Not Enough Juice

R

rimmer

Geek
Hi, I am here because I think my mum and dad's PCs power supply is not enough to power their PC. And suggestions for a new one.

For starters, we got their PC from tiny 3 and a half years ago. It had 1 hard drive, DVD writer and onboard graphics. I have been upgrading it since. e.g. I added a 2nd hard drive, a DVD ROM drive, a floppy drive and a couple of case fans.

Recently I replaced the Geforce 6600 AGP 256MB with a 7600GS 256MB AGP, and it also required a 4 Pin plug into it.

Brilliant results from it, but my dad wants to play FEAR, so I installed it, played about 5 mins worth of singleplayer, then I heard the hard drive power up, then down, the game hung, then carried on, then blue screened. I turned it off.

When I got back to it, it wasn't recognizing the C drive, and came up with "something.dll is missing please reinstall the file which is missing or corrupt."

I went inside it and plugged another power cable to the hard drive and it picked it up in BIOS again, but every time I start it up now, it blue screens, I have tried recovery console and safe mode, no luck. Looks like I am going to be formatting it.

Anyway, cutting to the chase now, once I have done the formatting and re-installing, I wish to stop this problem from re-occurring, it has happened ever since I changed the graphics card to something which wants more juice.

Basically it has a 300Watt 18A power supply, and it is running:

Athlon 64 3000+ newcastle socket 754 2GHz (no overclocking)
2 x 512MB RAM @ 333MHz (underclocked from 400MHz)
2 Hard drives, both IDE, one 160GB one 20GB
a DVD RW and a DVD ROM drives
MSI VIA KT8 chipset mATX board with 2 PCI and AGP 8x - 20 Pin ATX + 4 12v
2 Case fans (80mm) CPu cooler (92mm)
PCI sound card with CMI chip
geforce 7600GS AGP 256MB (manually overclocked: from 400MHz core to 515MHz, 500MHz Memory to 620MHz)

I think its too demanding for such power supply, and I have looked at corsair's lower end VX 450Watt power supply, and they are gettin very good results, despite only having 1 12v rail, with 33A and all the special connectors you get for it.

What are anyone elses views? (and does anyone think I can get away without formatting with the blue screening on startup?)
 
yea, so you would recommend corsair's VX 450 model? the better HX high end models got brilliant results, as did this one, but is designed for a PC such as this one in mind, and, for my mum who is wanting to "go green" with efficiency, it is 85% efficient, or 80% at full load

superb. And yea, my dad still plays video games, hes 42 as well !!!
 
I think it would be best if you go for the cheaper one. their both good and stable, but this one doesnt have the price...
 
yea true, I think I`ll do that, by the way, I put their main hard drive in my pc, which was partitioned, saved the majority of files on the other part, but the windows partition, says its RAW and needs formatting. Is there any way of recovering the few files on that partition?
 
same thing happened to my hd, never got to recover it though.... might be some software recovery tool out there...
 
I give up, 95% of what I wanted recovering was on the correct partition anyway.

One thing though, does anybody think it MUST have been down to the power supply that caused this failure? Because my dad is paying out £40 for this new, corsair 450W power supply, and wants this kind of thing not to happen again, and wants to be able to play his games.

---

I was playing FEAR single player, started shooting cans and shelves and other metal objects, creating sparks on the game, and intensifying physics, because of the objects like cans getting thrown throughout the game, plus I was right next to very high resolution water.

At that point where it must have been pretty intense and the 7600GS wanted more power, (plus the fact I overclocked it from 400MHz core to 515MHz, and did the memory from 500MHz to 620MHz) and the hard drive powered down, and back up, then back down and I got Blue screen of Death.

Next time I switched it on, the hard drive wasn't detected, so I jiggled the cables and changed to another 4 pin connector, and it picked it up, HOWEVER blue screens everytime I start it up, even in safe mode, just after the Windows XP loading bar screen.

No worries, I have saved everything my dad wants, and I am awaiting this new power supply and then I shall re-install windows and everything else back onto the PC.

Anyway, back to my question, do you think this problem was caused by insufficient power to the PC? Remember, 300 Watt 18A trying to run all of the above in my original post.

Cheers for help so far :D
 
It's between that or the memory. The blue screens lead me to suspect the RAM as a possible culprit, however, if it's only doing this when the system is under load and not during normal use, then the power supply would be the weak link in the system. The crux really rests on when the BSOD's happen, but if I'm reading the thread right, the edge goes to the power supply.
If you still have problems, snag Memtest86, and use that.
 
hmmm saying that I did change the RAM to 1gb in 2 512s sticks not too long ago... maybe a month or a little more. Well anyway, I put my beastly 600w thermaltake toughpower in it, to format it ready so when I put in the new one it is ready to use with windows XP and all. It ran smooth as a nut, didn't get to play anything more intense than counter strike source mind.

I think the power supply, 300Watts to power a 7600GS - I had a 6600, and it said on the box it required 350Watts and recommended 400 or more. PLUS the 7600GS also requires that you plug it in with a 4 Pin power connector. Just waiting for my dad to order this Corsair VX 450Watts, should be well more than enough for it, may even squeeze some more overclocking out of the system too :P

Cheerz for all your suggestions, and B, I will try memtest86 for 6 hours if thats enough to test 2 x 512mb's @ 333MHz. I will test it just as a precaution, however offhand I am 99% sure the power supply was the problem.
 
Right, my dad is going to order a power supply in about 6 hours or less, will this be good enough for his system? Eclipse Computers - Product Details

He will be running

Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle 754 Socket 2GHz
2 x 512mb sticks @ 333MHz
GeForce 7600GS 256MB AGP - I will be overclocking
2 IDE Hard Drives
2 IDE DVD Drives
mATX MSI VIA Chipset motherboard
PCI CMI Chip 16 Bit soundcard
3 Case fans
 
You'll probably be little better off as the +12V is maybe 18A tops. It might be enough to keep things rosy, but long term, I think it's not that much better. Thermaltake has come a long way, but the 420W just doesn't have it where it counts. Even though it is AGP, the auxillary power it draws off the molex connector is going to draw off the +12V.

Corsair makes some excellent units from what I've seen. I've been drooling over their HX series, and may very well snag one in the future.
 
OK well due to my dad deciding to change his mind and save some cash, he ordered the 420W Thermaltake, and yea, I don't think that computer is going to get any more upgrades in the future. They will be worth replacing the whole thing instead at that rate.

As long as its 100% stable and doesn't cause any problems which are down to the power supply, I don't think he is too bothered.
 
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