Is there a way in XP to check my power watt usage?

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quantum_dragon

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With a 300 watt power supply I am running these hardware items (of course, not always at once):

P4 at 1.7 Ghz
Intel chipset
master drive
slave drive
1.5" floppy
zip drive
CD-ROM
DVD-ROM
Nividia GeForce 4 4600
Creative Audigy
USR Modem
768 MB of PC 800 Rambus RAM
CPU Fan
Side Fan
Backside Fan
Bottom Front Fan
Onboard video Fan

Is my wattage rating enough? It is a pain to change the power supply. Anyways, I have this monitor problem. I have a NEC MultiSync 19". From time to time when I play games, my monitor suffers a BSOD. Black Screen Of Death. It acts as if it goes into forceful sleep mode. All PC operation stops. There is no way to wake the monitor. A reboot is done to get back to usual operation.

I have the latest drivers for my video card. Still did the same thing. Monitor BSOD from more than one game. Also, I have shut down any actions that may cause my monitor to go into sleep mode (except for BIOS in which I do not know how).

Is power supply the problem? Or is my monitor going into BSOD for some other reason? Btw, this monitor has been working great since I bought it 2 years ago and is still doing great. So it may not be the monitor itself causing the problem. And it may not actually be going into sleep mode, but instead is a different version of windows crashing. But alas I truely do not know. :eek:

Thank you for help. I have not the slighest idea what I can do to remedy this monitor going blank problem (wouldn't suprise me a bit if it is XP).
 
Well, I don't know of any software that checks Wattage, but I would recommend you think about a bigger PSU. You are probably pushing the limits of that 300.

The easiest way to estimate the power usage is to multiply the voltage of each device by its current usage(this can be found printed on some devices, you may need to look others up on their websites or search) This will give you wattate for each device. Add them up and you'll have a good idea of what you are using. That number you get won't be exact and may jump higher on boot and may rise during heavy usage.
 
Not that I know of - It probably isn't even possible - Although you can detect the voltage of some devices.
 
Your monitor might blank the screen to prevent damage from wrong refresh rates. Does it do that only with specific resolutions / refresh rates? What kind of power management do you have?
 
"Your monitor might blank the screen to prevent damage from wrong refresh rates. Does it do that only with specific resolutions / refresh rates? What kind of power management do you have?"

I use 1024 x 768 resolution at what seems to be XPs standard refresh rate 60 Hz. In games, I use 1024 x768 or higher resolution. The monitor would blank out in the 1024 x 768 resolution, as this is usually my favorite setting. I'll experiment with other resolutions, but newer games will keep me from going to high in the future (not getting new PC until PCI express is out). Plus now that you mention this possiblity, I'll check the monitor user manual to see what it's favored refresh rate is.

I have Window's XP power management with all the options basiclly at never. Plus when I shut down the entire PC, the monitor goes into Standby mode much like a set of speakers do.
 
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