Power Supply to blame?

[RustyDuke]

I am running with a 2mb PCI Matrox atm because my computer refuses to boot with my MSI GeForce3 Ti200, no beep, nothing.

It was okay last couple of weeks but yesterday I experienced a lot of crashes in a small timespan again like I have had before, I ran for a while with a TNT2 Ultra back than, no problems.

Specs:

Athlon XP 1600+
Abit KR7A (no RAID)
SB Live!
PCI Ethernet Card (hrm not sure what exactly)
Maxtor 60 GB
1''44 diskdrive
LiteOn 24x10x40 CD R/RW

But I think the problem needs to be sought in:

Power Supply 300W
MSI GeForce3 Ti200

I am 99,9% sure it is not a software issue. Tried basically all drivers, had trouble on WinXP, switched back to Win98, still the same trouble.

Symptoms:

Screen goes into standby mode. Sometimes hard reboot helps. Usually I had to get the GF3 out of the AGP Slot and put it back in to get it to work again.

Now there is a cable going from the videocard itself to the cooler on the videocard.

Possible solutions I thought of (need advice on what I should try):

- Get an extension cable to connect the cooler on the videocard to the motherboard for power instead of to the videocard itself. This could take load off the AGP slot

- Get another videocard to see if that resolves the problem and than sell the GF3 (expensive solution)

- Get a better powersupply (expensive but far less than a new videocard). Thinking about an Enermax 430W, open for suggestions.

Now I did some research on the power supplies:

I was checking out the following:

http://www.geforcefaq.com/faq.cgi#hw:gefower

Elsa provides the following power supply recommendations when using a GeForce card and Athlon processor:

20A for the +3.3V power.
30A for the +5V power.
165W for the combined +5V/+3.3V power.

My power supply:

30A for the +5V Power, 150W for the combined +5V/+3.3V power... and only 14A for the +3.3V power.

That's clearly below it, although it seems a 300W PowerSupply itself is sufficient, mine is crap! (?)

If I check this (near the bottom)

http://www.coolcases.com/reviews/powersupplies_review.html

I see that the:

EG365P-VE / E365FM gives plenty of power... 32A each and 185W combined.

If I check Xenon (Dutch company (as I'm Dutch), order by web):

http://www.xenon.nl/list.php3?catagorie=behuizing#Voeding

I see the E365FM for sale... 70 Euro (standard 300W PS costs 30 Euro).

Any comments? Is the PSU to blame?

 

[WileCoyote]

did you try unplugging some devices that would otherwise drain the power?

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Antec TruePower PSUs = win

 

[RustyDuke]

Well I took everything off the motherboard and it still didn't boot... no beep, nothing.

I really think the PSU is not good enough for this setup but I am also worried the videocard died...

I am considering buying a new PSU tomorrow, it can never harm my system... if that doesn't help I need to take a look at the videocard me thinks

This is most distressing :frown: