Need Help: Is it my PSU, and would this other PSU work instead?

real world

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Feb 19, 2008
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Hi guys. Small problem I'm having here at my office with a couple of older PC's. Here goes.

My personal PC here at work wouldn't boot (I think I mistakingly deleted some files that I thought were malicious, that were instead important to the OS), so I removed the HD, installed a spare I had, reloaded XP, and got the PC working fine. I then "slaved" my old drive to another PC in the office, to retrieve my valuable data and files. The problem starts here. The PC I slaved my old drive to (an HP Pavilion 7955 from 2001) started smelling like burnt rubber. to me, it smells like the PSU is cooking. The PSU is a Bestec model atx 1956d, and it's a measley 200w unit. My question is two fold. Could it be that I overloaded the PSU by slaving a 2nd Hard Drive? If so, could I replace it with an spare PSU I have from a junk PC I've got sitting around. The junk PC has an Allied model AL-A300atx, that's got 300w of juice.

Any and all advice is appreciated.
 

real world

Distinguished
Feb 19, 2008
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18,790
The hard drive uses screws to attach to the metal slots on the case. The PC boots up, but it freezes (screen freezes and the mouse icon won't move, and no other networked system can access it) after about 4 or 5 minutes. Sometimes the screen doesn't show anything but random colors all over the place. Anyone know what might be causing this to happen? Could it be the PSU?