Electrical PC Issues

[EarlyDawn]

Hey guys. Losing my mind on this. When I was on PSU back in the original Planetside days, I seem to remember a couple people were in the professional PC / IT industry, so here we go.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a buzzing coming from my 750 Watt power supply. I didn't think much of it, so, I assumed it to be an issue of RFI/EMI on the line, and bought a power strip with noise suppression.

My issues are now worse. The power supply buzzes loudly when the video card (nVidia GTX 570) is under significant load. I assumed it to be a bad PSU, and filed an RMA with Corsair, my manufacturer. That power supply is now on the way to me.

Unfortunately, I now notice that my girlfriend's power supply off of the same outlet is also buzzing aggressively while under load. I live in an extremely old house, and have had suspicions of my outlets not putting out a consistent 60Hz. A frequency instability, according to the interweb, would be consistent with my issues.

So accordingly, my questions are thus:


Should I be looking into a line conditioner / UPS with line conditioning?
If I need a UPS, would a line-interactive UPS be sufficient, or do I need an Online / Double-Conversion unit?


Thanks!

[Traak]

Yeah, a high-quality, high-dollar UPS that puts out pure sine-wave output would handle it for you. However, if the power is bad enough, you might have it clicking off of the mains and onto its battery far too often.

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SMT2200&ISOCountryCode=us&segmentID=1&tsk=

Might be better served running a ten-gauge extension cord from a receptacle right by the main breaker panel, depending on what kind of dump you live in.

Get an electrician who you can trust to look at it.

Or get a card for you computer with some probes to examine the output of your receptacles.

Main problem seems to be inadequate voltage, high resistance. Hard to tell from here.

Stick a voltage meter into the socket while it is in use. See what the voltage reads.