My PSU makes a loud chirping noise

**The Dude** · November 05, 2012, 05:54 AM

So I've done some research and it appears that this sound has to do with something called "rippling", wherein power isn't being correctly transformed and where it arcs physically within my PSU. Or something to that extent.

Either way it's a very loud and crispy sound, as if something's being fried, and it sounds particularly loud during gaming and when a lot of shadows have to be rendered. So I guess my graphics card demands more power of the PSU and it can't handle it.

Despite all this though, and despite the fact that it sounds godawful, my PC still runs. But how dangerous is this? Should I replace my PSU? I'm very low on funds atm but I worry that if I don't get a replacement now I'll end up with a bunch of fried components that will cost far more to replace.

**Totalheadache** · November 05, 2012, 09:25 AM

we need to know your setup, most importantly cpu (whether oc'd or not), gpu and psu make+wattage.

cant help you otherwise...i'd stop using the pc (at least for games as this will raise your power usuage up considerably) until we can tell you if it's borderline or not.

**The Dude** · November 05, 2012, 01:29 PM

Well it no longer matters. I went and bought a new PSU and solved the problem. For the record, I've a very run of the mill system. Dual Core AMD at 2.8 ghz, Geforce GTX285 and a few gigs of DDR2 RAM. Nothing a year old 500w PSU shouldn't be able to handle. It was just broken.

**Crazyeyesreaper** · November 05, 2012, 02:41 PM

uh depends on the PSU and your cpu

285 was a power hungry GPU 250w cpu depending on age 125w thats 375 out of 500 most 500w PSUs can only handle 12v load of around 450

add in a case fan motherboard power ram hdd your new PSU is also cutting it close.

now if your running a newer Amd dualcore thats of the 95w varieties that helps a bit gives you more room to breathe but depends on the brand of the 500w you got

a barebones system with a 285 will generally draw 300-350w fairly easily
As you can see below not all 500w are created equal notice its labeled as a 500w unit but it only puts out 408w on the 12v rails, your system will use 300-350 if you have extra HDDs, optical, or add on cards extra fans etc that power draw goes up, simply put adding just a second HDD can add 5-25w which pushes the 300-350 number to 305-375 which as you can guess is cutting it damn close. If it runs id run it but im willing to blow stuff up. you on the other hand may not. its luck of the draw really. but TYPICAL game usage will see you hitting close to 350w, now if your system ever gets HEAVILY stressed as you can guess that power figure is going to rise much further.