Signs of faulty PSU?

[Aggressio]

Could somebody write down telltale symptoms for PSU struggling with too heavy load? If any? Or how to see if the PSU isn't quite enough for the system? or if it's enough. Symptoms besides the obvious crashing...

 

[Nodsu]

Look at the voltages reported by BIOS or some system health utility. They should all be within 5% of the nominal value (that's 11.4-12.6, 4.75-5.25, 3.14-3.47)

Put a CD in all your optical drives, power off. Turn the computer on again and see if it can manage to spin up all the hard drives plus the CDs.

 

[N3051M]

you can download some utility sensor programs like everest for example to give a reading of its voltage output, and average it out with another for reference...

use some psu calculators (google for em) to determine what you have running on your system, and adding some more watts for any high end components (eg dual/high quality vid cards, powered components)

if its a reliable brand psu, you will be rested assured that you have at least close to 90% efficiency and a lot of years of life (provided you took care of your pc), however no name brands/alcheapos you'd generaly have about 70%+- efficiency and not much years (sometimes months) of life..

so see your psu's max/peak output and times it by the efficiency rating eg:
440w x 70% = 308 actual watts output..

edit.. argh.. accursed dailup and slow typing.. seems like nodsu beet me to the punch :unch: