power supply issue

[andyfosho]

im sketchy on putting a 7900 gt in the pc im building now because i only have a 350 watt power supply wuts the worst that can happen if i install it and the power supply cant handle it?

 

[Pain]

The worst thing that could happen is the earth explodes. The next to the worst thing would be your machine goes up in smoke.

 

[bweir]

Exploding PSU's aren't simply a "worst-case" scenario on geeky hardware sites, they happen all the time. My Antec TP 550 blew up loudly one night while playing a game, and I'm damn lucky no other components got fried in the surge. However, it's simply a matter of chance. Sometimes they blow up without reason, sometimes its because they are too weak for the system, sometimes they fry other components (think $400 video card), sometimes nothing is affected other than the PSU.

Bottom line: Underpowered PSU's pose a significant risk of damage to a system, regardless of the "quality" or brand of PSU. You should consider upgrading to a better, more powerful PSU of at least 450 watts. Go up to 500+ if you want to future proof it. I'd also recommend a UPS, but that's a bit expensive if you don't have the cash. It does protect against power line surges (brownouts, voltage spikes, etc.), which tend to happen in cities more often than in the 'burbs.

 

[waylander]

How the hell are we supposed to know whether your 350w power supply can handle it without knowing what manufacturer it is and what else is drawing power? List ALL your specs including cpu, mb, hdds (how many), optical drives, pci cards, ram, # fans (what size). Basically if it's plugged into the motherboard or has a power plug in it list it.

The worst that can happen is that the computer can blow up but highly unlikely, that usually only happens during a surge or power spike. I think that the worst that can realistically happen is that you have trouble running or won't post.

 

[gomerpile]

You wont know a thing a first, but when lunching 3dapp the system will reboot, shut down, 3dapps quiting to desktop. The blow up is just talk the fuse in the psu will blow out before any damage to the system happens

 

[hella-d]

Im Pretty Sure That A 350Watt PS Will Have The "Ooomph" But Id Upgrade, And Most Likely It Wont Explode (Although Its Certainly Possible), It WoulldLikely Just Refuse To Boot Or BSOD During Boot Due To Unstable Voltage/Amperage/Wattage

 

[andyfosho]

thanks for the help im gonna install and pretty much see wut happens lol im pretty sure it will work

 

[clue69less]

Bottom line: Underpowered PSU's pose a significant risk of damage to a system, regardless of the "quality" or brand of PSU.

This is an accurate analysis. Underpowered PS's can send a surge when they bite the big one and that surge can kill the mobo, CPU, GPU, etc.

Been there, unfortunately.

 

[asdasd123]

I had some fun before with my p3 733mhz and a crap power supply during those days. Suddenly, i saw some smoke coming out of the back and then my monitor went blank. Lol meltdown, mobo harddrive were all fried.

 

[Karribu]

Heres a question. Can you have too much wattage? I have an X-power Sli ready psu and it's 700watts. My system keeps shutting down and I have no idea why. It usually happens when I start games in sli mode. Sometimes it dies before the game starts and sometimes i can play for 10 mins.

 

[Wulf]

You MIGHT NOT get a smoking PSU, fried computer hardware, fried chicken, etc if you add a video card that is more than what the PSU can provide power for.

No, your system might not power on at all. I've seen several instances the system won't power on because of one too many hardware than what the PSU can provide. By either removing one of the hardware or replacing the PSU with a higher wattage rating, the system with every components inside suffered no lasting damages.

 

[samuel]

For all of you who aren't sure if your psu is good enough, do what I did, buy 2 good psu’s ( 2x 700w psu's for ex. choose a good manufacturer ) and then combine them to work as one, that way you'll know that power problems will not occur ( unless you have a faulty psu ), but of course note that if you plan on opening the psu you could void your warranty

 

[Pain]

1400W? Yeah, ok. :roll: A single 700W supply would be enough for 99.99% of machines, so yeah, whatever. Heck, a single 500W supply of decent quality would work for most people.

 

[samuel]

well maybe it is for the average user but it surely isn’t enough for me ( burnt through 3 700w psu's till now ), but after I combined the two I haven’t had a problem since ( except for that one time where one of the psu’s fuses burnt out which in the end was because of psu failure, but I got the psu replaced ), but of course this option is available for people who have a lot of load on their computer

 

[Pain]

Woohoo! Go you!

