RaidMax Case Upgrade/ PC Ran Great for days; now it's going nuts!

[Refugee]

Hello,
First and foremost, I would like to thank any and all who assist in these forums; this is a great service that you all volunteer your time to!

Enough **** kissing, and onto the meat:
AMD 3400 64
ASUS K8N mobo (hp garbage)
100 G HD
ATI X850XT AGP
5 cooling fans
Raidmax 420W PSU (brand-new came with the case)

I swapped a HP a530n over to a raidmax case. I have been using the PC playing BF2/WoW since Saturday without any problems. However, yesterday, something bad happened.

The symptoms: The computer operates normally for sometime (prob 10-30 mins) after it is turned on. Then it the HD will rev up..I mean REV up, and click. This happens a few times, and it reverts to a blue screen. The blue screen states, "Windows has been turned off in order to prevent corruption."

Now I smelled the PSU, and I think I detected a burned electrical smell. I am wondering if it is the el cheapo PSU that came w/ the case, the HD? or maybe a gremlin?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Rest assured, that Raidmax is ONE piece of CRAP. The rest should be fine.
Never EVER trust a built-in PSU (except in Antec cases).
Go get a proper PSU from the likes of Enermax, Fortron or Antec. 400W upwards should do fine.

 

[Refugee]

Thank you so much for your reply!

I have gone and exchanged the defunct PSU for the same junky one. I will go purchase a real one this weekend. I am thinking 350W should do the trick. Your take?

It's too bad I didn't know that most of these PSU's that come with cases are junk. I could have saved quite a bit of money buying one w/o a PSU, and had enough left over to buy a real one. Boy did I get hosed..lol

As so far the junky replacement PSU has not acted up; I thank all of the folks for the massive amount of information on this site. I'll keep learning, and I hope to be of some help soon

 

[RealBlackStuff]

350W is too small, it would just about cover the essentials.
Go here to find out what you really need. http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
Add about 30% so the PSU need not run at max power, and has reserve for future expansion.

 

[Refugee]

Thank you,
I am getting ready to spend some money this weekend anyway. The HD has died, and it was one of those funky HP jobs, w/ the HP version of Windows XP on it. So doing a cost comparison, I can buy a new mobo/hd/ PS for just around $100.00 more than buying another HD from HP (or the one that HP recommended). So I will be going this route; I don't like messing with HP's proprietary junk.

I have swapped out components to a case before, but I have never installed a processor into a motherboard. I would be taking my AMD 64 3200 out of the old mobo and putting it into a new one. It looks kind of scary to be honest. I would really like to learn how to perform all the computer maintenance myself, but I don't want to throw away money ruining parts in the process. In your opinion, should I take it in to a technician or try to pull the new rig together myself?

 

[Refugee]

Looks like I'll need a minimum of 327 watts; add in the 30% and = 425Watts.

Thanks again for all your assistance

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Do a Google with diy pc building, plenty instructions available.

 

[Refugee]

Well I installed a new mobo and HD today. The mobo drivers/ OS went in w/o a hitch Thanks for all the advice, this PC runs like a champ now. Here's something weird for you though. On the HP mobo my amd 3200 64 was clocked at 1.8 Mhz. On the Asus KN8 board, the same processor is clocked at 2.0 Mhz. Stinkin' HP underclocked the processor!
Thanks again