ECS K7S5A - 350w or 300w AMD PSU?

[Slaught]

Ok, I bought myself an Elite K7S5A, to go with my athlon XP 1700+ but ive been having problems.
Windows runs fine, but when i come to 3d apps, such as games, the sound goes, and I get lockups after a short period.

I know its not an overheating problem, I have a substantial HS/Fan, and its only warm to the touch.

Ive been told it could be a PSU problem, im currently Using a gnereic 300w PSU, although that gave me no problems when running my duron 800 @ 1ghz on an abit kt7.
So my question is this, does it sound like a psu problem, and should I buy a 300W AMD approved PSU, or a generic 350W PSU, bearing in mind they cost the same.

Thx,

 

[maxima88]

Could be your psu but I also have a generic 300watt psu and am running 2 Hds, 1 DVDrom, CD burner and added 5 case fans and a rheostat baybus and everything running ok.
might be something else that's causing it.

 

[Tismedt]

Check your 5v and 12v readings in the bios/hardware monitor. If your 5v is low ie 4.6 or less your psu is most likely your problem XP's are power hungry. Also you can get a lot of good info here http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58333 about your psu. If it were me I'd go with a AMD approved 300 watt at a min. PSU is the most important part of your system try not to be cheap.

 

[deadpoet]

running a K7S5A with a amd XP 1700+

2 HDD; HDD-cooling devices; system-fans; dvd and burner.

system stable under heavy 3D apps.


it also could be that your ram might not like your board; do you use SD or DDR RAM???

I got SD's and got lock ups too, but no problem with INFINEON DDR RAM.

Try setting your FSB down (under 133/133) then run the 3d apps.
If it doesn't lock up it could be the RAM

 

[HBK216]

Sounds like it could be a memory problem.

 

[Slaught]

Hmm, well I lowered the bus speeds to 100/100, still get crashes, at about the same time too. So I guess its not the RAM.
I ordered an AMD approved PSU so im hoping that will sort things out.
If not I know where to turn

Thx for the help, and any more advice greatly appreciated

 

[Slaught]

Update

well got my 300w AMD approved PSU, but still getting crashes, and failure of sound in 3d Games.

So i dunno what could be the problem

Thing is, windows runs fine, and sandra will run fine in Burn in mode without crashing

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I really wish id never bought this stinky board

 

[Slaught]

One other oddity is that Half-Life runs fine, both in OpenGL and Direct 3D, with full sound working properly.

The mind boggles...

 

[partyman]

Its probably your ram causing your lockups.If you are using 2 sticks, take 1 out.I have seen this problem too , so your not alone
It's a fairly comman problem with some of k7s5a and sdram.If you go to some of the other forums , you will see others with the same problem. I think maybe some revisions of this board are very picky about the ram.I have had no problems with the systems I built using DDR ram and this board however.

 

[Slaught]

well i can say it WASNT the RAM, Ive had that up to 142 stable in Windows.

I decided to check around a bit more about this motherboard, and I found the updated drivers.

I installed the updated AGP driver, and low and behold, NO MORE CRASHES!

only thing now is I totally stuffed up my sound, I dont get any at all anymore in directX games, so gotta do some more driver testing.

Thx for everyones help tho