Power supply (PSU) concerns

Smoke is never a good sign. I'd say almost certainly your power supply has failed. If it's a good PS with adequate protection, it will shut itself off before anything catastropic happens. Some failures result in the voltage going down which won't harm your PC. Unfortunately, most PS failures are from a rectifier failure or more commonly a voltage regulator failure. If a rectifier fails, AC gets loose in a DC circuit and you've most likely lost everything. If a regulator fails, the DC voltage becomes irregular and the computer will start acting funny, ie shutting itself off for no reason. Regulator malfunctions tend to get worse over time and are usually caused by overloading the power supply.

The only way to tell the extent of the dammage is to get a new power supply and power up one thang at a time. If what you do on a your PC is important to you, you will invest in a good power supply. I too sing the praise of Enermax.


A side note about overloading power supplys. If you are adding a new piece of hardware and you have to use one of those power splitters that they usually package with drives and fans, chances are you are overloading a circuit. there is a reason a 250W only has 4 power drops and a 550W has a kazillion. Those little splitter are like asking for trouble. Adding another case fan may be done with all the best intentions in the world, but it can be the straw that broke the camel's back too.

Okay> I think we've thrashed this subject to death...

...but I just thought having read through the posts that I would add my 6 pence worth.

As a hardware engineer and looking at this from a large corporation server point of view.

The mainboard can take upwards of 30w. 30w being about the minimum of a basic ATX form factor (ff). This will rise on the later ones, although the smaller ff boards have been designed with power consumption reduction in mind. Also mainboard that include a mezzanine layer or riser boards will take more.
This does not count the RAM or CPU. Ram is rated at 10w per 128MB and that is the calculation I use for Xeon Dual & Multi-processor server machines using 100 or 133MHz SDRAM DIMM modules and, of course goes up with frequency, although voltage comes down a little. A PC3200 runs at 400MHz DDR & 2.7v, with this and other design enhancments the calculation would still be about the same.
CPU's are quite power hungry. Intel have got some better models out for the laptop, like the Centrino and Mendocino, but they are normally classed, for a single component, as the largest uses of power, with the Intel P4 normally using more power than the AMD Athlon. Compare a 3.4GHz Intel 90nm P4 and an AMD Athlon 90nm 64bit 3.5GHz and the power consumption is about double in the Intel chip. I would say to allow up to 100w (though see below), with the newest P4 600 series, even though they have 125million transistors and double the ATC L2 cache to 2MB, actually using less power. The hyperthreading technology in the Intel CPU uses about 10% more power but for shorter bursts as it finishes tasks quicker.
The calculation is (Total Capacitance*frequency*(voltage²))/2, hence a 3.2GHz Intel P4 'C' CPU using 1.5volts internally will consume ≈ 70w whereas the Intel P4 mobile 715 running at 2GHz consumes only ≈ 16w. The 64bit AMD Athlon FX-55 running at 1.5v internally consumes ≈104w and the latest Pentium mobile CPU core code named 'dothan', this is in the 'sonoma' CPU with a 90nm process, 2MB of L2 cache and a speed of 2.13GHz (Pentium M770) uses only about 27w. There is another techonlogy that I have not investigated, but this is called 'Transmeta Crusoe' and is based on allowing the ouyter layer functions of a CPU to be carried out in software. The CPU consumes a lot less power and is well suited for smalled portable devices. a 700MHz with a core voltage of 1.6v uses only 3w. It is x86 compatible.

So a basic 30w consumption mainboard with 1GB RAM and a 3GHz CPU could be using 175w

ADD;

5w for the floppy (if you still have one)
25w for a 50x CD-ROM or 10x DVD-ROM
30w for a 4x AGP card (beware here some cards can consume vast amounts of power. An ATI Radeon 9700 Pro GPU uses 45w. Some have 2 molex power sockets on them, so use more power. Those normally recommend at least a 350watt power supply.
PCI cards (33.2MHz x 32bit) use about 5w each
IDE 5400 drive = 10w IDE 7200rpm = 15w, but all harddrives use a lot more power when they are spining up and this should be allowed for. A 7200rpm will use up to 30w and a 10,000rpm up to 40w. Having said that the newer models of drive are better at managing power useage and may be slightly less, but err on the side of caution.
SCSI harddrives use more power 7200=25w, 10,000=40w and more during spinup.
It is always sensible to go for a good model. If you buy a decent case you should get a decent PSU, but you can always do better and as has been said a few times, branded models are going to be better. It makes sense logically. The company is proud of there equipment and so brands it.
I would go for a minimum of 350w today and normally 400w
And better models are quieter, have a cleaner power output, are less likely to have problems with the Rectifier. If that goes wrong there is no telling what damage you could do to your computer as AC power could get through to your components.