 

[samuel]

8) just to give you a idea of what i mean by "lot of load" here is my rig spec.

10x Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 200gb
2x Sony DVD-DL writer DRU-820a on USB
1x DVB-S Premium Technotrend receiver card
1x Nvidia 7800 GTX
1x Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum+Front Bay LiveDrive( Yea I know its OLD! )
1x USB ADSL modem
1x Gigabyte 8I945P-G Motherboard >> Don't ask me why !
1x 3000 Prescott w/ stock cooling >> Don't ask me why !
7x System fans in total other than stock cpu fan and psu fan's ( and you complain that your system is making NOISE !!!! Every time my friends call me they think im driving in my car on the highway 8O !!! )
1x USB Memory card reader
1x USB Webcam
1x F.D.D
4x 512 Memory Modules-Double Sided Kingston DDR2-533

I was currently using 2 700w Psu's but currently due to something strange, they both failed on me this morning and I am now using 3 500w Psu's. This system is on 24/7 and is working overtime, I also use the system for gaming while background tasks do their daily job, now how’s that for mega consumption :twisted:

 

[Pain]

Yes, so once again, 99.99999% of people don't need that kind of power so a single PS of good quality will be fine, and suggesting that 'anyone concerned with power should do what I do' is sort of overkill, you agree. Glad we cleared that up.

But, to be honest with you, the only reason you might be pulling that much power is on start up. Servers I run have that much stuff with half the power supplies, but they start the disks sequentially so they all don't start at once. Your machine isn't really pulling that much power, aside from the initial surge.

You could impress your neighbors by building a simple control circuit with $10 in parts to start your disks 3 or 4 at a time, and get rid of that rack of power supplies you have. :?

 

[samuel]

Well to me, I consider overkill is when you buy a expensive psu when you can buy something cheaper that can do the job just as well, but when you can combine 2 or 3 cheaper psu's to equal or top the performance of a rather expensive and hi-watt psu with the same specs. but still stay in the same price range of a hi-performance 600w psu that you'll eventually buy because of needed power, then I say that its a smart move, not overkill, especially with the witness of today’s dual and tomorrows quad technologies with their ever need for more power.

I myself would never buy a 600w(true wattage) psu if I knew that I was pulling 450w or even 400w from it, if I wanted to do that I would just point a gun to my system and blow it away and save my psu the trouble doing it because psu's give variable wattage outputs at different temps and most psu rated wattages are rated at a temp of 25degC of ambient temp. ( far from normal ambient temps ). So the total heat collected from ambience, system components and the psu itself really takes a toll on the real output of a psu ( I state all this on personal experience ), oh and one more thing, most psu's rate their peak load wattage

remember what bweir said earlier about his own Antec 550, I bet that he wasn't using a system that needed a lot of power

just to give you a clear picture of what i mean when i say its cheaper and better, the three 500w psu's I am currently using i bought for 15$ each ! That’s 45$ for a 1500w psu ( peak load of course ) and if they even give me 700w true power that would be enough for me. ( of course don’t buy cheap psu's if you don’t know the quality of them )

You say overkill, but I say end-user customization, why do many enthusiasts build or mod cases, overclock cpu's and gpu's, setup sli,crossfire and raid configurations and in my case build a multi-psu power supply.... easy, so they can get more performance per dollar

For my final note nothing in the computer world is considered overkill due to the fact that computer technology advances at a daily rate and before you know it, something previously considered overkill is now barely considered minimal.


Just my 2 cents

 

[Pain]

Good for you.

 

[sailer]

Heres a question. Can you have too much wattage? I have an X-power Sli ready psu and it's 700watts. My system keeps shutting down and I have no idea why. It usually happens when I start games in sli mode. Sometimes it dies before the game starts and sometimes i can play for 10 mins.

No, its just wasted power. Just because your psu is rated for 700 wts doesn't mean its using all of it. Instead, the 700 wts is a maximum that the psu is capible of putting out. More important is if your psu is actually putting out the power it claims to be putting out. In your case, the psu may not be putting out enough, so that when you start the SLI, it overheats and dies. For that matter, you might have overheating problems elsewhere. Check everything to be sure, power from psu, heat of psu, cpu, motherboard, graphics card, etc.

