PSU big enough for PC?

[toto warrior]

Hello all
So in my research into the many bods occuring in my life i have ventured into unknown territory on my front...power supply issues...my pc :
e2160 at 1.8
GA-G31M-S2L( bios f7)
4gig muskin ddr2 800 (2*2gig)
xfx 9800gt
1 ide 30 gig
1 sata 120 gig
1 sata 500gig
1 dvd-rom, writer
550W Gigabyte superb psu,2 12vrails at +12V1=18A +12V2=18A see here
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/733881
vista 32 bit

So i'm starting too think my psu is the cause for concern, even though xfx says minimun amp for the gcard is 26A, were i have 30A total(360/12).I hope i'm calculating this correctly...but anyway, is this psu big enough to power my setup? I'm not ocing anything...and the bsods occur when my pc is idling, so not too much power being taken from my psu?

 

[fimbles]

Hello.

Theres a sticky on this forum that explains power supply worries in detail.

Find it here.

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic377.html

Or google for a Psu calculator.

good luck

 

[toto warrior]

Hey there

I've tried the wattage calculator and all that jazz, i've come up with a number in the 300-370 W and then added an extra 100 W for the efficiency factor, and i still fall within range of my psu. An interesting distinction though, that picture that i put the link too shows that the psu can peak at 550W(though i know its not continuous), while on my psu it does not show anything about peak wattage, just the max combined wattage of 450W. The box and serial number of the psu match...and the box does says 550W peak performance...i wonder if there is something shady going on. Think i will mail gigabyte to see wtf is going on...but anyway, shot for the help. I've heard the amp ratings are very important, does my psu have enough amps to run my xfx 9800gt?

 

[klepto12]

you should be fine with that psu man its plenty for your system.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

That should be ok, i've never hear of gigabyte's power supplies so i don't know if they are reliable.

 

[9Nails]

I'm worried about the dual-rail. If you have 18A on one 12V rail for the CPU, and the CPU only draws 7A, then your losing 11A because that rail is under utilized. While your peripherals are competing for the remaining rail power.

The PC at idle is a different story. Boot-up is a typical competitive moment for the PSU. The sudden load on a cold PSU could show signs of over-utilization by frequent halts and inability to continue to boot. But your saying the majority of problems are during idle...

What I'm thinking the problem might be is driver related. It could be application related such as anti-virus or screen saver as well. Those things usually run at idle. If this is Windows 2000 or higher, try creating a new login account and login as this new user. It might help you see if the problem follows the user or the OS. Also, can you build a LiveCD from OpenSUSE or Ubuntu and see if the computer still has problems under a different OS? If you can find errors under a different OS then this issue might be hardware related.

If you just want to throw some cash at the computer, get a PC Power and Cooling PSU. They're the best ones out there by far, and don't trick you with ratings.

 

[toto warrior]

Hey 9nails, what your saying is quite interesting with regard to booting up probs. In the past(not at present tho) my computer has had trouble booting up, in a previous thread, (see: help with bsods), i mention that whenever i would turn on my pc all the fans and such would turn on, most prominant was the gcard fan running at what i assume to be full speed. It would stay like this till i turned it off. i would then take out and reseat my ram and gcard and then turn on my pc and it would start up...This happened at irregular times but if my anger clock is correct it happened after turning it on for the first time in a new day,aka the morning after turing it off. The bsods have only been a prob recently, but the non booting has been a prob since building the pc(last oct) So far i have removed my dvd drive and i have not had a prob turning it on and no bsods for bout 5 days of using it for games and media purposes. And i'm using vista 32bit, were before i was using xp32, vista 64, and xp64 for a bit.So its not os specific as i had probs on all of these os's. What i'm not sure about is then the 2 12V rails,is each one maxed at supplying 18A each or can it shift so that one delivers more than the other depending on requirements,Aka gcard requirements.If you can please clarify the amps on the dual rail, i'm a bit con-fusion-HA in this area... I think i might have fallen for the wattage requirments of the card and not paid attention to the amps required...no reason asking why tho, just business trying to con one out of bucks...so i've left alot of questions, sorry bout that, but i need any answers...

 

[toto warrior]

Another interesting thing then, why does nvidia say that 26A is required for the xfx 9800gt, when the card only uses 105+- Wattage when under load...this would then mean that on a 12V rail 105W/12V equals 8.75A? So WTF is the 26A about then? Is it for the rest of my system to operate on? Casue i highly doubt that the other components in a pc use as much wattage as a GPU, maybe the CPU, not nowadays though...

 

[peterdiva]

The 26A rating is for the whole system. My previous PSU had the same 12 volt setup that yours has. I was able to run both the SMP and the GPU Folding@Home clients at the same time on a Phenom II 940 and a GTX 260 (a highly overclocked version). I only changed the PSU because it made too much noise.

If the PSU is the problem then it's probably faulty. All you can really do is to try another PSU. Even then if the problem persists the PSU may still be faulty but it may have damaged other parts.

 

[soulslayer]

toto warrior, your PSU is definitely sufficient for your system. If by chance you know for sure that the PSU is causing a problem, then it would be because the PSU is faulty and not because the system hardware is too demanding. Is it a brand new PSU?

 

[toto warrior]

Hey there, u see thats what i thought! I know its big enough for my system, but the symptoms about boot up that 9nails referred too seem like probs associated with my psu...start up from cold and everything turns on but no boot. For this week i have not had any boot up probs, not bsods or anything. I dont have my dvd drive in, lending it to a friend, but when i get it back i'll put it in and see if i get and boting up probs...

 

[soulslayer]

BSODs can be caused by a number of things, one of which includes hardware running beyond its specification limits. In most instances, it isn't the hardware device actually causing the problem but rather a problematic PSU making the hardware device tell Windows "I'm not working properly." As long as the board is seated properly in the case, then I would swap out the PSU first before trying anything else, especially if the DVD drive worked well in your friend's computer.

 

[toto warrior]

Well the dvd drive does work fine for my friend, so i'm perdy confident the prob is not there...as with trying out another psu that could mean buying another one, which i'm not financially viable to do...i'm a student so money is always tight...but the problems seems to be gone for now, but will see what happens in the future...