Power Supply powerful enough???

Johnny Storm

Any help with this appreciated.

I get BSOD every day or two and the problem seems to be bad drivers or inadequate power supply. I have updated my drivers as far as I can so now I am wondering about the power supply.

Here is my rig:

Power supply is Antec 350W model SL 350SP
Board: AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 2.4 GHz Socket 754, 512 KB cache, BOXED
CPU: Asus K8V Mainboard Socket 754 K8T800, ATA/SATA, GbLAN, ATX, Raid
Memory: TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB Dual Pack Kit w/two matched PC3200 DDR DIMMs (2 sticks of 1Gig each)
Disk Drives (2): Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB S-ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA 8MB 7200RPM NCQ
USB card with 5 USB 2.0 ports (cant remember the brand name)
Graphics card: BFG GeForce 6600 GTOC AGP 128MB

Does that lot look like it might be overloading the power supply?

Thanks in advance.

Khannie

That's a lot for that power supply. There's a very good power calculator in the useful websites sticky (at the bottom). I'd give that a whirl and see what you get.

Johnny Storm

Thanks very much Khannie,
That power calculator comes out to 272 Watts for my rig. Which is 78% of the wattage of the power supply. On the face of it that doesnt sound too bad, what do you think? I dont have it turned on 24/7.
Also my Power Supply has 16 AMPs on the 12V rail. Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received.

BKtje

I'd have to say that your power supply to me would be well below what i'd use for that system.

I had something similar and had a 480w antec psu, then again that was probably overkill

Is it only bsod'ing when under load or even when idle (load requiring a lot more)? Could also be that the voltages of the psu are below par due to age/damage. I believe cpufan checks your various psu rail voltages. May be worth a look.

Johnny Storm

Hi B-K-DzR

It seems to BSOD at totally random times, not particularly when its under strain.
I have a program called Asus Probe 2 that came with the motherboard. It reports:-

12V: 11.712
5V: 4.919
3V: 3.248
Vcore: 1.054

PogMoThoin

Software for analysing voltages from windows can be way off at times.
I'd say that psu is a bit low for your needs any is prob causing your probs. Run prime95 & memtest for few hrs 2 see if you get fails.

Johnny Storm

Thanks, I ran memtest but it did not find any problems.

PogMoThoin

How long did you run memtest for? Run prime 95 for 2 hrs & watch temps with speedfan 2 see if your overheating.

hopeful

I had vitually the same setup and had similar problems with very random lockups. After much trial and error I found that this board is very sensitive to which Via chipset drivers are used.
I found that by using the latest from Via (not Asus) and installing them carefully and in the order stated in Via's instructions that I finally had a stable system. Also helps to update the BIOS to the latest as the early ones had 'issues'.

BTW...the temp readings from those Via based boards are laughably inaccurate. My CPU temp used to read 17c at idle. It was watercooled but no way was it below ambient

BKtje

If it locks up at random times then chances are its not a psu load/temp issue as these would usually happen at set times.

If its psu then its fairly likely to be consistent and same with temp (even if u use cpufan only as a general guideline....as far as i know they take the temp from the mobo itself btw so if your bios is wrong in detetmining it, then its gonna be wrong. period. That said its not gonna report it too wrong.). Your results would lead me to believe then that this is something else ( o so helpful, i know). Did u change anything recently before these lockups started to happen.
New ram, cpu, gfx card etc?

Johnny Storm

I have over time added the 2nd HD and replaced the GFX card with the current one. Unfortunately the BSODs did not seem to start with either of those changes.

hopeful

'Tis possible that one of the discs is getting a few bad sectors. Would be worth doing a full scan of both discs to eliminate that possibility.