 

[clue69less]

I myself would never buy a 600w(true wattage) psu if I knew that I was pulling 450w or even 400w from it, (snip)

Danm, Sam, that was a mouthful. I've read all of your posts about power supplies and I don't think i have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

just to give you a clear picture of what i mean when i say its cheaper and better, the three 500w psu's I am currently using i bought for 15$ each ! That’s 45$ for a 1500w psu ( peak load of course ) and if they even give me 700w true power that would be enough for me. ( of course don’t buy cheap psu's if you don’t know the quality of them )

Let's not forget that those three 500 watt power supplies just replaced the two 700 watt power supplies that went tits up on you this morning. I think you should consider that reality came a-knockin' on your front door and you somehow didn't hear the doorbell ring.

For my final note nothing in the computer world is considered overkill due to the fact that computer technology advances at a daily rate and before you know it, something previously considered overkill is now barely considered minimal.

So when are you planning to upgrade to an array of sixty four 2000 watt power supplies?

Just my 2 cents

I think you got short changed.

 

[samuel]

Danm, Sam, that was a mouthful. I've read all of your posts about power supplies and I don't think i have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

Well then Danm Clue69Less, your not paying attention

Let's not forget that those three 500 watt power supplies just replaced the two 700 watt power supplies that went tits up on you this morning. I think you should consider that reality came a-knockin' on your front door and you somehow didn't hear the doorbell ring.

FYI the first two 700w psu's were Thermaltake toughpower's not the cheapo' types and the reason they malfunctioned is undetermined, there probably was a internal power surge or a short circut.
On regards to the 3x500 psu (the cheap one) I never had a problem with it and its been working for more than 8 months 24/7.

So when are you planning to upgrade to an array of sixty four 2000 watt power supplies?

When ever the 5000 core Intel processor overclocked to 30000ghz cooled by liquid nitrogen in a vaccum case comes out. Should be somewhere in the following year, but instead of 64x2000w, I think 100x2000w would be better ( to be on the safe side ) :roll:

I think you got short changed.

All the better, I prefer cash

 

[parlee]

samual theres no way that system uses over 700 watts. u prob bought a 30 dollar 700 watt psu or somthing. 10 hds isnt that many watts... prob similar to having a second 7800gtx... and burning 2 700 watts combined (which i dont even think u can do) is nearly impossible, maybe if u tried quad 7800gtx 10 750gb harddrives 4 dvd drives and dual opterons overclocked to 3.0 then ud get close to 1400 watts... the point is, i dont believe u.

 

[samuel]

samual theres no way that system uses over 700 watts. u prob bought a 30 dollar 700 watt psu or somthing. 10 hds isnt that many watts... prob similar to having a second 7800gtx... and burning 2 700 watts combined (which i dont even think u can do) is nearly impossible, maybe if u tried quad 7800gtx 10 750gb harddrives 4 dvd drives and dual opterons overclocked to 3.0 then ud get close to 1400 watts... the point is, i dont believe u.

WHAT ! :? First of all who said that my system uses up 700w? Care to answer ?
I said that I used 2x700w psu's, when did I ever say that my system uses 700w of power or even worse 1400w! I said that if I got 700 real watts from this setup it would be enough for me... oh wait .... maybe i should of said more than enough ..... oh please forgive me o great one, i left out the one word that would of changed the course of history and would of prevented the universe from imploding.

if you actually read the entire thread you would see that i listed my rig. The entire setup might use up a maximum of 400-500w under full load if not less.

The main thing is someone asked a question about having enough power, my answer is simple and economic, instead of buying a expensive psu which offers you for ex. 700w of peak load power for 100$, you can achieve the same performance or more for much less by combining 2 or more cheaper psu's, but of course there are some factors to take into consideration, here are two that i can think of:

1. make sure that the cheap psu your buying is of good or decent quality (it doesn’t have to be from a famous company or certain model to be considered good quality), just dont buy it because its cheap
2. usually cheaper psu's leave out important info like real wattage, so you'll have to do some research.

if there are more things feel free to say

in the end you will have the much needed power and more just in case you need it, and still have some money leftover.

Finally, what does believing have anything to do with what i have been saying, looks like you were on the weed this time you posted, am i trying to get anybody here to believe in something, am i preaching the word of god here, am i trying to sell you this new and improved vacuum cleaner :roll:

 

[Pain]

if there are more things feel free to say

It would be pretty Ghetto, does that count?