Re: power supply going bad ???

[dxpaap]

Not sure if this is the right forum, some time (not all the time), but becoming more frequent I'm hearing this slow buzzing/humming noise coming from my case at powerup. It starts off slow like its trying to get going (making a fairly loud sound), then speeds up and gets quite.

At first guess, I figure the case fan was going bad, but the actual boot process seems to take longer in proportion to the length of the sound.

Here's the QUESTION: when power supplies go bad, do they just die ! or can they degrade slowly, supplying lower power to the system until they finally stop ?

Is there any way to tell beside swapping out fans and PS until the problem goes away.


thanks for any speculation

PS - this WIN98 system is really becoming unstable (locking up etc) - but I figure since it hasn't been reinstall in over two years - it just needs fresh install (w/ W2K this time).

 

[Bobbyeyes]

i just had a unique problem(for me anyway) w/ a power supply and a system i built about 1.5 yrs ago
p3 1 gig on an asus cubx.(naturally oc'd )
at boot up i would get the 'cpu siren sound'
tried swapping mobos, cpu, vid card mem - same pblm.
because the light on the mobo was lit, and hd,cds were all activated-who thought it was the PS.
i put my finger on the cpu(no sink) and found it was ice cold-yet all other voltage rails were working.
it was obviously the rail feeding the cpu that went bad.
so yes one rail of your ps can go bad and give you head aches.