My brother's got some problems...

Aunty Em

Aunty Em

Well-Known Member
His computer won't boot intermittently when he switches it on ~ no beep. Then he switches off the power and reboots and it's fine ~ sounds like a psu problem to me. It's 2 years old and has only just begun to do this. I told him to try another psu.

The other problem is that it fails to load the video drivers from time to time, could these be related?

Unfortunately I can't see the computer as it's in Germany.
 
That's funny, Rusty started having that problem recently. I haven't gotten around to looking to see what the wattage of his PS is yet. That's what I thought it was too since I realized it wasn't a video problem.
 
Yes, I remember someone saying it could be a psu problem and looking in my trouble-shooting bible confirms that possibility.

I've just spoken to him and he says he has added some extra bits to the computer including a DVD Rom and the bigger graphics card and a sound card but that it was working fine until a couple of weeks ago, so I advised him to try a higher wattage as well as his is only 300W.
 
I'd say you at least hit the first thing to try, the video could be related if it isn't getting enough power when it turns on.
 
If he's going with GeForce 3 - 4 ( a REAL GeF4) -or better (NV30) he'll be wanting 400 CLEAN watts minimum...

..same for the ATI 8500 and up...especially 9700 pro....

....but if this is simply random it may be, believe it or not...dust in the PS. Seen it more than a few times....

MADrin
 
I've never had any problem running lower end power supplies. My current setup is 250watts running a radeon 7500 w/2 ide and 2 scsi drives. People insisted i run a more powerful psu but i've never had any problem. My Radeon 9500pro will be in in a couple of days and i'm planning on running it on a 300watts psu which people still say isn't enough but we'll see. I've never really seen the point in having a 400/450watt psu when i run as much or more hardware as most people i know.
 
Trust me on this one...the dif between the 7500 series and the 8500 and up is significant...

...the 9500-9700 series WAS initially supposed to have its own EXTERNAL power, you know...

...the NV30 WILL have auxillary power in addition to the slot...

250 ain't gonna do it. You may even create a fire hazard...

MADrin
 
Considering my case is made of wood i definetely don't want a fire. Hoping 300(minimum recommended for 9500pro) watt will do as that's what i've got coming in the mail.
 
If its a quality 300 it might do the job, watts don't matter its how much it outputs on the 3.3+5V line, if your cpu regularly draws more than the psu can handle it will most likely crash or have issues, that saying i've run from a T bird [email protected] ages ago to a XP 2800+ on a certain FSP group 300W psu and it refuses to give in, though i use an Enermax 460w on my single systems and a 550W on my dual XP1900 rig for fulltime use, also ran that T bird 1.33 on a 250W FSP as well without fail for months before i upgraded the psu, and its stil lworking with an XP 2100+ @ 1.73Ghz Palomino.
 
i'm running my XP with a 8500 on a [quality] 330W and it works no prob. The way I understand it the 9700 isn't too piggish when you compare it to the new nvidia which draws some gawdawful enourmous amount of wattage
 
I've also been running the Athlon 1.333 + 512ram, Soundblaster, modem, two ide drives, two scsi drives & the Radeon. It really does sound like a lot for 250Watt psu.
 
When compared to NV30 product the 9700 is pretty conservative powerwise...but like I said, even IT had, originally, an auxillary EXTERNAL power supply. A good idea to engineer around that , I think...

but the NV30 will require auxillary power. It's a pig, but it'll be worth it...

It really depends on what you're doing. It not only matters what the processor is drawing, but also your GPU...if you're not doing anything too heavy you'll be ok , even with the 250, but if you were playing something like EverCrack, and you were in a dense region, you would probably find yourself freezing, crashing to desktop, and/or rebooting...etc.

...and though many people like to unfairly trash that game engine, the fact is that it simply thrashes the GPU and the CPU for decent rendering.

Quality in PS's matters, but quality can be had for fair prices these days...and wattage most certainly does matter..and if you're thinking of moving into next gen cards/games/and procs you may want to consider the extra 50 bucks for a decent 400+

Then again the whole thing is moot if you're just snag a whole new rig...but if you build it yourself you can always take whatever PS you got with you!

MADrin
 
wattage matters yes, but if the psu is not a quality 400w or the power is divided in such a way that the needed volts are not gettin enough amps behind em then that can spell trouble. Some quality 250W/300W psus output more on the 5v/3.3v line than most 400W Generic psus i've seen.
 
Yep..and there are plenty of those crappy PS's out there to be had. With any equipment you WILL pay for quality. In the case of a power supply , though..the price shouldn't break too many people's banks, I shouldn't think...

...especially if one is moving up to the high end video cards.

well..maybe that doesn't make sense, really....with the current price of those options it probably leaves most people flat ass broke LOL!

..but yeah...what matters is feed, particularly along those lines.

MADrin
 
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