PSU question

[stevey5036]

hey guys whats going on

i recently added a lot of new components to my older pc, hoping to really speed it up. but ive had almost no luck. Ive upgraded my old p4 2.6 (no ht, 533 fsb) to a new p4 3.2 prescott with ht and an 800mhz fsb, upgraded my motherboard to a asus p4p800-e deluxe, and i put in new corsair xms pc 3200 1gb dual channel ram (upgraded from crappy crucial pc2700) and ive seen almost no performance gain at all. game load times are the same and windows still runs kinda slow. what i wanted to know is if my 350w psu is holding my system back. i have two 80gb 7200rpm hd's two dvd burners, radeon 9700 pro, cathodes, neon case fans and a coolermaster cpu fan with neons. is this possible or did i miss something?

 

[blodhi74]

did you do a fresh windows install ? ... loaded all the mobo drivers ???

 

[stevey5036]

no i didnt do a fresh install but i did load all drivers.

 

[blodhi74]

very unlikely it could be the PSU .... what PSU and vid card do U have ?? but I guess would be fresh windows install .... did U enable HT in BIOS ??

 

[stevey5036]

psu is a raidmax rd-350w. i have a radeon 9700 which has lately been telling me randomly that i havent connected the power cable to it even though it has always been connected. all settings are correct in bios (i think)

 

[blodhi74]

radeon 9700 draws a lot of power (have one) .... what are the amps on 12v rail ( look @ the sticker on the PSU )

 

[stevey5036]

14 amps

 

[Insomniak]

Ugh. Get ANYTHING else. Raidmax is the absolute bottom of the pile.

 

[stevey5036]

yea i figured that b/c it came with my case and its about 2 years old now and none of the original parts are in it anymore.

 

[flamingspinach]

Raidmax is horrible, go get an Antec PSU.

-fs

 

[blodhi74]

Originally posted by: stevey5036
14 amps

that could be a problem .... I have PMed a respected member of this fourm about this issue and will let U know what he thinks.... oh ... and welcome to the fourms .

 

[stevey5036]

thanks a lot blodhi

yea i was looking at an antec heres the link

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...tion=17-103-922&depa=0

i know its a bit overkill but im willing to spend the money to get the most outta my pc. especally with the new parts.

 

[blodhi74]

Originally posted by: stevey5036
thanks a lot blodhi

no problem ..... IMHO PSU is the most overlooked and under rated component ..... A good PSU can do wonders

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Ugh. Get ANYTHING else. Raidmax is the absolute bottom of the pile.

Really? As bad as... as... :Q



Whether the PSU is slowing the system down or not, I wouldn't be trying to power a 3.2GHz Prescott and a mid-upper-end video card with a cheapie 350W unit. Some would disagree, but they are obviously all wrong hehe...

In Task Manager, does it show two CPU graphs, showing that Hyperthreading is enabled for you? And is the memory in the correct slots for dual-channel operation (see manual) and running at full speed? You might get some useful info using CPU-Z.

I can remark that on the i865/i875 boards it is sometimes important to relax the memory timings a little and make sure that the memory's getting its rated voltage by manually setting it in the BIOS. I happen to have cooked up pretty detailed instructions on that mobo's big brother in this thread from the archives, if you need guidance on precisely how to do it.

 

[mechBgon]

Also, there's always adware/spyware/viruses/Trojans. What do you have for:

Windows version
Windows service pack
Firewall software
Antivirus software (be precise, I'm looking for "Norton Antivirus 2004 with the Jan. 19th definitions," not just "Norton")
When was your last antivirus scan

 

[blodhi74]

mechBgon has spoken ....... hey stevey5036 listen to what mech has to say and good luck

 

[stevey5036]

yes task manager does show two graphs and it is enabled in my bios. the ram modules are in the correct spots. (start up screen shows ram running at 400mhz dual channel linear or something) i dont quite know how to change latencys with ram and stuff i dont think i need to though. the ram runs 2-5-5-5. what is the correct voltage for ram?

 

[stevey5036]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Also, there's always adware/spyware/viruses/Trojans. What do you have for:

Windows version
Windows service pack
Firewall software
Antivirus software (be precise, I'm looking for "Norton Antivirus 2004 with the Jan. 19th definitions," not just "Norton")
When was your last antivirus scan

windows xp pro sp 2
norton internet security 2005 with norton antivirus 2005 with jan 19th defs
last scan was about an hour ago (randomly scans when it feels like it) no negative results.

i also scan with spybot and adaware regularly.

 

[mechBgon]

I'd try 2.5-3-3-7 RAM timings at 2.7 volts, and install the latest motherboard drivers from Intel: http://support.intel.com/suppo...psets/sb/CS-009247.htm And I would move up to a quality-brand power supply like you were thinking about. As far as game load times, that's probably bottlenecked by the hard drives and might just be The Way Things Are?.

 

[mechBgon]

BTW Norton Antivirus 2005 will launch a scan when it receives new virus definitions, to see if it detects stuff that it had missed with the previous definitions, so that might be why the random scans sometimes. They usually release their weekly definition updates on Wednesdays, or in the event of a significant outbreak going around.

 

[stevey5036]

mechBgon thank you so much for your help. i just dled the motherboard drivers and im going to go change some settings in my bios. ill let you know how it turns out

 

[stevey5036]

everything is looking good so far. im gonna go ahead and see what i can do about a new psu, then eventually a raptor drive.

 

[Ken90630]

i recently added a lot of new components to my older pc, hoping to really speed it up. but ive had almost no luck. Ive upgraded my old p4 2.6 (no ht, 533 fsb) to a new p4 3.2 prescott with ht and an 800mhz fsb,

Hey, Steve,

Just so you know, that particular CPU upgrade wouldn't give you much of a noticeable improvement in most applications. The deal with Intel Prescotts is that all of them that run slower than about 3.6 GHz don't really show much speed improvement (if any) over the high-end previous P4s (with Northwood cores) because the Prescott has a much longer pipeline -- 31 stages vs. 20, if memory serves -- than the previous Northwood P4s. When Anand and his merry elves ran their extensive tests awhile back, the conclusion was that Prescotts only begin to show their mettle at clock speeds above 3.6 GHz. That speed and beyond is what's required to overcome the longer pipeline and produce tangible results beyond that of a Northwood P4. That article is, incidentally, here somewhere on Anandtech.com if you wanna search for it. I believe it was called "Prescott Arrives With Baggage." It was very exhaustive and pretty well done.

You might see a slight improvement in multi-tasking speed due to the fact that your Prescott has H-T, but H-T really only helps with true multi-tasking or with apps that have been specifically optimized for it (like adding particular filters in Adobe Photoshop CS, for example). But you probably already know all that.

Anyway, also remember that a P4 Northwood at 2.6 GHz is a smokin' fast chip. It's no slouch. So you're really gonna have to go insane with a processor upgrade to see a really noticeable improvement from a proc upgrade alone. I second blodhi74's recommendation to at least do a fresh install of Windows. A lot of experts recommend doing a fresh install about once a year anyway due to the fact that Windows tends to collect "malformed stubs" in the registry and stuff, which tend to muck up the works. I certainly don't claim to know it all re this stuff, but my recommendation is to get a new Enermax or Antec PSU and do a fresh install of Windows, then see where you are. And yeah, a Raptor will prolly speed up load times a bit. Certainly can't hurt (expect for the hit to the wallet).

Hope you find this info useful.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Originally posted by: stevey5036
everything is looking good so far. im gonna go ahead and see what i can do about a new psu, then eventually a raptor drive.

I'd say if your going to get an Antec, get a NeoPower 480W.