Have fun.

heck I have a 600W supply in the computer I built.

I think we need some suggestions as to bad PSU brands, the ones to stick clear of, so if you don't have enough money to buy a high quality PSU, you know which of cheapos you shouldn't get.

In the Process

Hello,
I am sort of a newcomer as far as building my own PC. I have just order my motherboard,RAM,Processor,heatsink/Fan and my powersupply.


Asus K8V SE Deluxe Socket 754 ATX Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor and
Ultra 512MB DDR Memory
550w diabloTek Powersupply

I also bought a case that came with a 400w power supply.(Forgot the power supply was in there already). I was just wondering if anyone could tell me if the 550w DiabloTek PSU was a little to much. Should I stick with the 400w PSU that came with my case. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Ok,is 550 to much for what I have right now?? Will it be to much power if I decide not to add anymore components. I just dont want to overpower my PC and waste all this money.

Thanks

The 550 should last a good few years of buying top-range hardware, whichyou probably won't be doing much. It's more than adaquete.

Below is a link to AMD's guide for building a PC system. Starting on page 9, it describes how to calculate the system wattage thats right for your components. Theres even a worksheet to help you through your calculations.
Don't forget, alot of USB devices pull power directly from your PC, so you'll have to factor them in as well.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/con..._docs/26003.pdf

PSU questions!

After months of having my computer freeze on me (ie while watching video files or playing games) and asking around I'm fairly certain the problem is my PSU. Given that it is now 4 years old and that the problems started when I updated to a P4 this makes sense.

So I'm looking at PSU's to buy. My current set up (P4 1.8Ghz, AGP geforce 3ti - more details in profile) I'm sure doesn't require a huge amount of power, but I'm looking to upgrade within the next few months to an Athlon64 3000+ or higher, & leadtek 6600GT pci-x.

I want to invest in a reliable PSU, but I see no point in buying one now and another one a few months down the road. So my question is, will I have any problems using a higher range PSU on my current system? For example, my main concern is if I buy a PCI-X ready PSU to use with my current AGP setup will it cause any problems having a PCI power connector just hanging around not attached to anything?

I have my eye on this one for now: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=13569

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Good choice. You can put it in your current PC without any problems, if your motherboard takes the 24-pin power-plug. Otherwise you may need a 24-20 pin adapter.
Having unused cables 'hanging about' is never a problem, just messy if you don't tie them up.

thats the same powersupply i am getting

Another Powersupply issue.

Hi folks!

I'm fairly new to the boards, and hope that this is the right place to post this question.

Okay, i had a computer on which the power supply crapped out on me. It was a 500W deal (can't remember the brand name, as i wasn't the person who originally pulled the thing out) being asked to power 3 fans, a floppy drive, a CD drive and a 40 gig Maxtor hard drive.

An order was placed for a new power supply. It came in, i attempted to install it and found that whenever i had the power connected to both the hard drive AND the CD-drive, the hard drive would not be recognized by my system. When i disconnected the cd-drive, the hard drive was recognized.

Checked this power supply, saw that it was rated for 300W, though "okay, maybe that's the problem" and the 300W supply was taken back and replaced with a 500W supply.

I just got the thing installed and....same problem. When i plug in both the HD and the CD, only the CD is recognized, but when i pull the plug out of the CD, the HD works fine.

This is my first time attempting this sort of thing, so it is possible that whatever the dumbest, most common newbie mistake that could be made IS being made here, but i honestly am stuck.

Anyone have any suggestions?
Thank you!

Maybe your CD drive was damaged when your previous PSU failed. Does you computer boot fully with just the CD drive connected? And with just the HD connected? Did you change any of the drive jumpers? Maybe your mainboard has been damaged?

Unfortunately, cheap PSUs can often destroy other PC components when they blow. You just need to isolate the problem by eliminating components one by one.

then your cable from your HD to CD is bad or your jumpers were changed. Put your hard drive as master and your CD as a slave.

