Insufficient Power Supply, What will it do?

[The Dancing Peacock]

I've been having random lockups with my computer, haven't been able to pinpoint it. As I installed a new harddrive today, I took a look at the PS that I thought was 250W (There's a big 250 on there, I assumed it was watts, it's the temperature rating) As I look closely, it says the total output is 125W. I've been running a ATA-66 drive, a CDRW, a DVD/CD-ROM, floppy and zip fine until I recently re-installed win2K. It was okay with a prior installation, but lately I get random lockups and random errors with the ATA drivers.

Will insufficient power cause the buffer to underrun and my system to lock up while burning a CD? I get lockups randomly, there doesn't seem to be a pattern to it. It has locked up twice while trying to transfer data on the hds, will the power issue cause this too? What are other symptoms of not having enough power for your system?


thanks.

TDP

 

[gopunk]

i haven't had this happen to me too many times, but i think those are the symptoms. i couldn't boot up once because of the power supply, the computer would turn on but not post. anyways, new power supplies aren't too expensive, just try another one and see if it works.

 

[The Dancing Peacock]

It got lost cuz I posted too late, Anyone else have any comments?


thanks.

TDP