Power supply faulty??

[franklinz]

Ive got a 300 watt antec power supply powering my dvd player, cd burner, floppy, 3 case fans and my rad 9700. Is this not enough?? Recently my computer has starting acting weird.... shutting off when clicking certain icons, thats stopped after a format. But now when i play certain games it hangs there and then reboots harsh... How big of a psu should i get and where the best deals are at??
thanks,
franklinz

 

[StormBringer]

Is this PSU in addition to another one that powers the rest of the system? I assume so since you left out several components in the details. How is it connected with respect to the other? What is the full configuration of the system; mobo, cpu, RAM, HDDs, etc.. and what is the power rating of the other PSU if there is one?What OS are you running?

 

[franklinz]

nope this is the main one powering everything
xp home
one 40 gig wd hardrive
soyo p4x400 mobo
dvd player
lit-on cd burner
3 case fans
rad 9700
soundblaster audigy gamer
p4 2.4
antec 300 wat psu
512 mb 2100 two sticks(for sale-50 bucks) i got some 3200 finally!

It was running perfect but everynow and then it would shut off if i clicked icons!! That happened about 2 or 3 times but it was pretty weird. After-wards it ran like a champ, no problems. Until the patch for BF1942 came out. I installed the patch and clicked finished, and it shut down permanently. It would just reset itself once it got to the xp screen!
So i had to format it, and reinstall xp home.
And ever since then no problems.
Weird..........
thanks,
franklinz

 

[StormBringer]

Sounds to me like the BF1942 patch was the problem, you could have just removed it, maybe having to uninstall BF1942, and reinstall it without the patch.

Formatting does solve many problems, but most problems have another solution that is better and saves you time, besides, finding the right solution will help greatly if you ever have the same problem again.

 

[iss]

did all these problems occur after you installed the Radeon 9700?
it could have beeen a driver issue. either a conflict with remnants of your previous video card before the 9700 ( especially if it was a Nvidia card with detonator drivers) or a bad install of the drivers for the 9700. the new drivers for the radeons require a few minutes after reboot to check and set everything. the smartgart feature takes a few nimutes to check and decide what features it thinks your card and system are capable of running.

 

[franklinz]

nope this is my first ever build, so there wasnt another previous graphics card installed. The problem came about right when i clicked the "finished" icon while installing the BF1942 patch.
Once i formatted the system everything was a-okay, with the exception of "a fatal error" happening everytime i turn on the computer. After that i just downloaded the updates for XP and the problems have gone away.... hopefully they wont come back!
thanks,
franklinz
btw my current score with 3dmark was 13495 with 512 pc2100, and my setting turned to turbo, what would be a rough estimate of my setup with 512 of 3200??

 

[Gummiez]

if u think ur PSU is the problem, give a go at a less power GFX card... that's if u got one lying around... or run near bare bones (CPU, Video Card, 1 HDD, 1 stick of Ram)... if it works start putting in parts 1 by 1 or 2 by 2 (time constraints)... or even easier, just disconnect case fans, and ur CDRom/CDRW and see how it runs... if it runs ok then u could be lookign at insufficient PSU... with ur system I would feel more comfortable with at least an Antec 330W, tho I would go as far as 430W... if u want somewhat less expensive Enermax 350W as min and 450W... just make sure u get a known brand 350W+...

don't know much about 3dmark scores but I would think u won't notice a difference (at least nothing big), tho things should be faster...