400W not enough?

[Rick]

My 350 watt Enermax has served me very well. Despite being rated at 350, I read a test where it actually put out some extra 30 watts over the rating.

 

[Vehementi]

That's certainly good to know!

 

[Vehementi]

New PSU came today...man, new stuff smells so good, especially PSU's! I'll install it now!

And yes, it does have 26A on the 12V rail

 

[Vehementi]

Previously I wasn't able to get through the first 3DMark test, but, I just ran it in it's entirety. Next I'll go for an hour of UT2k3...

 

[StormBringer]

Do you even understand what that means...26A on the 12v rail? All it means is that it will handle 26A but if you max it out then that is 312W of your 350W, so you will only have 38W left for the other rails to use.

The load determines the current flow through the line, the rating is just an indication of the maximum current flow it is rated to handle.

 

[Vehementi]

I doubt I'll even go above 20A full peak, as 15A proved slightly inadequate. And yes, I do have some semblance of what that means...

 

[sngx_father]

Originally posted by iss
15A on the 12V rail should be sufficient as long as you dont have more than one hard drive or several case fans. if you have acess to another power supply you might try hooking it up and seec if the problem continues.

since this has happned before while scrolling maybe you should check your mouse and drivers. what kind is it? try another mouse and see if the problem continues

Here are specs from WD: http://www.westerndigital.com/products/current/drives.asp?Model=WD1200JB

As you can see it's typically pulling about 1A (350mA r/w/Idle and 675mA during seek) off the 12v line. Most components in the computer you will find only take up 1A or 2A during normal operation. The 12v line is one of the lesser used voltage lines, whereas the 3.3v and 5v lines supply power to most mobo components. 15A is more than enough for multiple HD's, CD's, and fans. 15A is a minimum, and I wouldn't want to power any 8 disk RAID array's off one, but for a typical user with 4 drives and 3 fans in their case 15A is more than enough.

 

[sngx_father]

Originally posted by iss
if I am not mistaken AMD specifies a minimum of 300 Watt PSU for athlonXP's and newer durons. I doubt the 250 watt PSU has sufficient amps on the 12V rail to be reliable for the duron.

Any PSU that does 30A on the 5v rail and 15A on the 12v rail is considered adequate for any AMD XP.

 

[young&wild]

Originally posted by iss
I doubt the 250 watt PSU has sufficient amps on the 12V rail to be reliable for the duron.

Not really....sometimes yes..but i don't have any problems with running a Duron 800 with 1HDD and two optical drives with a 250w PSU(15A on the 12v rail).

 

[iss]

15A is more than enough for multiple HD's, CD's, and fans. 15A is a minimum

it cant be" more than enough" and the "minimum" at the same time. it can be sufficient and the minimum though.



young&wild,, you have an excellent power supply but fact is MOST 250 watt PSU's arent delivering 15A on the 12 volt rail.

 

[StormBringer]

I don't know what Veh had that was sucking down more than 15A, possibly a leaky capacitor somewhere, but 15A is enough for most anything unless you are running huge RAID arrays.

I don't know what your point is ISS but the comment about 15A minimum was refering to RAID I believe which is a different comment from most configurations being well under 15A draw.