How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise inside my
computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors. It
also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good psu.

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:13:20 -0600, "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)>
spewed the following drivel:

<How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise
inside my
<computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors.
It
<also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good
psu.
Do you have a model number and brand? Usually the power supplies in
this price range are ok, not always. When you buy a case and power
supply for $25-30 bucks is when the problems occur, but not always.
Noise in your audio can come from a wide variety of things: PSU, power
input, faulty fans, shitty hard drives or cheap onboard sound devices.
If you have a pci sound card that you can beg, borrow or steal,
install it and see if there is still that snap crackle pop through
your speakers.
-nos1eep

-Scaling up the heights of folly.
-non est ponenda pluritas sine necessitate

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:13:20 -0600, "Toxic Boy"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise inside my
>computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors. It
>also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good psu.
>

Well since anyone can just jack up the price of a generic
PSU, especially one with pretty fans and a colored casing,
it doesn't tell us much to mention only "$50".

Make and model of power supply are fairly important bits of
info, far moreso than the *claimed* wattage on it's label as
that too can vary wildly from reality.

Audio noise can come from many places. PSU can contribute,
but ideally (and not uncommonly) the motherboard has a
linear regulation stage prior to the codec chip meant to
clean up any noise, and often it does fair enough at this.

The audio subcircuits could be designed cheaply and omit
this regulation or cut corners for cost or real-estate
reasons to foregoe other filtering or have layout problems.
I assume you are referring to analog, not digital audio
output?

You might go into your windows (or sound card
driver-installed) mixer and try muting, unmuting, and slowly
dragging the volume sliders on all items while unmuted.
There can be some curious and puzzling interactions with
some of these- for example I've seen a board where the MIC
needed UNmuted, bass boost turned off, and the slider set to
approx 1/3 of the way up, with no mic connected, to get rid
of a loud buzzing sound.

If the sound is not continuous, occurs alongside activity of
other PCI devices, you could have another card hogging the
PCI bus, or a poor driver or latency setting. It would be
little use to drift down each of these tangents without a
better idea of exactly what and when this sound occurs, AND
when it does not. For example if it did in game but not
playing wav files in media player from a hard drive.

Onboard audio is comonly more succeptible to analog noise
than most (except maybe very cheap) PCI sound cards. If
nothing else helps then consider getting a (or different)
sound card.

Generally speaking, no, your power supply alone cannot be
blamed for audio noise, even if it was a really bad PSU that
was very noisey itself, your audio circuits should be able
to filter and provide clean output- they are not meant to
run well straight off a switching power supply except for a
rare few amp cards that are very rare, like those with
Class-D amp chips on them. If you had one, you'd probably
know it as that would be a primary feature/spec of it.

Toxic Boy wrote:

> How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise inside my
> computer?

The only easy way I know of is try a different brand high-quality PSU,
but I don't think yours is causing noise because all PSUs have decent
filters on their outputs, and all but the worst PSUs have adequate AC
line filters. The CPU, cards, and all the other high-frequency stuff
is much more likely to be the problem.

Here's a bad Deer PSU with no EMI filter:
http://static.flickr.com/40/75102690_866245eb28_b.jpg
I stole that photo from someone (I can't remember who) and outlined in
red the area where the capacitors and coils for the filter would
normally go.

Here's a typical EMI filter in a PSU:
http://static.flickr.com/39/75122222_2b903f1eef_o.jpg
You can see the capacitors (small blue and boxy yellow things) and
coils. Sometimes those components are housed inside a metal can built
into the AC receptacle, like one of these:

www.cor.com/Series/IEC/EEAEEB

Some PSUs, like Antecs, instead have a small circuit board soldered to
the AC receptacle, and in addition to the receptacle filter there may
be a second filter on the main circuit board.

I've found that it doesn't seem to take much of a filter to greatly
reduce audible noise because whenever I've added a metal canned filter
to a cheapo PSU, almost all the AM radio noise disappeared.

For that power rating, it is considered a cheap PSU. It will NOT put out
it's rated power into a real world load when the computer is at operating
temperature. That's why people spend more for the quality PSU's like Antec.

