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Need Help - Power Supply not enough wattage?

G

GrimTaZ

Junior Member
Can someone please help me as I've been trying to determine whether I have a power supply problem or not. I have had 2 serial ATA seagate 120Gb hard drives fail on me (bad sectors, going slow etc.). I'm thinking it may be that I don't have a powerul enough power supply. Here are my specs:

Auriga 350W PSU
Pentium IV 2.6Ghz CPU
Asus P4P800 MB
1Gb 400Mhz DDR RAM (4x256Mb)
1 x 80Gb Seagate HDD IDE
1 x 120Gb Seagate HDD SATA
Nvidia FX5950 Ultra video card
1 x 52x CD ROM Drive
1 x 4x DVD writer
3 x cooling FANS mounted 1 on side and 2 back of case.
Creative LABS Audigy 1 Sound Card

The SATA HDD is piggybacked on the power cable to the video card which also links to the 3 cooling FANS.

I'm considering getting a 450w power supply and changing the connection to the main HDD so it has it's own power cable.

Any advice would be appreciated 🙂
 
Thanks CW42 i used the caculator and it worked out at 427 watts peak power. So the 350w PSU that I have isnt enough.
 
Originally posted by: GrimTaZ
Thanks CW42 i used the caculator and it worked out at 427 watts peak power. So the 350w PSU that I have isnt enough.
Click to expand...

that wattage proram really sucks if you ask me. it says i need a 430 watt, how do i have a 350 antec and im running fine? :roll:

quality over quantity. id rather have a 300 watt antec than a 600 watt cheapo.
 
Those wattage calculator programs really over-estimate the power consumption.

I've done some experiments measuring power consumed by PCs - and even pretty pimped ones don't take more than about 200 W from the mains (works out at about 160W of internal power consumption).

Also, not all is what it may seem with 'cheap' PSUs. I saw some at a computer fair - there were some called '440W' and some called '560W' from the same manufacturer. They were clearly the same supplies, although the more expensive one looked like it had a different fan in it. The rating stickers on the sides were the kicker - if you added up the rating for the individual rails, it was clear that both models were actually 300 W PSUs (and not very good ones either).
 
I look at a Power Supply as this; Will it fit my needs, for my next upgrade? A good PS, will have good tolerances on all rails, don't cheap out on it, as the life of your Periphs, will depend on it.
 
for all you psu calculator crappers who can't read, let me re-post it here for you:

"Please Note: The Wattages listed below are maximum potential wattages for each item. The total amount this calculator figures is for all devices running at peak utilization. It is important to bear in mind that this amount will never be reached under typical operation. However we feel that this tool will give you a better idea of how much power your system will need. After all when it comes to power, it is better to be safe than sorry. "

If you spend $100-$300 on a video card, $100-200 on a motherboard, $100 on a cpu, $100-200 on memory, $100-200 on a harddrive, $20-50 on a nic, $50-150 on a sound card, + time to load software and configure, use the calculator, spend the extra 20-50 bucks and get the high watt, high quality PSU.

If you don't, it's like spending $80k on a new sports car and driving around uninsured........

BTW, i suffered numerous system crashes and lost an ibm hard drive before i bought the thermaltake silent 480 from newegg for $55 bucks and have had no problems since. (it's only got one serial ATA connector)
 
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