PSU is dieing... need ideas

[SFT]

Okay well I bought my Sonata II back in december because I figured Antec was a solid company and it would last for a while. Well basically, now whenever the PSU switch is turned on, with the computer not yet booted, there is this squealing noise that just does not end. Then once I turn it on, all kinds of ungodly noises come out of the thing, until about two minutes go by, everything warms up, and the thing is near silent except for rare occurences when at high load it seems to almost pulse with a higher pitch noise.

Now, I do not really want to risk losing my hardware if something goes wrong with this piece, so I am trying to decide what to do at this point. I guess I have two choices...

A) Buy a new power supply (and case while I'm at it)

B) RMA both the case and PSU back to Antec (this option is stupid, I hate the fact that I bought a bundled PSU/case, shipping would be near what I paid for the **** thing) for a chance that they replace it

I was wondering if anyone had any insight as far as what the problem could be. Someone suggested that the power supply could be too weak for the system and the strain on it has just been killing it over time.

Specs.

AMD 3200+ (was running at 2.6, dropped it to 2.0 after the squealing started)
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
7600 GT
2x512mb sticks of Patriot
2x SATA drives

PSU: Antec Smartpower 2.0 450W

Okay so do I count my losses of $50 and just buy a new case and PSU? If so can anyone suggest a good case and PSU on a budget of ~$120-130.

Thank you.

 

[eleclipper]

if you want a good PSU you'll probably spend na $100 bucks on that alone, i wouldn't buy it bundeled again, spo you'll probably end up with a crappy case

 

[SFT]

I was looking at:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=370779

And just keeping the Sonata II case. It isn't the BEST case, but it works.

 

[Spartan]

for that money, get this instead:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=316506

Its $129.99 before a $25 MIR, and OCZ makes some of the best power supplies around. for their 520watt SLI version, that price is a bargain.

 

[turtile]

Just get a new PSU like the Fortron 450w - its about $60