Hard ShutdownsFollow

I'm no hardware expert, so I figure I should see what you guys think.

The last few days, I've been getting hard shutdowns. I'll be playing FFXI when suddenly *BAM*, my PC just goes dead, followed by a hint of that unmistakable electric burning smell. The only thing left running is the PSU fan. It only happens when I'm running multiple instances of FFXI (I often dualbox or tribox), as that's the only game I really play on PC.

My hardware diagnostic skills are nil, but it seems to me that the signs are pointing towards a faulty PSU. I was informed that a power-down with the PSU fan still running is a decent indicator of a bad PSU. Since it only happens when I'm multi-boxing, I'm thinking that maybe it can't keep up with pushing that much juice through the PCI to the vidcard (if that makes any sense).

I've gone ahead and ordered a popular Corsair PSU from Newegg, but thought I would get some more input before installing. Thanks!

Edit: Words cannot express my man-lust for Newegg. I ordered the PSU 2 hours ago, and I've already gotten shipping confirmation.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2011 6:37pm by Chewzer

The old PSU is 680W. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that it's a no-name, cheap POS that I was forced to get when I upgraded my vidcard about 2 years ago. I discovered that my old PSU didn't have any PCI connections and this was the only one that was in stock at the only computer store in town open at 9 PM. The new PSU I ordered is this Corsair 650W, which is about the most popular PSU on Newegg. My vidcard is a Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+, which lists a minimum requirement of 450W.

I really hope that it's a PSU issue and not a motherboard capacitor. My motherboard fried about 6 months ago, at which point I upgraded to my current Phenom quad-core setup.

I feel pretty confident in my surge protection. I have a fairly expensive Belkin which I purchased about 6 months ago when upgrading my motherboard and processor.