Insanely loud POP noise

Alright, here's another issue. Something that's only happened 3 times that I can remember, all in the last 8 months or so. On 3 separate occasions I've heard this incredibly loud POP noise from inside my computer. Metallic, like a BB hitting the aluminum siding of my case. There's absolutely no physical damage that I can find, and there hasn't been any noticable change in performance at all. I thought that perhaps it might be my PSU, but I swear the sound is coming from more toward the front of my computer and not the rear.

There are other indications that my PSU could be going south, though. The computer is starting to chug a lot, and I recently had a very strange non-boot issue that I chronicled in another thread on the board. I'm thinking that could be a manifestation of PSU problems considering I have a 7800 GTX and OC'd RAM and CPU... Not heavily OC'd, but enough to increase power draw a little. My PSU is a 600w TruePower II and doesn't have any other indications of issues.

Any ideas?

"No performance issues at all" to " the computer is starting to chug a lot" and a "non boot issue".

That 600W TruPower should be just fine. So you dont have any bloated caps on any of the boards (including the PSU)? o/c the ram isnt going to increase the power draw much if it all.

Check your voltages and see if any of the lines are sagging, preferably with a Digital Multimeter, but if you absolutely have to, sofware will have to do.

No black smoke[yet]?

Caligula420 said:

"No performance issues at all" to " the computer is starting to chug a lot" and a "non boot issue".

Click to expand...

yea i am with him on this, the OP need to pick one because the computer cant be all of the above.

consider this, the loud noise is inside your computer, and enclosed box. its not going to be easy to tell where the noise is comming from when your outside the box and its as loud as you say it is.

my bet is that its your power supply or somethings getting into your fans. if somethings is getting into the fans and is hitting the inside of the case then it would be easier to tell where its comming from but if theres a precussion type of pop well then good luck

Hmm... All signs pointing towards the PSU...

Why not... REPLACE THE PSU?

I know it's a stretch... but...

I recently bought a Corsair 650TX just to see if my PSU was bad... it wasn't (and I returned the TX)... but it was worth the peace of mind.

I didn't say there weren't any performance issues. I said there wasn't any CHANGE in performance issues. The system chugging and the isolated boot incident COULD be related to PSU problems, but they haven't coincided with the pop noise. Again, there have been 3 pops with no Change in performance before or after... Just the loud startling noise.

No smoke. No swollen or bloated caps, either. There are enough issues with my O/S right now that I'm pretty sure the chugging has to do with that. The other side of all this is that I've recently been able to run some pretty graphically intensive games without any apparent power shortage problems. No hangs, freezes, crashes, etc. I'm running a 7800 GTX that, while old, still takes some power to run at full blast.

Really I just want to track down some possible sources of this popping sound. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

To get a better idea of where the sound is coming from, why not open up the side case?

By the sounds of it, it's a rather rare occurence and opening the case wouldn't really make a difference.

I agree with Niku, if it's not your power supply then its most likely something hitting one of your fans.