Is my power supply struggling?

[DownloadThis]

Hardware config:

4 Harddrives
60GB - System (winxp)
120GB - Storage
120GB - Storage
200GB - Storage

1. CD-R/DVD ROM
1. DVD-R/W

Asus A7V8X-X Motherboard (latest bios)
2 x 512MB Crucial PC2700 RAM
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ CPU (2.08ghz)

ATI Radeon 9200 128MB Vid Card (by PowerColor)
1 Promise TX133 IDE Controller (my mobo only has enough room for 4 drives. The controller is for the other 2)

5 Cooling fans

***I have an Antec TRU430 PSU (430 watts).***

Windows XP SP1/2 (this problem has been going on a few months).

I've had this power supply for about 4 months now. It has gone bad.
It has stopped giving enough powers to get my drives up and running. They click on and off repeatedely when I am powering more than one at a time. I am able to get a single drive to run windows most of the time (it will sometimes start then then stop spinning during the drive detection screen (bios) when I first boot my PC.

I have narrowed down the PSU as the cause of this problem by simply putting another one in (a 300watt PSU). No problem with this PSU.


Now, I know that the Antec "True" series PSU are very well rated. I bought this PSU based on suggestions I've seen here, and the 100+ "Five Star" ratings on Newegg. So I'm guessing this is just a fluke.

Or is it?

Even when I purchased this drive brand new, I've noticed that when the Windows XP logo screen comes up during boot-up, it will hesitate for a second and just hang there during "mid fade-in". My gut told me that it was the PSU, but I chose to ignore this, as I leave my PC on most of the time and havent seen this much.


This power supply only has 5 standard drive connections. In order to power all 6 of my drives, I had to purchase a splitter (which I use on my CD-ROM drives, since they get the least amount of use).
I don't think I'm doing anything wrong here. This PSU has 5 standard connectors, plus 2 additional ones for SATA drives. Theoretically, this PSU should be able to handle 7 drives at once (5 IDE, and 2 SATA).

While I wait to RMA this PSU, can someone suggest "who" is at fault here? Is the PSU just just malfunctioning, or is 430 watts not enough to power my 6 drives?



(also thought i should mention that I have 5 cooling fans in my case. This PSU also has 2 fan connections which I've just daisy chained to power all 5 fans.

Thanks.

 

[mechBgon]

You're not supposed to run more than three fans off of the Fan Only connectors, if you weren't aware of that. If you want us to offer insights on the whole situation then it would help if you gave the full system specs.

 

[DownloadThis]

Thanks mechBgon. I had no idea that I i was limited in the amount of fans I can run off those connectors. I've been daisy chaining 4 fans at a time, then pluggin that set into one of my storage harddrives. The 5th fan gets plugged into one of my cdrom drives, after getting power from the psu. How major of a problem is that?

(i've edited my intial post to show the rest of my hardware).

 

[mechBgon]

I hope this is a "well-of-course-not" question: your hard drives are not drawing power from the Fan-Only line or anything downstream of the Fan-Only plugs, are they? Those give reduced 12V voltage at normal temperatures, something like 7 volts or so. If your HDDs are being given 7V where they're expecting 12V... :Q

(plus they have no 5V line at all, of course)

 

[DownloadThis]

The answer is almost postively "of course not". Because now that I think about it, (and re-read your last post), the drives would not even power up if this is what I've been doing. 2 of the fans have "4 wires" instead of the 2 that the PSU has. These came with my case, and have both inputs and outputs, so that they sit in inbetween my PSU, and the HDD. 3 more of these of these fans have 2 wires/male adapters, which fit in with the connections that the PSU supplies. I am positive that I normally run 3 of these fans at once, because I'm used to seeing this large "stick" of conjoined connectors when I open my case.

I don't think I have 3 fans plugged into the hdd. I may have tried unsucessfully though.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: DownloadThis
The answer is almost postively "of course not". Because now that I think about it, (and re-read your last post), the drives would not even power up if this is what I've been doing. 2 of the fans have "4 wires" instead of the 2 that the PSU has. These came with my case, and have both inputs and outputs, so that they sit in inbetween my PSU, and the HDD. 3 more of these of these fans have 2 wires/male adapters, which fit in with the connections that the PSU supplies. I am positive that I normally run 3 of these fans at once, because I'm used to seeing this large "stick" of conjoined connectors when I open my case.

I don't think I have 3 fans plugged into the hdd. I may have tried unsucessfully though.

I'm sorry but I am a little by reading that. Let's make sure here Unplug all devices from the Fan-Only outlet and set it aside unused.

 

[DownloadThis]

Yeah, sorry bout that. It was a little jumbled. I typed it as I thought it. .
At this point though, the PSU isn't even in the PC. I have it wrapped up, and ready to go back to Antec (RMA). Last I tested it though, all I had plugged in were 2 harddrives (1 system, the other storage). They just clicked on and off repeatedly. I was never able to get into windows. I tested 2 PSU's side by side to be sure my drives were ok. I switched back and forth between PSU's 5 times. The drives only gave me a problem using the Antec.

I'm sure the PSU is screwed, I'm basically trying to figure out whether or not this problem was cause by me, or a faulty PSU.

 

[DownloadThis]

anyone else have an opinion/suggestion as to what might have caused this PSU to "act up" ?
Are 6 drives (one of them being powered via a splitter since the PSU only has 5 connections) be too much for my 430 PSU?

 

[TwoBills]

If your powering everything w/a 300w psu, then that 430 should do the job also. I think it's a little light in the amps department, 20 on the 12v rail, right? Swap it for an Enermax 350 w/26a on the 12v and don't look back.

I didn't follow the fan discussion w/mechBgon (long day), but I suspect you should do a little rethinking in this area.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
You're not supposed to run more than three fans off of the Fan Only connectors, if you weren't aware of that. If you want us to offer insights on the whole situation then it would help if you gave the full system specs.

I did not know this. I've been running it about a year with 5 fans connected to it.

I guess I need to take 2 fans off and connect it to regular 12v line or simply not plug it in. Thx for the info.