--
DaveW

----------------
"Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:JEopf.7784$(E-Mail Removed)...
> How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise inside
> my
> computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors. It
> also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good psu.
>
>

But don't know what I am putting power to or how many devices I am putting
power to. And even if the load falls below 420 at higher temps of the comp,
they can be that much lower can they?


"DaveW" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> For that power rating, it is considered a cheap PSU. It will NOT put out
> it's rated power into a real world load when the computer is at operating
> temperature. That's why people spend more for the quality PSU's like
> Antec.
>
> --
> DaveW
>
> ----------------
> "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:JEopf.7784$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise inside
>> my
>> computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors. It
>> also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good psu.
>>
>>
>
>

forget the price...i bought a 90$ fortran for 10 bucks once....

what is the brand? serial number?/ anything other than 420 watts...


"Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
newsyLpf.13122$(E-Mail Removed)...
> But don't know what I am putting power to or how many devices I am putting
> power to. And even if the load falls below 420 at higher temps of the
comp,
> they can be that much lower can they?
>
>
> "DaveW" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > For that power rating, it is considered a cheap PSU. It will NOT put
out
> > it's rated power into a real world load when the computer is at
operating
> > temperature. That's why people spend more for the quality PSU's like
> > Antec.
> >
> > --
> > DaveW
> >
> > ----------------
> > "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> > news:JEopf.7784$(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise
inside
> >> my
> >> computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors.
It
> >> also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good
psu.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>

If the sticker was still on the side, I would not have to be asking about
the psu on this NG. If I knew the model, though, I would have already posted
it.

"JAD" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
messagnews:9mMpf.4221$(E-Mail Removed)...
> forget the price...i bought a 90$ fortran for 10 bucks once....
>
> what is the brand? serial number?/ anything other than 420 watts...
>
>
> "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> newsyLpf.13122$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> But don't know what I am putting power to or how many devices I am
>> putting
>> power to. And even if the load falls below 420 at higher temps of the
> comp,
>> they can be that much lower can they?
>>
>>
>> "DaveW" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> > For that power rating, it is considered a cheap PSU. It will NOT put
> out
>> > it's rated power into a real world load when the computer is at
> operating
>> > temperature. That's why people spend more for the quality PSU's like
>> > Antec.
>> >
>> > --
>> > DaveW
>> >
>> > ----------------
>> > "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> > news:JEopf.7784$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> >> How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise
> inside
>> >> my
>> >> computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex connectors.
> It
>> >> also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good
> psu.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>

Toxic Boy wrote:

> If the sticker was still on the side, I would not have to be asking about
> the psu on this NG. If I knew the model, though, I would have already posted
> it.

Because it's rated 420W and cost $50, I'm fairly certain that it's a
Thermaltake, meaning it was made by Sirtec. But it may instead be a
Raidmax, and that's not necessarily bad any more because they now get
their PSUs from Topower, at least their models, and also the ones
Raidmax gets are the better Topowers .

"Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:rCMpf.8870$(E-Mail Removed)...
> If the sticker was still on the side, I would not have to be asking about
> the psu on this NG. If I knew the model, though, I would have already
posted
> it.

Then there is NO WAy of giving you any good advice
Take a picture of the insides


>
> "JAD" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> messagnews:9mMpf.4221$(E-Mail Removed)...
> > forget the price...i bought a 90$ fortran for 10 bucks once....
> >
> > what is the brand? serial number?/ anything other than 420 watts...
> >
> >
> > "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> > newsyLpf.13122$(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> But don't know what I am putting power to or how many devices I am
> >> putting
> >> power to. And even if the load falls below 420 at higher temps of the
> > comp,
> >> they can be that much lower can they?
> >>
> >>
> >> "DaveW" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> >> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> > For that power rating, it is considered a cheap PSU. It will NOT put
> > out
> >> > it's rated power into a real world load when the computer is at
> > operating
> >> > temperature. That's why people spend more for the quality PSU's like
> >> > Antec.
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > DaveW
> >> >
> >> > ----------------
> >> > "Toxic Boy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> >> > news:JEopf.7784$(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> >> How will I know or how can I tell if my psu is causing audio noise
> > inside
> >> >> my
> >> >> computer? I paid $50 for my psu and it has 5 female molex
connectors.
> > It
> >> >> also has a 3 setting fan control. I would think that this is a good
> > psu.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>