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hello ive had this system built in 2014 and it was running very stable, no issues at all with 850 psu and gtx 980. my psu has been hissing from time to time since pretty much i bought it - mainly during gameplay (especially while loading or in the menus) - i pay attention to it because my system never crashed

i bought gtx 1080 yesterday, did full reinstall of win7 64bit. so today i installed battlefield 1 and dirt 4 and some 3d benchmarks (unigine and 3dmark11) and here's what happens.

hissing continues, battlefield 1 crashed after less than a minute of gample - as if you pulled the plug.
dirt 4 no issues with gameplay, just psu hissing.
3dmark11 on issues (btw it on maxed out settings at 4k res still makes 1080 sweat) - psu hissing
unigine valley and heaven -lots of hissing and, again, system crashed - shut down without warning.

i have no other set up to test the newly bought video card but due to long history of psu hissing i am thinking it's time to upgrade it?? any thoughts?? thanks.

Hissing alone is not necessarily a symptom of a failing switching regulator; it's typically just a sign of sloppy QA on the mechanical construction of the inductors (which is generally harmless from an electrical standpoint, but the noise can eventually drive you nuts).

The random shutdowns does sound like a PSU issue though. And if they used noisy inductors, the quality of the other parts is suspect as well.

Just out of curiosity, what brand of PSU?

Could also be the motherboard though...

all these shutdowns happened within 1hr. psu is a crosair (i dont remember the model) 850w. mobo is asus x99-a

Start from scratch. Pull every PSU connection to everything and make sure they're properly reseated, as in listen for the click and pull up against it to verify the click. Test again. Essentially, rebuild the box from scratch (no need to remove the HSF though, saves many steps).

If that doesn't produce a change in results, go to a minimal build with no OC. CPU, 1 stick of RAM, and no GFX card. If it POSTs to the monitor, listen for the hiss. Then add, in order, with a test each time:

OS HD (if you have a way of cloning it before this test, do so)
Remaining RAM
Other HDs
GFX Card
Any other cards yanked in step Zero.

You don't say if you OC, but if you do, don't try to reestablish until the box runs 100% at stock speeds.

no oc. and the psu is CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 purchased in oct 2014. i will try to do follow your instructions. thank you.

also, psu odoes not have 8 pin connectors only has 6pin+2 . could this affect the performance and cause random shut downs??

just tried playing dirt4 and it died again after about 2 mins of gameplay.

OK, is the 6+2 plugged into the GFX card or the mobo?

into gfx - 1080 needs 2x8pin but my psu has 2x6+2. i am wondering that this may be limiting power

the same thing keeps happening after i rebuilt the system. system is stable until gameplay starts computer simply restarts right after i change settings in BF1 to ultra preset, dirt 4 - i am able to play for a little and it restarts at random times. any 3d benchmarks the same as D4.

Well, you're just going to have to start eliminating things one by one then. Hopefully you have someone you can borrow parts from and/or test your components, to narrow down what's failing.

In order of decreasing likelihood I'd say it is PSU, motherboard, GPU, RAM.

One other thought... low line voltage, or a power cord which is starting to fail and is developing high resistance could be the culprit. This could even explain the PSU whining -- low voltage will cause the PSU to draw more current in order to supply the requested amount of power (since power = voltage x current). More current will definitely stress the high (line) side PSU circuitry. Try running it from an electrical outlet on a different circuit, and feel the power cord all along its length to see if it is getting warm. Even though I'd say the odds of this being the problem are low, it is at least something you can check without having access to any spare parts.