PSU problems?

[t3chb0y]

my current setup :

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (130nm) Newcastle 89W @ 2.2ghz
Asus A8V Deluxe ( VIA K8T800 Pro + VT8237 )
nVidia Geforce FX5500 256MB AGP 8x by MSI (overclocked)
Samsung 160GB HDD ( Model HD160JJ ) SATA2
3x 80mm fans ( All UV Led )
1 x 120nm fan ( LED )
DVD-ROM Drive (16x)
DVD+/-RW Drive (16x read , 8x write)
Floppy Drive
5 USB devices constantly connected.

Current PSU : 500W by Logisys

http://www.logisyscomputer.com/viewsku.asp?SKUID=PS500AC&DID=Main

there's 2 different crashes

When I play NFS Most Wanted ....sometimes it crashes giving a BSOD with it saying something like

nv4_display.ini ..on the bottom

and

when I was watching 24 Season 3 with DivX player....everything suddenly froze and just stood there til I pressed restart....


There's also times where the Hard drive isn't detected by the mobo's VT8237 controller...but that hasn't caused a problem now

I upgraded the hard drive recently and also added a hard drive cooler...

Yesterday , I tested my comp with Memtest and today with Prime95..no errors...

I have also ran 3Dmark in batches and no errors came from that

could the PSU be at fault?

also...I may upgrade this rig with a ATI X1800XT graphic card and with a new motherboard.....will the PSU cause problems?

 

[pengwin]

yah that PSU is really curddy.


the specs werent listed but i didnt look hard it did say the PSU was 3lbs....its crappy. my old 185.5w OEM weighs more than that,


look into an Antec SmartPower 450w, 500w. or NeoHE 500w.

 

[The_Prophecy]

An Aerocool Zerodba 500W might also be of some interest.

 

[phreejak]

Get something with at least a dual 12v rail and maybe 600 watts or better. Also, try and see if you can get something that puts out better than 15 volts across each rail. 16 - 18 would be good, the higher the better

 

[HotSauce]

What's so good about dual rails. wouldn't a single rail at around 30-35a be good

 

[phreejak]

Think of the rails like this. There are various components on a motherboard (including add-in boards) whose effectiveness depend on a stable power draw. With that in mind, multiple rails in power supplies might look something like this: 12v1 would be dedicated to the CPU/Motherboard, 12v2 for a PCIe card, 12v3 for another PCIe card and 12v4 for peripherals like fans, watercooling pump, etc. These rails are monitored and stablized through various features of each individual power supply. Typically, you can find reviews on the Internet of many power supplies that can indicate how stable they are. You can also read user comments at places like Newegg.com about experiences with a particular unit. The above examples are not specific for each power supply but are meerly indications of how individual 12v rails function. As you can see, dedicated rails with stability control is a desired function for power supplies amongst many users because of the value of things like expensive videocards, soundcards, processors and other components. I find that having 1 rail is problematic in that there could be variances in power draw from the components during different operations like playing a specific game, running a water cooling system that draws power from the unit or encoding sound or graphic files.

 

[phreejak]

Oh, and to correct an earlier typo I meant 16-18 AMPS across each rail, not volts. Techinical support for many add-in cards (especially graphic cards) will tell you that theier high end cards will not function properly on anything under 16 amps (and sometimes more depending on the card) so they won't even begin to help you as they may use this as a first response fall back.

Myself, I am using a Silverstone 750 Zeus which has 4 12v rails that produce 18 amps each.

 

[pengwin]

u'd be better off with dual triple or quad rails


also u dont need 600w, thats over kill

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103933

thats a good PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103940

the NeoHE i sbetter triple 12v rails

 

[HotSauce]

So single rails are not that stable? I've heard that either single or quad rails are perfect for overclocking. From the reviews I've read this is one helluva PSU...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817711002

Then their's a fortron on newegg with quad rails that I've not yet researched but assuming fortron's a good company, it looks good too.

 

[pengwin]

oh, yes the beast.


that OCZ PSU is ownage, price..ehh.,...i'll stick with antec. on the other hand forton makes good PSU's too

 

[phreejak]

I have one computer using the Fotron FX700

It's an excellent power supply. I just didn't use it in my main computer because I wasn't too thrilled with the amperage across the 12v rails (Only 15 amps) - it had some issues powering my 7900 GTX

 

[pengwin]

yah get a forton PSU ur rig isnt power hungry

 

[Crashman]

Dual rails are worse than single rails because it's possible to have 20A load on one rail and 8A load on the other. The 28A load would be fine on a 36A single rail, but would trip an 18Ax2 dual rail power unit.

There is no stability advantage, dual rails and beyond are used simply for safety reasons. The entire 12v system on a good power supply is well regulated to keep the voltages in check, and dual rails are usually just a split single rail (one rail split across two circuit breakers) anyway.

 

[Crashman]

Actually, single rails offer better stability under certain systems than dual rails. It was noted by The Inquirer that they were failing tests in one of their Crossfire configurations because one 12v rail was being overloaded, even though the other 12v rail had room to spare.

 

[Pain]

I don't know how or why everyone suddenly starts screaming power supply all the time, but there is nothing from the original description of the problem that would even remotely make me think the PS is at fault. It may very well be, but it's not the first thing that pops into my head.

Maybe when you upgrade you might want want to consider the overall quality of the PSU, etc, but for the problems listed now, I'd be more inclinded to think it's a driver problem.

 

[waylander]

First of all I'd like to say that a good PSU is one of the most important parts of the computer and whether this particular one is causing the problems is up for debate.

Second to those that say one rail is better due to the possibility of overdrawing one rail of a dual rail (or quad rail) system, most modern power supplies have a function that will either combine the rails or draw power from other rails if one particular rail is overloaded.

and finally the problem seems to focus on video applications, this may mean that he's not getting enough stable power to his video cards but it could be a driver issue. I would uninstall the nvidia drivers use driver cleaner on them and then reinstall the newest drivers and see if the problem recurs.

I also think that the power supply issue has really been coming to the forefront due to the requirements of new graphics cards (especially sli which can draw 150w by itself), water cooling becoming more popular, more ppl using more hdd's in raid and the general crappy psu's that come in prebuilt systems that can't handle even one upgrade.