Psu R.i.p.

[The Codfather]

Well I expected something like this.

I installed a bunch of new parts on Friday night, namely;

Opteron 148 (no OC'ing done)
XFX 7900GT
Asus A8N-SLI-Deluxe

Got it sorted and for all of Friday and Saturday morning it ran just great. However I went away Saturday daytime and when I got back Sunday morning and went into the PC room I smelt the faint smell of burning electrics, went to turn the PC on and... nothing.

My PSU is a 580w Hiper TypeR which I thought would be more than adequate for what I run on it;

(previously mentioned parts)
3x HDD's
2X DVD-Roms
2X 120mm Fans

Now.. I was worried that the PSU may have been on it's way out before, as I kept getting constant random restarts, but obviously being stupid I decided to disregard this as everything but a power problem but the restarts stopped when I took out my X-Fi front bay of all things.. :/

All I get when I go to turn the PSU on is big nothing.. until I remove the power lead from the PSU when it'll seem to come to life for about half a second then do nothing. So I'm pretty sure it's toast.
I'll RMA it to Hiper soon as, but for the moment I need a new PSU,

I'm looking at these two;

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=284212

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=192077

as I've heard them mentioned.

It's a bugger, no PC build has ever gone straight forward for me, there's always at least one problem.

Any advice on PSU's or mockery of my stupidy welcomed

[peterb]

If you physically removed the Xfi bay, tnen that might indicate that the PSU was overheating (removing the bay would have improvedb the airflow)

There have been lots of posta about the relative merits of various PSUs. Seasonic and Tagan seem to have the most (vociferous) devotees! However although buying the most expensive doesn't gurantee good quality, buying a cheap on almost certainly indicates that the mfr has shaved costs to the bone and so the components may be working at their design limits, which will shorten their life and precipitate early failure.

There was a comprehensive review of some PSUs somewhere on the Hexus net.

[this_is_gav]

Removing the bay also indicates your system was perhaps just drawing more juice than the PSU could handle, as the bay itself needs power. Can't imagine it needs much, but it might have just tipped it over the edge.

You wouldn't expect the thing to blow though - just start fluctuating and dropping a hard drive and provide a bit of the aforementioned instability.

[The Codfather]

Well I'm kinda stunned myself, I really didn't think that this equipment could draw over 580w, but I guess I was wrong.

I'm going to go for the Enermax I think, it has a good rep and 620w should be more than enough.. saying that though, I plan to stick a second card in there at some point, is it worth bumping the extra for a 700w or higher?

[FInalD]

580W should be more than enough to run the system you've stated. Here for a PSU calculator, they may not be accurate, but they give you a good impression of how much power will be drawing. With a similar set up (but an opti 165 oced to 2.7GHz) it needs less than 560. SO your system should be running less power and be absolutly fine. If you do overclock your computer it may push your power usage up a bit (still under the 560w) but it doesn't hurt to have too much power for your system , which also makes it safer for any upgrades you decide upon at a later date.

[The Codfather]

Mm, thanks for the linkage

Sounds like the 620w should be just fine then. It's a shame the Hiper popped though, it's a really nice PSU and it's been flawless up until a month or so ago, still I hope to get it RMA'd so I'll always have it for a spare I guess.

[this_is_gav]

Well I'm kinda stunned myself, I really didn't think that this equipment could draw over 580w, but I guess I was wrong.

I'm going to go for the Enermax I think, it has a good rep and 620w should be more than enough.. saying that though, I plan to stick a second card in there at some point, is it worth bumping the extra for a 700w or higher?

The PSU should be enough, but you never know.

BTW, Enermax are solid enough, but they generally can't handle the watts they advertise. I know mine can't get close to the 600w it's rated at.

Opty 146, 2gb RAM, 4 case fans, 2 Raptors, 1 Seagate, 2 opticals. If I had any 4th hard drive it fails. Can't cope. According to that PSU guide, I'm only pulling 412w, and I was being generous when looking at that.

I'd go Seasonic or Tagan at the moment personally.

[philipbain]

Is your computer surge protected? Its just that with the hot weather we've been having recently there have been a fair few electrical storms which can play hell with the mains supply, I learnt this to my cost last year when my computer got well and truely mashed (CPU and mobo) by a surge, so if it's just your PSU your lucky, thats if it was taken out of a surge.

[wmsteele]

If you want a decent PSU that can handle the watts as advertise then you need a Seasonic.

[jimborae]

Another vote for Seasonic, that Silverstone that was linked to I believe is a bit on the noisy side of life. FSP is also another make to consider.

[The Codfather]

:/

Well contrary to the thread I went ahead and ordered the Enermax.. Hopefully it should be alright for what I need.

Serves me right for not waiting for more responses. Many thanks for the replies though everyone.

[nvening]

go for a seasonic 4 def

[The Codfather]

Now you're just mocking me -____-

[-ChEM-]

meh that enermax is weaker than most good 600w PSUs but it will be ok

for the sake of anyone reading this the silverstone you posted was really made for servers etc then they made a more home-user orientated version which was modular and replaced the 2x80mm fans with a 120mm quiet fan (its downspecced from 650W to 600W to stay cool with the new fan) here for a tenner less than the enermax

the seasonic is ok, everyone buys them for the noise (or lack of it) so theyre really popular but there are better PSU's for OCing for less £... and theyre not modular which could be annoying

[The Codfather]

Next time I'll wait all day before buying.. I feel so damn stupid now.

Have I really just ordered myself an over-priced paper wieght?

[shaithis]

Well I'm kinda stunned myself, I really didn't think that this equipment could draw over 580w, but I guess I was wrong.

I'm going to go for the Enermax I think, it has a good rep and 620w should be more than enough.. saying that though, I plan to stick a second card in there at some point, is it worth bumping the extra for a 700w or higher?

That was never drawiong that much power, not even close!

I have the same 580w Hiper PSU and its running my system fine.....including 6 hard drives (4 RAIDed, 2 singles), 1 DVD, a X1900XTX (and previously 2 x 7800GT), an overclocked opteron 175, an XFi Fatal1ty, a poweful RAID card, 2 cathodes and various fans.

System runs 24/7