newbie psu questions

[splat]

I'm new to over clocking and building computers from scratch for that matter. I recently built a 1.8 ghz machine with a willamette processor, asus p4b266 motherboard, mushkin 256mb pc2100 ddr, 300w FSP Group power supply. Everything else was from my old computer....4x dvd, 8x cdrw, 15gig 7200rpm ata66, various pci and agp vid cards (i don't think those r creating any problem, tho i know they take up pwer too.) When i bought my psu, i asked the shop i bought it from if i needed a 400w for a pentium 4, cause i noticed most systems had that. he said that 300w would be fine and 400 was for people whowere connecting 3 or more hard drives. I just got a ata100 7200rpm 60gig hd and put it in, then i tried to install a new game. it took forever to install of the cd, and i just chalked that up to being a big game. but then i put another cd in to my cdrw and that took forever to browse it. when i say forever i mean what felt like a minute or 2 to open up in my computer. so thats when i started doubting my psu. a friend of mine says i should get a 500w just to be safe. I'm planning on buying a new dvd drive and a new cdrw, or maybe jsut a combo drive this summer. is 500w the way to go?

also, i want to overclock my processor, which has been my intent since even planning to put this computer together. the voltage readings by asus prob right now are +12v=11.776 +5v=4.919 +3.3v=3.28 Vcore=1.744....mbm5 gives me these readings: core0=1.74 core1=1.74 +3.3=3.28 +12=11.19 -12=11.62 -5=-4.90 +5=4.92 are these reading normal? I have had this computer together for a few months now and haven't really payed attention to the readings before this cause I didn't ahve the time. the slow cdroms r what sparked my interest in this.

so i guess my main question is, do i need a bigger psu?

thanks for the help.

 

[Kakao]

I don't think your CD reading speed has any relation with the PSU.
How are your HDs, CD and DVD installed.
I would place the 2 HDs in the first IDE chanel and the CD and DVD on the second, with the CDRW as master. I would also set the DMA option in device manager for all of them. Does your motherboard require special IDE DMA drivers? Which chipset the p4b266 uses?

 

[splat]

i think it is to do with the psu and the new hd because i never had this problem before i installed the new hd.

I have the hd's on the primary and the cd's on the secondary. primary hd is the 15gig ata66 because i had it first and i don't feel like formatting and reinstalling on my 60 gig yet, maybe over the summer i will. the 60 gig is ata100 and it says in the motherboard book that it suggests attaching ata100 devices to the white plug, or the end of the cable, but my primary hd is plugged in to that. does it matter if i have my primary hd, the ata66 1, plugged in to the middle and still be the primary? I have the dvd drive set as the primary cd because the cdrw is really slow, and in my old pc the dvd was primary and cdrw was slave. I don't know if my motherboard requires special dma drivers, i also don't know how to set the DMA in device manager. I'm on win2k if it means anything.

as i said i am a newb to all this.

 

[craigiz1]

Every little thing add's up. You didn't mention about fan's for cooling. I personaly would have at least a 400w p/s. In your case, with the cd/rw,dvd and 2 h/d's it's probably better to have more. And as for the speed problem, the hard drive's will default to the slower ata66. Not sure if this is your problem though. Just something to remember. It doesn't matter which h/d you use as master as long as master is on the end and slave is on the middle. Hard drive's on the primary IDE and cd's, dvd's on the secondary IDE. Make sure your jumper's are set properly on the h/d's and rom's.

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS

 

[splat]

o yeah, my processor is a 478 pin, forgot to mention that before. and I don't think the hard drives themselves r not slow, its just the cdrom drives. also, in the motherboard book, it says that there is the 4 pin in a square connector and then there is a regular 4 pin connector incase your psu doesn't have the special p4 connector. i do not have the regualr conenctor plugged in right now because the manual made it sound like it wasn't necessary. should i have that plugged in? does it make a difference?

 

[splat]

o yeah and thanks for welcoming me

 

[splat]

plugging in that extra 4 pin connector didn't do anything. no one has answered my question about what my readings should be, or what a safe range of readings is. are the readings going to change when i start over clocking? are tehre thigns to look out for?