I think I finally overloaded my PS

[Creig]

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. My main machine finally outgrew its Enermax EG365P-VE 350w power supply. It was okay until I added that Radeon 9500 and did the 9700Soft mod. All of a sudden it starting doing a hard drive click during 3DMark2001 and would reboot. "Oh great" I thought, "my hard drive's dying. Again.". A couple of time I even heard the drive spin down and back up again a couple of time before rebooting. "Weird" I thought. Default clock on CPU - same thing. Tried replacing memory, same thing (although I've now discovered that my cheap PNY TCB0 PC2100 memory clocks better than my Crucial PC2100). Completely stable sitting on desktop with United Devices running the CPU at 100% but reboots at various times with HD noise when trying to run benchmark. So I installed the Epox USDM (system monitor) to see what the voltages look like. All look pretty decent (+3.3v @ 3.33v & +12v @ 12.58v) EXCEPT for the +5v line. At idle it's at 4.72v, not good. At 100% load it drops to 4.57v! Whoa! So I can't even IMAGINE how low it drops once the GPU on the 9500 kicks into high gear. In case you're wondering, the load is from:

Koolance PC2-C watercooled case
5 80mm PC Power & Cooling fans (3 for radiator, one in PS, one in case)
1 92mm PC Power & Cooling fan in PS
Epox 8K5A3+
AMD Thoroughbred 1800+ @ 1.9Ghz
ATI Radeon 9500 running close to 9700 Pro specs (325/600)
ATI TV-Wonder
2 x 256mb sticks PNY TCB0 PC2100
2 Maxtor 7200 RPM 20 gig HDs in Raid-0
1 Maxtor 5400 RPM 80 gig HD
DVD Drive
CDRW Drive

So I'm guessing it's time for a 430+ watt PS.



(edited - forgot to type PS name in front of model number)

 

[HaVoC]

Man that's crazy trying to run all those devices plus the Radeon on that 350W power supply. Please tell me at least it ain't a generic unit. I'd recommend going for a Antec TruePower 430 W unit, or even the 550 W! It will last you through several CPU/mobo upgrades.

My machine was acting flaky on bootup until I switched to a Antec TruePower 330. (It had an Antec PP-303X and even that was apparently not enough to feed my three drives, HD and Thunderbird 1.33 Ghz chip)

 

[Creig]

Well, the PS is rated at 32A on the +3.3v line, 32A on the +5v line and 17A on the +12v line which is pretty decent for a 350 watt unit. Does anybody know how much power/current the 9500/9700 line draws at idle and at full load? I can' t seem to find any specs online.

 

[wicktron]

Replace it with a PC Power & Cooling unit, it won't fail you.

 

[Creig]

Since my +12v line is running at 12.58v, I'm assuming it is possible to adjust the +12v line down to 12.00 and bump up the +5. Since it's rated at 350w TOTAL power, adjusting one down and one up should give the same overall load. But how would you know how MUCH to bump up the +5 without overloading the power supply? I am planning on replacing the power supply with something rated at 480w or higher in the future but do not wish to incur the wrath of my wife. She hasn't seen the credit card bill with my Radeon 9500 on it yet and adding a $100 power supply to that within the same month would surely set her off.

 

[NokiaDude]

How long have you had the PSU? You might have a buyer if you don't need the Enermax.

 

[Creig]

I picked it up this past summer if I remember right. When I get a new PS I'll decide if I'm keeping it or not and will let you know.

 

[DimZiE]

i don't really know the "real" output of u'r current PSU..

but cramming all that stuff on a 350 W PSU is a burden to your PSU

 

[Creig]

Well I think I have the answer to my problem. I just ordered an Antec TruePower 550 watt power supply. If THAT doesn't supply enough juice then I'm in real trouble!

 

[jose]

Ati should start selling power supplies with their 9500 ...

I have a P4-2.4Ghz/ GF3 / P4B533/512mb system with
4 - scsi drives 36g, 18g, 9g, and a 4.5g along w/ a scis dvd + a 12g Data tape drive

All running off a old Enermax 330w ps.

It must be the 9500 causing all your problems.

Regards,

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Creig
Well I think I have the answer to my problem. I just ordered an Antec TruePower 550 watt power supply. If THAT doesn't supply enough juice then I'm in real trouble!

It should be fine. I just upgraded to a Antec 480W TrueBlue b/c I was experiencing some flakyness as I added a lot more load to my system. Put in the rest of my HDD's and another CC, as well as some fans and my OC became unstable. Swapped out the 400W Antec and I'm cruising along at 2340 again, also lowered my ram timings to cas 2 from cas 2.5

Chiz

 

[Creig]

No kidding. They're going to have to start listing max load values on the video card boxes.