Buying Power Supply - Advice

My PC has been behaving oddly lately, and I suspect it may be my power supply. It is rated to meet the needs I currently have, but seeing as it is 6+years old… I fear it may be the cause of my grief. Motherboard is next suspect (possibly more likely). Even if it ain’t the cause, it would be very good to have a spare.

This is the power supply I currently use. I knew it was getting old, but figured it could keep up. I think it has quite well, but it may be time for an upgrade.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104155

I am contemplating this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817250006

Note that it has much greater efficiency so it will save more power in the long run. It should also last a long time and be capable of handling better video cards I may want. I will only do single, not SLI or Crossfire.

Edit: Adding this to the possible winners:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817250007
Promotional deal going on (lots cheaper), only 1-3% power efficiency difference, and it’s 50 watts higher.

Any other suggestions/questions?

What are your current specs?

I have a little bit of a bias towards Corsair for power supplies, especially in their higher end. A good friend built with a Corsair power supply, and it did end up frying his computer. He sent the whole computer to them, and they sent him back a new power supply, RAM, and a check for around $650. More than he paid for the computer + free RAM + a free PSU.

This is a modular one, built by one of the best OEMs in the market, Seasonic.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012

They do have some non-modular ones for a bit cheaper, but some are also of lower quality and not built by Seasonic. The TX and above series are built by Corsair, while the CX and Gaming series are built by someone else I believe.

The minimum I need is:
24 pin main
1 8 pin cpu
2 6 pin PCI-E
5 sata
2 peripherals (aka, normal 4 pin power) I have splitters if need be.

I would say 600W would do me fine for now, but I want this to last. The link you posted is Corsair as well. Seasonic? It ain’t listed as such.

I really don’t care what company makes these as long as the quality is good. Anything negative to say about my links? The second one is looking more appealing to me.

Yea, Seasonic makes power supplies under their own brand, but also they are branded as Corsair. Corsair just has a different customer support side essentially.

I haven’t ever heard of the company you linked, so I cannot really judge.

I may have changed my plans entirely. Today the PC crashed and gave me quite an ordeal.

I switched the window to a PDF file I already had open and the screen turned black and the vid card’s fan went crazy. I tried to feel under it to see if it was hot as I have done many times before. As it did so, my finger touched the fan slightly and parts went flying… Three of the blades snapped off.

Repair mode activate! I took out the card and took it apart. I’m slightly worried that the GPU’s thermal paste was broken doing so. Anyway, I super-glued the blades back on and cleaned the thing while I was at it. Good as new.

Now the real problem. The PC would not POST at all. I thought something was wrong with the GPU I just demolished, but no. Even the default motherboard vid output had nothing on screen. I then took EVERYTHING out of the case and put in just the basics. Motherboard, power supply, and RAM only. No POST, no noise (AKA error beep codes).

Thanks to removing all that other stuff, I noticed the lights on the Mobo. A ha! The error codes are done with two lights to indicate errors. It was saying Memory error (AKA, RAM). Interesting.

I tried to remove one stick and boot to no avail. I swapped the sticks with no change either. Pulled out the manual and found one stick has to be in the A2 or B2 slot to Boot. Checked and I was correctly using the A2 slot. Odd. Now I tested with B2 and BOTH sticks worked just fine. Both POSTed with no issue. Problem found! The A2 slot itself had gone dead or glitched out.

So now I am running both sticks in slots B1 and B2. The only issue is this configuration will not be “duel channel” (DC) as I wish it were. With A2 dead, I cannot use DC at all. Maybe I should try to replace the Mobo?

I only cut myself once, yay! And this happens to happen on my birthday. Good thing cause I found the issue?

TLDR version: I believe my PC issues were due to a bad RAM slot. Worked around it and should not need a new power supply after all.