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PSU not good enough?

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HeXenViRii

Member
Joined
May 11, 2002
Location
Right near the Beach, FL
sometimes i have to click the on button a few times before my computer completely boots up (sometimes the hds dont turn on) . mbm5 shows the v5 linw @ 4.73 , but i tested a molex with a multimeter and it reads 5.03 ... the air leaving the the psu is really hot ... with the stuff in my sig ... is 300w not good enough ???
 
wow...dude...this scenerio sounds creepily familiar...

I, myself, had a 300W generic with an oc'ed 1600+ and GF4, bust at 150 ^_^...2 40gb ibm's drives in raid 0, 30gb boot drive, 2 cd-roms...and to cut to the chase...mine did a similar thing...where i had the fans partially spun up...and nothing else. I determined, by yoinking a psu i had laying around, that that my 300W was a dud... after a few good months...it failed me...

I wont SAY FOR SURE that it is the psu in your case...but i would recommend that you borrow another psu, and try it out, if it works, great. if it doesnt, come back to the forums, we wont fail you! lol Experimentation is the only way to go.

and yeah, - 5% on any line is a good sign of ineffeciency, and for overclocking, 300W is almost never enough, i have an Antec 430, and some people still prefer higher.
 
for you i'd reccomend a sparkle 350w or a 400w if you want extra. though sparkles are about 90w underrated. they have pots in them if you want to adjust the volts, and they are pretty cheap, that is if your PSU is crappy~RCTG
 
Please Please Help

I have a bit of a wierd one here. Please dont get bored with this im desperate for help.
My pc takes a few times to switch on before it posts the bios, then manages to load desktop succesfully. Everything runs fine and can play games all day. My sig was:

XP2400 @ 2332mhz - 14 x 166
Asus A7N8X motherboard
2 x 256mb sticks Nanyo pc2700 @ cas2 2-2-5 (running sync)
Hercules 9700 Pro @ 351 / 662
Soundblaster Live
Modem
2 small hard drives both 5400rpm and ata100
samsung cd writer
samsung dvd drive
Thermaltake hardcano fan controller
slk800 heatsink with delta screamer 80mm
3 x normal 80mm fans in case sucking out
2 x 120mm enermax fans blowing in
Power supply cwt 460watt

Now today i have swapped my pc2700 memory for 2 sticks of 256mb pc3200 kingmax. Now with same settings as above, i get various things happening when i switch it on.
Looping re-boots, biosrom checksum errors, just wont boot at all.
If i take out one stick of memory it boots fine, and ive tried both doing this, so isnt faulty memory. Just need to know why is it doing this after just changing my memory to a better quality type.
I think its because of low quality PSU and its just got a bit much for it, with all the overclocking and everything.
What do you guys think, need a 550w Enermax.
I really really hope someone can help, im at my wits end. I bloody knew i shouldnt have upgraded.

Many thanks in advance.
 
yea my sister had a similar problem where the comp would turn on, but not all the way, if you pressed the reset button it would then boot all the way.

I read somewhere that this was probably caused by the juce it takes to spin up the drives, cdrom, and HD, it takes more energy to get them going than to maintain it so when you boot the first time you use up most of the energy on the motors spinning the discs up and you dont have enough to continue booting so it hangs, by the time you reset you dont need to spin them up again so it takes less energy, and you are able to boot it.

I dont know how true this is but it sounds logical to me and when I replaced her psu everything was fine...BTW if you are in the market a while ago anandtech had a psu roundup and they basically said that the antec true power psu delivered the cleanest and most consistant power..(sorry but i cant find the artical rite now :( )
 
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