GFX card killed my PSU..help!!!!!!!

[chimpspanner]

Okay, I'll get right to the gritty, and be real thourough about it. Here's my specs:

ECS K7VMM mobo

AMD AthlonXP 2000+

512MB DDR

AGP Rev 2.0 compliant 2x/4x port

On-board LAN/Audio/GFX (S3 ProSavage DDR - crap btw)

M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96 PCI Soundcard

PSU - **supposedly** a 400W - that's what it says on the casing.

Maxtor 40Gig UDMA 7200rpm

DVD ROM

CDR/RW


Okay. The card I bought:

WinFast A280 GeForce4 Ti4200 AGP8x w/128MB DDR


And here's what happened:

Plugged the card into the AGP port, plugged the monitor into the card, everything's cool. Got into the BIOS and disabled RAM Sharing for the on-board GFX. Booted into windows (XP Pro for the curious), installed drivers, set resolution etc. etc. Everything's still cool. Restarted, clicked on the NVIDIA control panel icon...machine turns off. Turn back on...PSU fan whirs but nothing else happens. Smell a funny smell, there's a flash, a pop, and the PSU dies.

What's wrong people??!! Luckily it would appear that no serious damage has been done - my CPU is still alive, as is the rest of the mainboard, memory, HD's etc. I just need a new PSU. I dunno where I've gone wrong. I checked everything out as much as I could before I purchased the card. My understanding is that AGP 8x runs at 0.89v and 1.5v, and my mobo is AGP2.0 4x, which is also 1.5v. So there shouldnt be a problem there right? I checked and double checked that AGP 8x is backwards compatable.

What about PSU? What wattage should I be looking at? Would too weak a PSU cause it to just spark and die? More to the point can I use this card with my current setup? I spent a little over £100 on it - not **big** money, but I'd be p!ssed if I simply can't use it. I'd REALLY appreciate any help here people, I'm sooooo damn miffed right now.

Thanks muchly in advance.

- Paul


*Edit - Also as a side point, is it of any importance that my AGP slot doesn't have a 'gap' in it? It's hard to explain but basically the picture of the AGP slot in the manual looks different then mine. Mine is one continuous strip. But I have seen an AGP 8x mobo before, and the port on that doesnt have a gap either. Argh I'm really doin my nut here. *cries*
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by chimpspanner on 06/30/03 02:23 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[chimpspanner]

lol okay, no bites on this one but no matter. turns out it was a shitty PSU. i have a new one here and it all seems to be going well. even though it is a lower wattage. Happy endings rule.

 

[jmecor]

at least a 400watts power supply might solve the problem

 

[TheMASK]

More than the Wattage, its highly recommended to get a good *branded* PSU. Antec, Enermax, Fortron to name a few are among the best.

me says: If it was not for <b><font color=red>C</font color=red></b>, we wud be using <font color=blue><b>BASI, PASAL & OBOL</font color=blue></b>
<b>slvr_phoenix</b> says: But I'd still be using Python.