DO I NEED A NEW POWER SULpPLY CHAPS

[bigjonnyauk]

HI ALL

in the process of trying to slowly upgrade my system anyways i just got a new case and a few weeks back a new gfx card (leadtek a350 tdh)(gforce 5900)

right i am getting a few probs which are as follows

every now and then i get system hang or the freeze

when i shut down it takes like forever screen goes blank then hangs after about 15 secs makes a strange sound then whoosh off it goes its hard to explaing the sound,more like a second loud humm

i have this running of my psu

case has 2 fans with l.e.d
another case fan =aero blower from coolermaster
aero lite cpu fan
front lights for case these are connected with a molex aswell
dvd rom
cdrw
floppy
the graphics card has its own power input aswell
hard drive ibm 7200

i am having to use a couple of moles splitters so i have enough ends lol


no i think it could be my power supply not giving enough but would like anyone to maybe confirm this especially when i teel ya what i got lol


Q-TEC 450 WATT DUAL FAN had it around a year but never had this much connected to it

cheers

only got 45 quid for a decent quiet one if anyone can suggest would like 450w if possible

[unrealrocks]

I wouldn't have thought that PSU would have problems if its running correctly!

£45 prob won't get you a great one, not looked for PSUs in along time ...

[bigjonnyauk]

when i say q-tec i mean the cheap nasty firm qtec lol not the one that does proper stuff

[SilentDeath]

www.scan.com or it might be .co.uk i cant remember..

they sell decent CWT power supplys. all of the CWT ones are exactly the same as antec, which are one of the best psu makers. the 350w and 450w are B series, so there slightly cheaper, but they will be niosyer and have a LOT less output than the A series versions. scan only stock the A series in 550w model unfortunatly but its the one i recommend most. my 550w is compleatly silent btw, the 92mm fan runs at around 1.5k rpm most of the time

[bigjonnyauk]

can i ask how you know the difference between the a and b series as i can search around do you think i should stick with a 450w or go for the 550

[SilentDeath]

http://web6.scan.co.uk/Products/Info.asp?WPID=59492
thats the psu ^
this page has the specs for all the cwt psus...
http://www.cwt.com.tw/CwtEng/index12.htm

cwt only make a 550w version of the A series, there isnt one for B or ISO. the same applys to the other psus, the other wattages listed on scan are not made in the A seires.
its the 550w ADP series that i have, http://www.cwt.com.tw/CwtEng/product...cwt-550adp.htm
the site might accctully be wrong witht eh max for +12v due to my psus sticker saying 36A, not 24, but both are high so it doesnt matter... its the 5v and 3.3v that are most important. A series psu's have seperate rails, meaning seperate coils on the transformer - this stops a high load on one voltage making the other voltages drop due to there being no power left for them.
the 550w one "*+5V, +12V and +3.3V output power shall not exceed 530W" thats all of the important rails - nice high value.
the 450w one "*+5V and +3.3V output power shall not exceed 250W" - thats cos there shared. 12v isnt listed becuase its same as in teh table. too much load on the 5v on this psu will now leave much left for the 3.3v.
another reson its better is the important rails have 3% regulation, instead of 5% regulation. 3.3 is better

a decent 450w psu (the cwt one *IS* decent) would be plenty for your pc though as you dont have too much on it. i didnt relise they were 2x the price for the 550w one. i dneeded a 500w one though due to heavy overclocking and may use pelters in future.

[bigjonnyauk]

thanks for the info mate very helpful.

im afraid i am not upto much on the electrical side of things lol in any way shape or form lol

i just know my system has some quite bad hang on it especially when shutting down.

i did purchase the zorro case and that came with a 450w supply which i had originally installed,my system seemed better and some programs opened a lot quicker and it sut down very quick aswell.

But then my fortune turned in to misery as my 6 year old lad promptly said "look dad there is a switch here and before i could say "DONT TOUCH IT" he had flipped it to 115v and we had a 3 secs light show and kaput.

expecting the worse i put my old qtec back in and everything seemed fine.and then i realised it had took my soundcard with it (so new card bought) i suppose i was lcky it only took the cheap thing with it and not the mobo.

But this is why i am wondering if my current psu is not hacking it i have a system monitor thing with voltages mnitoring and it shows this


VCORE 1.77 3.3v= 3.39 5v=5.12 12v = fluctuates between 11.90 and 12.1

while this dosent mean a great deal to me you may make some sense of it and tell me if there is anything untoward here to suggest it is struggling

now my hands hurt so gonna stop lol

[Theo]

I'd recommend the Thermaltake Purepower (I think that's what it's called.. don't have the box anymore), silent 420W psu.

