Dying power supply I need advice!

I've had an Ultra X-finity 600w PSU for 3 years now, it has served me well but i'm afraid i've pushed it too far and its starting to go on the fritz.


when i bought the PSU I had an Asus P5ND32-SLI Plus, Pentium D 940, 2 x 1GB ddr2 800mhz ram 2x 250GB WD SATA II hard drives and a 7900GT 256MB. All in an old blue Chieftec case with a bunch of blue LED 80mm fans

The 600W was plenty of power and it did the job.

this past christmas I got a nice load of upgrades,

out with the Pentium 940 -> in with the Q6600
out with the 7900gt -> in with 2 x XFX alpha dog 8800GT 512mb (G92) in SLI
Added 2 x 2GB DDR2 800MHZ
Added 2 x 1TB Hitachi SATA II 32mb buffer
3.5" multi cardreader
moved it all to a new Antec 900 case

What I need to know is have I really pushed the power consumption too far and burnt it out, or is the PSU possibly just dying of age now that it is 3 years old?
selecting a new one I'm having trouble deciding on what to get and how many watts I really need
I'm having conflicting answers when i enter my data into various PSU calculators, one told me i only need 431w another told me I need 800w?

the CPU swap shouldnt change since the 940 and the Q6600 both are TDP 95watts
the original psu was rated for SLI, when i bought it i planned on adding a second 7900gt later
anyone know the wattage difference that a 7900gt to a 8800gt would be?
when that PSU was SLI certified 3 years ago there were no such things as 3way SLI and the 8'series didnt exist yet, so maybe the test standards were lower than today?
the ram maybe added 10w a stick (correct me if im way off on that)?
does HDD capacity matter for wattage? the platter density is higher so there should actually be less arms in the HDDs
the card reader is a glorified USB device so what can that add? 5-15w
the case change takes me from all 80mm fans to a bunch of 120mm fans and that monster 250mm fan on top, do bigger fans draw alot more power?

what should I look for to replace my dying PSU, don't just shout brand names, tell me what actually matters or paste links. almost all brands make good PSUs and cheap crap PSUs.
single/dual/triple/quad 12v rails,
highest combined 12v Amps?
highest amps per rail?
I'm also looking for something that is pretty quiet, and with an antec 900 in SLI should I avoid top of PSU fans? will the bottom GPU fight for air with the PSU fan if i do?
I'm also trying to stay under $100, is that reasonable to get a good PSU that will last me and be reasonably quiet?

Ok sorry for all the rambling, now i'll let someone else write something...

Thanks alot Theanimal, I appreciate you reading all that.

alot of what you responded with was along the lines i was already thinking, but its good to get a second opinion.

While the corsair,BFG, and Seasonic are all good quality in my mind and seem to be in the price range im looking for, they are 500-550w rated?

I know that a 550 constant can actually be much more power than a 600w+ peak but should I go with something as low as 550? I usually try as a rule to always go bigger than I need for future use.

I've heard good things about corsair's VX series, what can be said of their others? HX, TX...

I'm actually finding a few Corsair TX750 supplys on sale under $100 Is it worth it or should I stick to VX

Thanks, I think i'd feel most comfortable going for at least 700w, and in my price range(i said <$100 but i'll sit right around $100 for nice quality) i'm looking at the Corsair TX750w as my favorite, but i'm also considering PC power and cooling Silencer 750watt redpower, i've heard good things about the brand, and they are well priced.

I have a black component/blue LED theme going in my case and both of these PSU's kinda 'f up all of my colors the PC p&C is bright Red and the Corsair has bright orange Lettering down the side

I'm seeing a few other power supplys OCZ GameXtreme 700/850w and Coolmax whatever they call it that suite my colors, but I fear coolmax is the same company as Raidmax/Diablotek(which is a piece of crap I'll never buy again) And I really don't know all that much about OCZ pSUs

I'm not sure that my color scheme is worth sacrificing quality

eh well i don't think its going to stop me from getting the corsair TX750 but when you have an all black case, 2 gfx cards with black XFX metal rails facing out and every fan in the machine is a blue LED fan, I can't just throw in a giant bright red brick next to the windowed side like the PC power and cooling silencer 750, I notice they do offer a black and a copper version though. The antec looks nice, but i can't find it for sale in any of the more reputable sellers? can't get an idea on price

Just change supplies before you run into real trouble

DaveF1953 & wuzy - This thread is just about a month old. The original poster is long gone.

That's because I already knew your PSU was fine and have personally never seen a PSU causing BSOD in all those years. Usually when I PSU goes off, they go off big.

Never seen faulty RAM doing that, but I have seen motherboards with exact symptoms as yours. In my case the P5K-E I have here only likes to cold boot and have also seen an abit IP35 Pro doing that as well. Co-incidentally both those boards have been used for sub-zero benchmarking.... *shrugs*

If you're considering replacing the motherboard, do yourself a favor and steer clear from nVidia chipsets except 790i (which uses DDR3). Good P45 boards like Gigabyte EP45-UD3P(favored by most tweakers atm) are cheap to buy now.