Symptoms of power supply going bad.....

Longbow1 · November 11

So i have being having a issue for a while now. During games about 15-20 mins into gameplay, the pc will just power cycle. There is a audible "switching sound". after 3 little click noises, the pc powers back on and works fine. I was thinking it was CPU. Pulled off cpu and cooler to find the paste was rock hard and dry. cleaned everything and re applied paste and put cooler back together. Get back into game (world of warships so its not a heavy load at all), and the same thing happens. The PSU is 10 years old. hx750. running a 12600k and a gtx1080ti since i run older games anyways. Just trying to connect the dots. I guess the only way to tell would be to test with another PSU?

Thanks

Eigenvektor · November 11

Audible clicking is usually a relay, which might serve as over-current protection. When a PSU gets older, the maximum wattage it can provide can go down.

Longbow1 · November 11

oh really?? I did not know this. The guts just wear out from being on too long? So it might not be pumping out 750 watts anymore?

Thanks

Eigenvektor · November 11

4 minutes ago, Longbow1 said:

So it might not be pumping out 750 watts anymore?

Just to be clear, PSUs don't push power, they make power available. And yes, as a PSU gets older, the amount of power it can provide goes down. So if components try to draw close to its maximum, or if there are transient power spikes, it may no longer be able to deal with that.