power supply failure :(

Hey guys,
Well I was up at school working on a school assigntment tonight and my desktop just shut off while working. I have an Aspire X-Navigator which i got last year. The case has a 500w power supply in it. Since I built the computer last year i've been waiting for the power supply to go. (Well i guess wait no longer..right?) Ive deduced that it is the power supply because the whole system is dead. No lights, not fan spin, not post..nothing. I will put it in my roommates commputer tomoro to see if it will work at all. But my question is can anyone recommend me a good power supply. I am willing to spend around 100 dollars for it. I was looking at the hiper modular ps's but don;t know if they will fit.

The Apevia website says that the power supply is just ATX. Were they just inaccurate or will only an old power supply work.

also the friggin maintance guys came into our apartment today to fix our disposal and the guy wasn't getting any current to the switch its on. So he went to the circuit breaker and flipped every switch in the whole apartment....like 5 times without telling me. so my comp kept getting violently shut off. While it is connected to a surge protector there is no Battery backup or anything. Could this be the problem?

And also what is the likely hood that most of the random, no explanation shutoffs I have had with this build are from the ps.

I am running a
3500+
2 opty drives
2 sata drives
1 IDE drive
wireless card
1 gig ram
and a 7800gt
on a a8n sli board.

would like around 5-700 watts for future upgrades.

Thank you very much for your help, I desperately appreciate it.

p.s. sorry for lack of links I am so tired

jhalf

First of all to the OP listen to someone that has experience first hand with an SLI 8800GTX setup. I have plenty of experience with it and so does my best friend who started out with the OCZ gamexstream 700 along with a similar setup as yours and he has since then replaced that psu with a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 because once he started overclocking his E6600 his OCZ psu was unable to handle the load and he would get random shutdowns. Go over to Nvnews.net, there have been a few guys that have ruined some of there components using the 700watt ocz in an Overclocked SLI'd 8800GTX rig simply because it doesn't supply enough power.

Its not that the OCZ gamexstream 700 is a bad PSU its just that its underpowered for an SLI 8800GTX rig and leaves no head room for overclocking or future expansions. It makes no sense to go all out and buy a top notch system like the one your getting and then try to go the cheap rout on the most vital component in your system (PSU). That being said it will save you more money in the long run with to spend a little more now and have it be a little bit of overkill as you will find yourself not having to upgrade the PSU nearly as soon as you would if you half assed it. If you Buy a cheap one now just to get you by you will be spending more money in the long run as you will be buying another PSU much sooner than you may have expected and you might even be replacing parts that your insufficient PSU damaged.

While Amps and Wattage are important factors there are other things to consider such as the Efficiency rating along with the Continuous Temps that the PSU was stress tested under in order to get the Efficiency rating. A lot of PSU manufactuars will often not show this info, sometimes they will only show the efficiency rating and leave out the temps that it was tested under, this can be misleading because usually when they leave out the temps it means it was tested at a mere 25c which is not a realistic temp for a psu that has been underload for any significant amount of time. Pcpower and cooling test their effeciency ratings at 40-50c which are much more accurate true to life temps with a PSU under load so you know when it says 83% efficiency that those numbers are real and can be trusted.

Read this link concerning the OCZ 700. Doesnt sound to promising.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/397/5



OK you do know i am the author of the PSU 101
sticky right.

Also you know that the OCZ gamerexstream PSUs have quad +12v rails.

Also you do realise that the best PSUs on the market are high amperage single +12v rail units.

Please do not bring rants from other threads into this one, it is disrespectful to the OP.

Agreed, the amps are split up between the rails but single rail PSUs are few and far between. I've only seen one (quality) company with a single rail and that would PC Power and Cooling.

I predict a nasty PM in your future... :-)

Please keep it up... I enjoy sending your PM's into the permanent 'trash can".

Post count means nothing. Bad advice is bad advice, and so far you are at about 20% reliable information, imo...

Just my 2p.