Quicklinx for dabs.com: 28YRWS

£37.50 inc vat, exc p&p (£3.50)

Got yourself a bargain there for £41.00 all inc. Damn good psu, rocksolid stable, it wouldn't even dance if it had legs. Very very quiet, can't hear it at all, really.

[bigjonnyauk]

that looks ok theo but looking at the one reveiw there is it says he had probs running with a msi mobo which is what i have lol

unless he bodged it up

[SilentDeath]

while the above is a good psu, the cwt is cheaper. id say the 450w cwt would probably be better.. or atleast equal, but have a look on google for reviews of "antec 450w" and see what you find... it maybe crap (CWT psus = rebranded antecs).

VCORE 1.77 3.3v= 3.39 5v=5.12 12v = fluctuates between 11.90 and 12.1

the +12v rail is irrelevant really, in most psus its the one that varies the most. the only things that *usually* use it are case fans and other motors (sometimes hdd's, but i doubt any hdd would use it without regualting it first, which could only allow 9v or so...). also CCFL litghts use 12v but thats about it.
both your +3.3 and +5v rails are high - good
what is your vcore set at in bios, usually theres a small am amount of undervolting though (0.1-0.3v).
variations in voltage will either be cased by it struggling, or changes in temperature while its running.
these are my rails: Voltages: (VCore: 1.78V, VMem: 2.82V, +3.3: 3.22V, +5.00: 4.89V, +12.00: 11.67V, -12.00: -11.94V, -5.00: 3.55V)
the difference between mine and most is that they are always the same (+5,+12,+3.3, -12. -5v). my +5 +12 and +3.3 are all rock solid at the above. nothing can change them! even other people with the same psu and same mobo wil get the exact same values (has to be same mobo due to built in resistance and diff monitoring chips).
the reson my rails appear slightly low (still within 3%!) is because of the EPS->ATX cable converter adds extra resistance. with a multimeter from a molex i acctually get slightly high rails.
not quite sure whats with the -5.5v though but that is not used in any recent stuff.

also my psu is compleatly silent - in a watercooled system which lacks the fans most pcs have. the psu has never got past 1650rpm, and is usually at 1560rpm, which is quiet for a 92mm fan. i think the 80mm fan is about the same..

before you go and spend money, i recommend you get memtest86, burn to cd, and go thru a few passes of that. if that passes then prime95 is the next best app to run in torture mode, it will find any cpu problems quickly. if you get errors then have a look at the temperatures of cpu etc.. and its not above 50c then try underclocking stuff.. (cpu, ram, mobo) which should fix most stability problems.

qtec psus are dodgy and tbh id get a new one anyway. I would prefer the 250W CWT psu @ scan (£12 something..) over a 550w q-tec psu tbh. atleast one of them wont damage any compnents if it died (q-tecs lack saftey features i assume, cos they shouldnt be able to damage anything!)

[Alex]

Just out of interest, as Im looking for a decent silent PSU, what do you people think of this?

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/product.p...233dc80892c22f

I have heard a few good things, but I thought Id ask in case anyone here has any input, or has had any experience with it.

[bigjonnyauk]

hey silent what exactley does that mem test thing do i did the floppy version instead as i tried the iso and it didnt work i followed the instructions and just had a load of numbers on the left of screen after reboot is this right and how long does it all take i shut down as i though it seemed strange

i burned the disk ok using iso in nero but nothing happened it read it and then just went to load windows

[SilentDeath]

with the cd version you will need to goto your bios and set your cd drive as the first boot drive. put the hdd as second, that way you wont need to change it back after, you can just remove the cd and it wll boot normally.
ive never had any problems with it loading. the screeen should be blue with some text on it. it has a simple menu which can be goto by pushing C. escape is restart.
note you need either a ps2 keyboard or a mobo which suports usb keybaords under DOS for your keyboard to work (nf7-s users, you need a ps2 kb for the menu!). keyboard isnt needed though. test 5 is the most usefull, you need a kb to skip other tests and loop test5...
ab1385 - the CWT 550w at scan will be able to give much more power and is about the same price. imo my cwt 550w psu is less than 19db. i cant hear it anyway and its less than two meters from my ear. my opinoin of the kustom pcs one is just that it is very overpriced.. the specs listed are not anything applicale to pc's really and most psus will be baout the same, dont confuse those specs with unique features...

[Spud1]

i've got a Levicom 350W ATX PSU Blue Fan LED £34.66 from aria

it looks awesome and feels very heavy. running this system off it

athlonXP2800+ @ 2.25ghz
1gig Ocz ddr 400 ram
radeon9800pro flashed toXT
2x120gig HDs (1xIMB 1xMaxtor)
1x16speed CDRW
1xDvD drive
4 case fans
zalman flower cu cpu cooler
MSI k7N2delta-ILSR NF2 mobo
2x UV cold cathodes

and its stable as a rock =) very quiet too, esp compared to my old qtech