Malfunctionning Psu

[Le_Murphant]

I was watching a video on my desktop today (so nothing that stressed the PSU) when the power to the computer went off (but not the power to anything else in the room). I thought maybe it was a short current interruption, so I just rebooted, but while it booted fine, I started hearing crackling noises from my computer. After a few minutes, it shut down again, and this time when I opened my case there was a short-circuit smell (although no smoke). I turned the computer off and am not using it anymore until it is fixed, but I was wondering if that could be anything else than the PSU before I go ahead and get it RMA'd.

My current (seemingly malfunctionning) PSU is a Seasonic 650W that's about 4 years old. It's supposed to be a good quality and I always kept it well ventilated so I'm surprised that it would fail so soon, but I guess it's possible.

[xs1]

Well its really hard to tell what it could have been by saying its "crackling" and "burning". Could have been a number of things to be honest. Could have been a cooling fan.. the GPU.. etc. One thing malfunctions it will shut down the box. I would be leaning twards the PSU too if you didn't pinpoint the crackling first..

[TriRan]

yeah if it's a clicking sound rather then a crackling its a HDD i would first swap the PSU out then start looking at fans and making sure they are all turning a fan that is seized up and trying to run could also start to make a smell like that aswell not sure about the crackling though