I have a body I plan on visiting next week and will be bringing my rig to borrow his PSU to see if that's it. And while the PSU is indeed old it is a quality one and one that has never been required to run at much more than 40% max load so would actually expect it to last for quite a few years. But then again 8 years is a loong time for any PC part. The main reason I don't have much of spare part round is because every time my buddy and I upgrade one of our PC's the older parts are being used in a third or fourth pc so even my old ATI 4870 was just thrown out a few months ago (fantastic card although a toaster)
Body? Well, at least he can't put up a fuss for borrowing his PSU! You are right that that was one of Corsairs better models but the 5 year warranty is long past. And 8 years is a long time, but I have a 12 year old 430W Antec still chugging along in an old system too. You just don't know. I hope it is the PSU though, because a compatible PSU will be easy to find and you don't have spend a fortune to get a get one. Older RAM or a compatible CPU can be expensive - or risky if you buy used. And a new motherboard would require new RAM, CPU and most likely a new Windows license too. So fingers crossed and please do keep us posted. Having said all that - considering you and your "buddy" do a lot of your own upgrading and such, having a spare power supply on hand may be a worthwhile investment. They are invaluable to toss in just for cases like this, but also a spare supply is great to have sitting on the bench to test fans and drive motors.
Well at least he is easy to beat in SC Haven't upgraded in a couple of years as I have been playing mostly SC2, BF3 and a few other games my current system handles with ease and the last extra PSU we had went in another system as it's PSU died. You just don't consider having these things in reserve when everything is going splendid. And in regards to Windows it might be just the perfect time to upgrade from Vista but at least it is still better than Win8. I should just go back to XP
Vista better than W8??? No way. XP was a great OS - in its day. But that day is long gone and XP needs to go away as it is a threat to others, not just the user.
