Sound of a dead power supply?

[JMR]

This morning I turned on the PC and heard a hiss coming from the power supply and of course the PC didn't power up. I shut off the power supply, waited a bit, turned it back on and heard the same hiss again but this time the alarm on my APC battery backup/surge protector sounded.

So, with that said it's obvious the power supply took a crap but, my PC components should be OK, right? If so, I was going to head out to Fry's this morning and pick up a new one. Any suggestions on what to get?

My old power supply is a 700w OCZ GameXstream unit that's 2 years old.

[Sidd_Budd]

So, with that said it's obvious the power supply took a crap but, my PC components should be OK, right? If so, I was going to head out to Fry's this morning and pick up a new one. Any suggestions on what to get?

My old power supply is a 700w OCZ GameXstream unit that's 2 years old.

In my experience with building PCs, a power supply that craps out doesn't normally affect any other components.

No suggestions as to a brand, but one general impression from reading Qt3 "Build Me A Computer" posts over the years is that posters tend to buy more powerful PSUs than their system really needs.

[Qenan]

Yes, but it's insurance -- not just against failure, but against the seemingly endless increase in power required by video cards.

[JMR]

I posted at OCZs tech forums and I'm sure they'll just give me an RMA number. I'll just pick up something decent at Fry's to hold me over until I get a replacement.

EDIT: Well I'll be damned. Went and bought and installed a new PS, try to fire it up and got nothing. Starting to panic, I tried another socket on my APC unit and voila! It fired up just fine. It turns out that the whole right hand column of sockets on the APC unit are toast.