# my power supply whistles.



## mickeycooley.ie (Jan 29, 2010)

this is an old tester power supply. I have it outside of a case. plugged in to mobo and it whistles. is she dead? or do the old atx need to have a strong earth (ie be inside the case?) 

insight is welcome. cheers


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## Cams (Jan 29, 2010)

Sounds like the fan is having a freak attack or mabe just a high frequency vibration that mimics a whistle. Could you pull off a video clip or sound clip?

Edit: BTW nice DL speeds. What the hell happened to the upload speed?


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## mickeycooley.ie (Jan 29, 2010)

edit.

the fan isn't even spinning. sounds like the transformer coil is making the noise. hmmmm.....

thanks for the DL comment, but i thought 3 MB up WAS the more impressive spec of the two


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## Cams (Jan 29, 2010)

Well if you unplug the fan and still hear the noise I would never use it again. Better yet hook it up to an extension cord outside on some concrete and see how long it goes.

Edit: What part of Ireland are you from. I went there when I was younger and saw Dublin and the Aran Islands as well as some other stuff.


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## Manauffeuer (Jan 29, 2010)

so sounds like u need to either replace the fan or get a new power box depending on how you feel about opening up your psu and changing the fan...plus if the fan isn't spining that can lead to overheating problems in the psu


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## Manauffeuer (Jan 29, 2010)

sounds like you need to replace the fan depending on how you feel about opening your psu to do that....also no fan can lead to overheating problems on your psu


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## Cams (Jan 29, 2010)

^^haha he said "box" sorry mods I cant help it I have a serious issue with my mouth (or fingers depending on how you look at it)^^

Edit: And he double posted... Sort of.


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## mickeycooley.ie (Jan 29, 2010)

great stuff. thats what i figured. i'll pull the fan out and post results.


i am in sligo, which is northwest. I have been on the arans. Lots of stone walls and sheep


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## Cams (Jan 29, 2010)

Mine is at the bottom of page 84. I wish I had your DL speeds. And yes there are a ton of sheep and stone walls. And somewhere out there we found a nasty jump with our rental car. That was freakin great.


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## just a noob (Jan 30, 2010)

it's capacitor whine, it's just annoying


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## mickeycooley.ie (Jan 31, 2010)

i didn't mention that is is an old DELL ATX power supply because i figured the brand wasn't a big deal.......EXCEPT.....now i find out that Dell used a different pinout configuration than the standard ATX,. pin 1 is 5 V+ not 3.3v+ etc. 

I don't think they should have never done been allowed to do this or at least never been allowed to key the molex connections exactly the same as the industry standard ATX. now i am not sure if the MOBO got damaged from the missalignment of voltages and grounds/earths. |I am very glad this was just an experiment anyway.

article about PSU a la dell
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=339053

cheers.


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## ScottALot (Jan 31, 2010)

Someone may be able to diagnose it if you could tell us what song your PSU is whistling? My CPU has broken out into song before, and each of the cores was whistling the Whistle While You Work song.


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## PohTayToez (Jan 31, 2010)

mickeycooley.ie said:


> i didn't mention that is is an old DELL ATX power supply because i figured the brand wasn't a big deal.......EXCEPT.....now i find out that Dell used a different pinout configuration than the standard ATX,. pin 1 is 5 V+ not 3.3v+ etc.
> 
> I don't think they should have never done been allowed to do this or at least never been allowed to key the molex connections exactly the same as the industry standard ATX. now i am not sure if the MOBO got damaged from the missalignment of voltages and grounds/earths. |I am very glad this was just an experiment anyway.
> 
> ...



You'll notice that article is quite old.  Dell used to do this, and when they did the connectors _were_ different than your standard ATX 20pin connectors, so you couldn't accidentally plug it into a motherboard and fry it due to wrong voltages.  I think that all of Dell's computers have standard power connectors in them these days.

EDIT:  Just read through the article, and the guy says that they have the same connectors, which I really don't believe is correct.  I've replaced a few power supplies in older Dells, and they had difference connectors.  They looked the same at first, but some of pins that are normally rounded were square and vice-versa, so you couldn't plug one into the other.


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## mickeycooley.ie (Jan 31, 2010)

the power supply i have is made by foxconn for dell. I tested the voltages with my handy multimeter for the fun of it. I am getting regulated 5V DC+ out of pin 1. Another atx (non-dell) That i have right beside it is showing 3.4VDC+ unloaded from pin 1. The 20 pin molex connectors are Identically keyed. Some connections square, some round etc. the wires are truly in different positions on these two power supplies. They however ARE interchangeable as top mobo connection. Granted the power supply in question is 10 years old, I am sure no one still manufactures PSU with such a non-industry standard method. Just warning anyone who might be frankensteining and old machine like I am. The old PSU came out of a Dell XPS t500 if anyone wants to research it for themselves. 

Edit: it only whistles when it was plugged in to the non-dell mobo. when I was running it unloaded solo, it is quiet and the fan works.

cheers.


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## Okedokey (Feb 4, 2010)

capacitor whine.  replace


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## bomberboysk (Feb 4, 2010)

mickeycooley.ie said:


> this is an old tester power supply. I have it outside of a case. plugged in to mobo and it whistles. is she dead? or do the old atx need to have a strong earth (ie be inside the case?)
> 
> insight is welcome. cheers



Probably just coil whine, which is harmless.


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## TFT (Feb 5, 2010)

> it's capacitor whine, it's just annoying





> capacitor whine. replace





> Probably just coil whine, which is harmless



Umhhh


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## StrangleHold (Feb 5, 2010)

TFT said:


> Umhhh




If its a capacitor it needs to be replaced.

If its a coil, you can either live with it, send it back ( if possible). Heard you can fix it by covering them with Coil lacquer/ Hot glue or even Superglue


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## bomberboysk (Feb 6, 2010)

StrangleHold said:


> If its a capacitor it needs to be replaced.
> 
> If its a coil, you can either live with it, send it back ( if possible). Heard you can fix it by covering them with Coil lacquer/ Hot glue or even Superglue



Yeah, some RTV usually stops the resonance of the coil and therefore stops the whine. However that "fix" generally voids the warranty.


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## jpdaballa (Feb 6, 2010)

Is this a common problem, my cousin had to replace his capacitor as well


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## Okedokey (Feb 13, 2010)

Just bin it and get a new quality unit.


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