Athlon 2400 system - 300W power supply too little?

[Thermodynamic]

I just set up my replacement server:

Athlon 2400 (not o/c)
512MB Mushkin RAM
9GB + 4GB SCSI III hard drives
ATi Rage 128 video card
Asus A7V8X-X mobo

I had installed Win2k server, and then powered off to conserve energy.

30 minutes later, I hear a "POP" noise as if something dropped. I looked and found nothing out of place. But the computer would not turn on.

I think my power supply died, if I didn't kill it.

Was 300W too little? (I replaced a P3-700 w/768MB RAM w/ Asus BX6 mobo)

Also, did my mobo die because of the power supply, if it was insufficient?

Thx!

[subtotal]

first of all was it name brand power supply? i have to say i lost a hard drive to a generic power supply once. check the actual quality here (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=62822), and use this (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/) to figure how much power you need, then add a bit to that figure for future proofing

[Thermodynamic]

Thx for the info! Assuming I got my sums right (3.3v x 14A) + (5v x 30A), it's closer to the 350W range.

The site where I added the peripherals in, said 320W (after adding in 8.5W for the ThermalTake Volcano 11 Xaser fan, of course).

Going by their label, I was definitely pushing it.

I hope I didn't fry anything else. (the computer was "OFF" at the time, as was the Xaser fan. So I'm hopeful it was only the power supply that popped.)

The supply itself had been used quite a bit in the past, and was made in 1999

first of all was it name brand power supply? i have to say i lost a hard drive to a generic power supply once. check the actual quality here (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=62822), and use this (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/) to figure how much power you need, then add a bit to that figure for future proofing

[subtotal]

look on the bright side, consider it a forced upgrade.

[d00kie]

Do you have a spare PSU to see if your components had survived? I would say a good 300W PSU is sufficient enough to power those components listed up there. I used to run a Barton 2500+ with the same hardware in my sig using a 300W PSU and it's been running fine for two months now.

[Mark620]

Well well well...I am using a 180W power supply from a HP Pavillion to power a XP2500 with CDRW, DVD, HD & FDD. I upgraded the MB, Memory & CPU b4 I looked at the power supply ;) It has been running like this for 2-3 months 24/7 folding too :D

[larrymoencurly]

A 300W PSU with a +3.3V rail rated for just 14A is rarely a quality model, and you can't accurately estimate the combined power from the amp ratings alone, although I have a Soyo/MaxPower with identical amp ratings and an official 190W combined power rating that seems to be realistic (at least for the 10 minutes, the limit of my test). It seems that your A7V8X-X mobo uses the +5.0V rail for CPU power, making the combined power rating important, and C'T magazine said that motherboards running an XP2400+ with GeForce3 Ti500 graphics needed 150-180W combined power, or 18A @ +5.0V and 13A @ +3.3V.

Because you heard the pop when the computer was turned off (partially, I assume, not with a hardware switch on back or with a power strip switch), maybe a capacitor blew on the mobo or in the +5V standby part of the PSU. That part is often almost completely separate, with its own transformer, capacitors, and transistor or chip. The +5V standby rail is usually rated for 1-3A, but some older ones were rated for much less, and if the computer is configured to turn on by keystroke or mouse activity, then it consumes much more power than if the front panel power button has to be pressed to turn it on. I had a cheapo PSU where the +5V standby was rated for 1.5A but would shut down after several seconds when loaded to even half that much, and one company found that its PSUs were frying mobos because of inadequate standby capacity.