:grinthumb

Firs off with the infamous exploding / fry your motherboards Supplies. :hotouch:
These are under the brand name of a variety of price point (cheap) to actual brand name PC system units (Compaq / older Dells). So how do you know you are looking at a disaster waiting to happen? Well on all those units there is always a little QC sticker used as a tamper seal on one of the seams. That seal has the name DEER on it. This is the name of the contract factory that actually made the unit. Avoid these at all costs. Warn the store owner if they don’t know. If they pshaw and try and fluff you off then avoid the store since that means they know full well the problem.

As for any of the other supplies made in china... well if that is all you have access too then research, research, research. There are a number of domestic Chinese sites that have hardware reviews and yes they also get very heated about crap hardware. (I had a 350W whose part number designation showed it was actually 275W but tests showed and I latter confirmed 190W)
Funny thing is price is not always a sign of quality ... you may just be paying for useless bling and advertising,

So be warned and be careful.

Yeah this article is a must read PSU tests

My PSU? It is universal input, has power factor correction, a single massive 120mm whisper fan and a stealth black honeycomb case and has rock solid output voltage control - if only I could remember the manufacturers name :rolleyes:

Sony Viao power supple issues

I have a SOny Viao VGC-RA710G desktop. I recently purchased 256mb BFG 6800GT OC graphics card... well the card plays fine if I drop my in-game video settings. However if I use game detected settings based on my card which would all be on high my monitor will go to the flash screen(with all the colors) and then go black. After searching online and viewing various forums I am not the only one that has this issue(same PC same game same card) However no solutions to this issue were posted. I have seen several references that this card is a power hog and needs at least a 450 watt PSU. My PSU says its max output is 374. Well I went out and bought a 500 watt PSU and well it wont fit. SOny has manufactured their PC's the be proprietary ( there are knobs on top of the PSU the slide into grooves). I returned that PSU and was like fine I'll contact SONY and purchase an upgrade from them. Well after speaking to a quite unfriendly tech support guy was informed me that not only have I voided my warranty for the graphics card upgrade SONY does not offer uprades to Power supplies and their was nothng they could do. I was like WHAT!! A PSU upgrade seems like it would be such a common thing with all the periphials that can be added and of course card upgrades. I am considering just buying a new case that will take a 500W PSU but SONY is so proprietary that I would probably be looking at shelling out big bucks to have one custom built for my hardware. I would welcome any advice on how to solve this issue or information about a manufacturer that addresses this issue and makes PSU's for Sony desktops.

check this out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/index.html

and this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/200507111/index.html

Hard drive problems that might consern the power supply

Hello everyone, I just upgraded my comp and im having problems. I have a 120gb 8mb buffer western digital hard drive (7200 rpm of course), 1GB of ram (runs at 400 MHz/ pc 3200), XFX geforce FX 5200 256mb graphics card (agp), Sound blaster sound card for surround sound. A dvd-rw and a cd-rw, 6 fans (3 case fans, 2 power supply fans, and a cpu fan), 3 Lights on the fron, 2 lights on the side fan,a Abit nf8-v pro motherboard ( nvidia chipset, 754 socket), AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 1mb cache, 1600 FSB, 2.4 GHz processor, And a 420 watt powersupply (raidmax). I think that is it and if it isn't just tell me cause im forgetful X_X.

Ok, so here is my problem. When you go to install windows as your operating system it wants you to formatt your hard drive. So I did that, After that it will restart. After it restarts it should go to the next set up to install the rest of it. BUt the problem with mine is that it will keep looping and want to do the first set up and formatt...over and over. So, i had my uncle test it. he said the hard drive works. So the only problem taht we can see is that the Power supply isn't supplying enough power to support all the things so it is screwing up. My side lights also went out which i am guessing is due to the lack of power. If you can plz tell me what might be wrong.

Well those lamps dimming out are a sure indication that something is seriously wrong. Lamps are the most robust parts, voltage wise but are power pigs.

If you can get into the bios, check out your voltages and your core temperatures first and write them down.
Then remove all those non-functional extras and check again.
(like the lights, sound card and the CDRW)
You should see some change in those levels and if you are lucky they should be well within specification.

If there is no change in anything and you still have the initialization issue then it may be time to check your power supply warrenty card and look into a replacement.
Search the web for reviews on that supply while you are at it.
You may have a one off bad part or it may be that its a design issue with the supply and you need to look elsewhere.

A quick and rough calculation of your power use (assuming watt usages) gives a figure of about 375-400 W .... definitely tight