Do i have enough POWER? 350w

**SrBrunox** · July 13th, 2004, 02:47 PM

i have a 350w power supply for my comp, heres what its running:

MSI 865PE MOTHERBOARD
2.8ghz FSB 800 CPU
5900 Ultra VIDEO CARD
RAID CARD (pci slot)
Network Card (pci slot)
Firewire card (pci slot)
DVD burner
CD writer
DVD Rom
80gig HD
120gig HD
200gig HD
4 intake fans in fron of case
1 outake fan in back of case
1 stock fan on CPU
1 stock fan on onboard chip
ONBOARD SOUNDCARD

(yes that's 3 media drives and 3 Hard Drives)

I ask this only because every now and then (more often latley) one of my HD makes this power down sound, like what they make when they go into sleep mode or when they shut down completly. Sometimes it comes back on, i only know by the sound it makes, and also sometimes my comp locks up completely after the HD shuts down.

I trouble shooted to figure out which drive it was that was shutting down (or at least sounds like its shutting down to me) and realized that it was my C: drive, so i disconnected the other two. Its been ok so far, sort of.....it doesnt make that shutting down sound anymore BUT i do get hangups when i bootup, NTSF files missing, or boot error, or it just hangs.

Does this sound like a power problem or a going bad HD?

**DeadSeaMonkey** · July 13th, 2004, 03:02 PM

YES!!!!! YES the power supply is to small. what you need to do is add up all of the wattage of all of the devices mainly the HD and DVD/CD drives. as well as the cpu. that should tell you how much you need....

risingfoam · July 13th, 2004, 03:04 PM

go to ebay.com and you can get a 600 watt power supply for about 30 bucks.

**hawkburn** · July 13th, 2004, 03:07 PM

Well I'm running a 380 watt... and I have 3 hard drives, but 2 media drives. Media drives I dont think use much power unless theyre constantly being used. I dont know anything about your motherboard.

I dont use GeForce video cards so I'm not all that familiar.. but I did a quick look up and it looks pretty powerful. Besides the motherboard, the thing that sucks the most power from my system is my 9800 XT from ATI.

I'd say you might be running a little tight, but I truely doubt you'll have many problems unless you add more hardware (I dont see where youd fit it anyway :D)

How long have you have you had this computer?

I'm thinking more toward a heat problem, as that happened to me before, and I did some heat adjustments and everything was back to normal. But if you have 7 fans in there, there really shouldnt be that much of a problem... is there good airflow in the case?

**hawkburn** · July 13th, 2004, 03:09 PM

Originally Posted by risingfoam

go to ebay.com and you can get a 600 watt power supply for about 30 bucks.

A 30 dollar power supply is just as bad as a 200 watt power supply. If you dont get a good one, its not worth it. Get a high quality one, because theyll not only keep the heat down and have less chance of catching fire, theyll work for a lot longer and cause far fewer problems. May I reccommend an Antec pwsupply?

**The Hunter** · July 13th, 2004, 03:14 PM

First off i would say yes your power supply is too small. I only have a 250 watt power supply, but it is a brand name one, and Im only running 2 hard drives, a burner, and a cd rom. If you get a new supply, dont go for the biggest at the lowest price. Do some looking, and get a quality/ brand name one. i would look for about a 500 or bigger one.

**The Hunter** · July 13th, 2004, 03:17 PM

Also running Aida 32 could provide some good info, and when was the last time you cleaned the dust out?

**Omyn** · July 13th, 2004, 03:57 PM

Added them up for you.

Remember when buying the cheapest power supply, it is a bad idea.

A power supply that weighs very little is not built well and when it becomes defective you can kiss your computer goodbye, a good power supply should weigh quite a few pounds about 5 or more pounds anything else you are getting ripped off, go with name brands only.

Also you do not want to tax the power supply either, this can cause problems for you in the future that you may not like :] so what you do is you take your wattage and you multiply it by 1.5, this gets you your optimum power supply output wattage amount. (This 1.5 rule was given to me by my teacher who is an electrical engineer and has his doctorate)

The reason we do this is because of the variations in voltages in your home wiring, can either raise or lower depending on the current conditions, a power supply with a capacitor that can hold much more voltage is very good incase of a sudden increase the capacitor can hold the charge better without damaging, also if you have a power snag, the capacitor can stabilize the current better without your computer having to restart.

Its better to have a power supply that isnt using all of its full potential than one that is.

I kind of summed up your power consumption usage with the following chart below:

P4 (3060MHz) 800 FSB = 89 Watts
5900 Ultra = 85 Watts
3 Memory modules = 30 Watts (This was a guess at the maximum ram you most likely have :] )
3 Hard drives = 75 Watts
7 Fans = 21 Watts
Soundcard = 7 Watts
DVD Burner = 25 Watts
DVD ROM =25 Watts
CD Burner =20 Watts
3 PCI cards =15
=========================
Wattage 392 Watts x 1.5 = 588 (basically buy a 600 Watt)

Well have fun, and remember dont go with the cheap stuff, you only end up losing in the long run :]

**SrBrunox** · July 13th, 2004, 04:01 PM

thats good info, i thought i should get a bigger juice factory.

I just dusted this thing out a couple of weeks ago, i know how bad it gets in there and the problems that come with it. ive had my two side pieces of the case off since i put this thing together and a table fan at the side to push air through. I only bought this case cuz of the fans and i knew that this comp would get hot.

time to go shopping for a new powersupply, probably a new case, i hate this one.

**The Hunter** · July 13th, 2004, 04:04 PM

My estimate wasnt too far off then, and most good powersupplies are underated, but some of this cheap stuff is so overated as to be laughable.

**SrBrunox** · July 13th, 2004, 04:28 PM

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=TC3Y-6001

?????
hows this?

**Dswissmiss** · July 13th, 2004, 04:45 PM

Never heard of them, but then again, I haven't followed up on hardware since I built my pc 2 years ago. As said, it's really important that you go with a well known brand, Enlight, Enermax, Antec (I think) and Sparkle power come to mind, although there are a few others. The main rule is this: Avoid anything made by Deer like the plague.

Take care