Failur to boot possible under powered psu

[DoV Reaper]

I got an older comp running an AMD t-bird 900 and 3x256mb ram. I have been using it for web browsing, downloading, and occasional homework for some time. Recently I got ended up with an extra 17 inch monitor so I bought a geforce 6200 pci video card to run dual monitors. Since it was open I took it all apart and cleaned all the boards.
I freshly formated it with only the video card 1 hdd and a cd drive hooked up. when it ran great I reinstalled everything back in 1 at a time rebooting each time to let the system recognize each item. This worked fine till the last pci card. When I put the last card in it would get past bios and then the screens went black and it would just sit there. same thing happen everytime.
For PCI cards I have the gfx card, sound blaster live(creative), USB 2.0 card, and network interface card. running 2 Wester dig 7200rpm HDs a cd burner and 3 80mm fans counting the processor fan.
The machine will run if I pull the sound card out or if I leave the sound card in and pull both the usb and net cards.
I tried using different PCI slots and different installation orders to no avail. Unplugging any HDs, fans, or the cd drive have no affect. Also when it goes to the black screen the power button will shut down the system with just a push rather than having to hold it in.

So far my best guess is that my 350w psu that came with the case isnt giving enough power. I found a wattage calculator online that said I was using bout 298 watts. The voltage numbers in bios health screen are same regardless of what cards are installed but regardless after I exit bios I get the black screen when all cards are installed.

Does anyone have any thoughts before I buy another PSU

 

[cprince]

your guess is probably correct. You need a bigger power supply--at least 400W.

 

[DoV Reaper]

Well I went out and got a 500w psu threw it in and still same problem. My next guess is bios so now im off to look for an update for that as well. any other thoughts or sugesstions would be greatly apreciated.

 

[Err0r404]

not PSU problem, it is most likely IRQ conflict buddy!

you will have to get rid of something, apprently some of your PCI card isn't happy with another one and the problem with sharing IRQ isn't working out too well.

Solution:
1. Move your cards around, apprently slot 1 & 3 shares same IRQ, so does 2 & 4 shares same (as i recall, been a while since i mess around with PCI slots and IRQ) So, i wouldn't put gfx card and sb on 1 & 3. if your last slot giving you trouble, skip a slot and find out what's in the 2nd slot adjacent. Move that card to one slot down and stuff like that

2. get rid of 1 pci card, usb 2.0 has how many USB slots? apprently thats may be the reason when computer need to assign address to each USB ports. the more ports you ahave, the more reason to have conflicts

3. You can get alittle more expensive Network card that has bios on it, kinda rare nowadays but that's the price you pay for older computer that needs manual IRQ assignments.

4. mess around in BIOS and see if you can assign IRQs to PCI slots.
Good luck

 

[DoV Reaper]

well to update i tossed usb card to the side and tried the video, sound card, and nic card in many different slots. finaly out of blue i decided to shut off the onboard serial and parallel ports that i dont use and for whatever reason that with a few more slot swaping got it going. the irq for the sound card did match an onboard usb so i might have some trouble if i use both of those later but ill live for now

thanks for the help