psu not powerful enough?

[Guest]

Just put together a new system of all new components, so this may be a number of things, but my instinct says power supply. here's the problem:

I'm running an athlon 1.4G, 512M PC2100 crucial, radeon VE, ECS K7S5A, 2 7200rpm HD, DVD, CD-RW, sblive, 2 case fans, and pci IDE controller, with a 300W PSU.

the system is quite unstable. sometimes programs stop responding, then a few seconds later the mouse stops responding; the system beeps and i have to restart. also, several times i have lost video signal and had to restart. the system runs a little hot, but no hotter than a 1.4 should (alpha PAL6035 hs/fan). I'm thinking perhaps the power supply is just not powerful enough. before i go and drop $$ on a new one, though, I'd like to see if anyone agrees/disagrees with me.

also, in the meantime, is it harmful to continue running the system, or are the hangups just an annoyance? I'd like to use the system in the meantime, but don't want to cause any long-term damage to anything.

thanks


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Spetzo on 09/06/01 01:26 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[ejsmith2]

I agree. (without pause or doubt)

You'll need at least a 400w psu, and I'd keep the 'old' 300w to run everything else that's not powered by the mainboard bundle, just to cut down on minor losses.

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[Guest]

yeah, i only had a slight pause and doubt. hopefully once i get a new psu in that baby, it'll run like a dream.

thanks

 

[FatBurger]

You don't NEED a 400w PSU. The brand is almost always more important than the wattage. Well, to a certain extent, of course.

What brand is your 300w? I run more than that on my 300w Hipro (though I wouldn't recommend it over Enermax or Sparkle). So just get a good brand one, try a 365w Enermax or something? They're not that much, and you'll probably be able to use it for a while before upgrading again.

Of course, if you get a 450w Enermax or something like that, you won't regret it.



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[hammerhead]

The symptoms you describe <i>could</i> all be caused by software & O/S problems.

While I would also suspect the PSU, I would run the system under a minimal configuration for a while (run with 1hdd, no CDRW, etc...) If you still have probs you may need to look elsewhere for the fault.

If your mobo comes with S/W for monitoring voltages, try using it. If the system is drawing too much current, supplied voltage should drop noticeably before freezes/crashes happen.