HTPC PSU - 350W enough???

I've got a HTPC that I've just recently refreshed. It's an Athlon II X4 2.8GHz proc, Asus M4A88T mobo, 4GB DDR3, a single 7200RPM HDD, dual tuner card, and a BD-ROM drive - all stuffed into a Silverstone HTPC case. Now, I had an OCZ GameExtreme 600W die with the old dual core Opteron proc.

I felt that the 600W was overkill, and ordered a 350W Sparkle PSU.

I'm getting hard locks trying to install Windows 7 on it, and all I can come up with is that the PSU is not strong enough. I get graphical errors/artifacts when it locks at a time which seems to be initializing the video (possibly drawing too much power????) The Sparkle has 300W maximum on the 2 12v rails which I figured would be enough with onboard video and not being overclocked.

Any thoughts??

Power Supplies cant draw to much power, it doesnt matter if you have a 1200W PSU. If your cpu needs 40W, it will only output 40 watts.
I think you may have a short in your power supply. you should have enough power for all that. If you have an extra power cord laying around try that. I had a bad power cord and my computer wouldn't even POST at times. Try a different cord, if that doesnt work, try the psu on a different computer.

benny428 said:

Power Supplies cant draw to much power, it doesnt matter if you have a 1200W PSU. If your cpu needs 40W, it will only output 40 watts.
I think you may have a short in your power supply. you should have enough power for all that. If you have an extra power cord laying around try that. I had a bad power cord and my computer wouldn't even POST at times. Try a different cord, if that doesnt work, try the psu on a different computer.

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I tried the PSU on the old Opteron board and it runs that setup just fine.

hmm... try unplugging your tuner cards and see if that helps. tuner card maybe drawing a lot of power.

benny428 said:

hmm... try unplugging your tuner cards and see if that helps. tuner card maybe drawing a lot of power.

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I had just the bare board and hdd and optical. Same thing.

try a 450 watt power supply. you may have damaged internals in your psu...

benny428 said:

try a 450 watt power supply. you may have damaged internals in your psu...

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How would it be damaged if it runs the Opteron board just fine??

You've got a 120W-150W system right now, if that... provided you're using onboard video. You didn't mention a GPU, so I'm guessing you're using the motherboard's video output.

If the machine's not working because of the power supply, it's because it's defective (or because it's a poor unit to begin with), not because it can't supply enough power... I'm not sure who manufactures that Sparkle model. They used to make use of Fortron designs, but they've been known to use even cheaper OEMs as well if I remember right.

Regardless, 300W is way more than enough for the system you've specced here. Assuming the Sparkle unit is working fine, you're likely looking at a bad motherboard, instead.

theflyingrat said:

You've got a 120W-150W system right now, if that... provided you're using onboard video. You didn't mention a GPU, so I'm guessing you're using the motherboard's video output.

If the machine's not working because of the power supply, it's because it's defective (or because it's a poor unit to begin with), not because it can't supply enough power... I'm not sure who manufactures that Sparkle model. They used to make use of Fortron designs, but they've been known to use even cheaper OEMs as well if I remember right.

Regardless, 300W is way more than enough for the system you've specced here. Assuming the Sparkle unit is working fine, you're likely looking at a bad motherboard, instead.

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That's what I was figuring for power usage. I am using onboard video but I also have an extra AMD 5450 that I could use. I had a Biostar board for a bit but I returned it because it was so unstable and got the Asus instead. Since I'm getting the same thing, it's either these 880G chipsets or the PSU. I'm currently waiting on a different PSU to test with.

I remebered that Sparkle used to be Fortron designs which is why I decided on it. Externally, it still appears to be a Fortron. I'll update by mid/end of this week. Thanks!