2015 at 09:33

Hey guys,

It feels like I must have a secret hobby of smashing mirrors at the moment as nothing appears to be going my way!

The last few weeks I have noticed my PSU fan going to full speed and then dropping off to nearly zero, it repeats this cycle every couple of minuets.

Temps inside the case are OK, the cpu is running at 78c and the GPU isn't going over 75c, the PSU fan is nice and clean as is the exhaust port on the back.

Last night it was doing the same but would crash any game, black screen and then reboot. The event log only records a Kernal Power error.

The PSU is just under 3 years old and is a OCZ ZT 1250W

Time to RMA the PSU?

pastymuncher · 5 Oct 2015 at 14:03

It certainly could be a psu issue. Does the air coming out the back of the psu feel overly warm. The problem you have is that OCZ went bust and then sold the psu side off to Firepower Technology. Supposedly they have taken over the warranties on psu's but they are based in the USA so it would be expensive to ship to there. See here.

Daston · 5 Oct 2015 at 14:21

Yeah it is chucking out a fair amount of heat.

Postage dosnt bother me too much as it'll still be cheaper than spending £200 odd on a new one... Of course that's if they will honour it.

pastymuncher · 5 Oct 2015 at 18:59

It could be the fan or fan controller that's faulty then.

You don't need to pay anywhere near £200 for a new high quality psu. By the description of your temps you only have a single gpu which, unless it's a dual gpu card such as a 7990, could easily be powered by a 550-650w psu costing £65-75. If that is the case then I would rather buy a new psu than spend a fortune shipping to the USA.

Daston · 6 Oct 2015 at 08:29

I did think that myself, I originally got the 1250 as I was planning on running more GPUs but never got round to it.

Would 750W be enough for SLI (just a bit of future proofing)

pastymuncher · 6 Oct 2015 at 11:31

Sli what though? You didn't actually say which gpu you have. If it's sli GTX980 or under then yes, 750w is more than enough. If it's sli 980ti then ideally I would be looking at 850w+.

Take a look at the EVGA Supernova G2 range. They are Superflower built (basically the Leadex Gold with a different fan and no leds), fully modular, gold rated units with a whopping 10 year warranty.

Daston · 6 Oct 2015 at 12:03

Ah yes forgot to say lol. Got a 780gtx at the moment and plan on swapping that to a 980gtx next year.

EVGA sounds great will take a look

pastymuncher · 6 Oct 2015 at 13:48

With my GTX780 the highest I have ever seen is 452w at the wall and that was only because I ren Furmark and IBT both at the same time. Most of the time when gaming it's anything from 122-365w depending on the game. Anno 2070 makes it pull 422w for some reason but that's the exception.

The GTX900 series are incredibly efficient cards and total system power consumption with a single GTX980 is only around 290-330w.