Chieftec PSU's

PPC

My chieftec psu that came with my dragon died last week, so i put my old codegen in and it worked grand even with the dodgy rails (-12 @ -12.61 :eek: )
Got me new case and the same dragon psu and it died with in 1 day. Codegen back in and its working grand.

Anyone have any ideas on it?
Capacitors are blown in both psu's.

Sending back during the week to Komplett btw.

BabyEater

Only thing i can figure out from that is that chieftec make bad psu's . Have you a very powerful computer that would have put too much stress on a weak psu.

PPC

Originally posted by BabyEater
Only thing i can figure out from that is that chieftec make bad psu's . Have you a very powerful computer that would have put too much stress on a weak psu.

Yeah i think the extra h/d did it, 5 h/ds and 2 cd's are kinda over kill for a 360w.
Must get a 450w i think.

Winters

Originally posted by PPC
Yeah i think the extra h/d did it, 5 h/ds and 2 cd's are kinda over kill for a 360w.
Must get a 450w i think.

yea...quite possibily you had too much strain on that little 360w... Id hate to be paying your ESB bills

zAbbo

the chieftec PSU, i got with my matrix case is horribly underpowered for my P4, wasnt getting any where near the +12 line.

Was resulting in the PC flicking on/off

I put it down to the hungry p4

Gerry

Yeah I had problems with a chieftec 360w and a p4 months ago. With only one drive in the machine, and a northwood 2 gig @ 2 gig, the 12v line dipped unacceptably. ( 11.4 or so ). Adding extra drives and overclocking the machine drove it much further down, so I had to replace the psu with an enermax. Hopefully chieftec will fix their line of psu's soon.

PPC

Yeah im looking at that 550w Qtec psu on komplett.
Its ment to be good.

yellum

Let me know how you get on with it PPC, especially noise wise.

Anyone advise me on what Wattage PSU I should get for my PIII, I'll have 4 hds, a zipdrive, dvd drive, cdrw hanging off it. Anyone recommend a brand or model no. for my requirements, I'd like a quiet one too.

Gerry

p3 draws very little power, hence there is no need for anything over a 300w. Since you are buying a psu by itself you won't be offered a chieftec psu. I would stay away from codegen, but other people here seem to have good experiences with them, so maybe they are worth a shot. You do not need so splash out on an enermax or antec 400w+ psu. My p3 600@900 is running fine on a seasonic 300w from peats, seems like a well put together psu.

netman

here's a really interesting piece on power supplies:

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/02q4/021021/index.html

love the title "inadequate and deceptible product labeling"

i also saw another article on dodgy capacitors, it seems the only country able to build decent caps is japan:

http://www.niccomp.com/taiwanlowesr.htm

leaked or burnt capacitors is what they're talking about...

Saruman

Originally posted by BabyEater
Only thing i can figure out from that is that chieftec make bad psu's . Have you a very powerful computer that would have put too much stress on a weak psu.

I dont think they make bad psu's. My one works fine, a little noisy but it works fine.

Mutz

Blew my Cheiftec 360watt PSU (My own Dumb Fault) and bought an airtec/cheiftec 420watt psu for EUR90. Dual Fans and its nice and quiet.

Only noise maker now is the p4 fan.

mackanz

From what i have seen and noticed, Antec/Chieftec makes wonderful psu´s. My first was a Enermax and that was terrible for me with my amd rig. The +5 V was hovering between 4.7-4.85 all the time and the 12V was always below 12.

I now use the Antec 412 (400W) and i absolutley love it.
It has variable resistors built in so if your lines are a tad low, you can easily raise them.

What you should looking for is as high amp rating at +5 and 12V as possible, The Antec 412 is a good mesurement of that. Anything close to that is really good.

About PPC, your 2 psu´s must be from the same batch or so. A psu dont just die, if it is overloaded, you´ll see instability when booting up, playing and all that. It just dont dies.

Mac

PPC

i'm going to get a Qtec and try it, tis only €65 so its not too bad.
Macroman said its a good psu and so did neoseekers.

mackanz

Can you have a look at the specs and the ratings on the 5V and the 12 line? Look at max amps on each of those lines.

Good Luck!

Mac

PPC

here tbh

ATM Voltages: (Core 0: 1.87V, Core 1: 2.52V, +3.3: 3.26V, +5.00: 4.8V, +12.00: 12.4V, -12.00: -12.61V, -5.00: -5.16V)

Good aul Codegen 350w.

PPC

Right got me 550w for €60

Voltages: (Core 0: 1.87V, Core 1: 2.5V, +3.3: 3.39V, +5.00: 4.96V, +12.00: 12.14V, -12.00: -11.46V, -5.00: -5.11V)

Aint too bad. Compared the ones above

mackanz

Thats great voltages!

But, dont know if you are overclocking, but when you up the vcore a lot, the +5V drops considerably, at least for me, thats why i need more amps on the lines.

As for the 12V, every fan, hardddsrives, cdroms, floppys etc. uses 12V, so if you have a loaded pc, amps is needed.

Cheers!

Mac

PPC

Yip voltage up on the cpu.
Got 5x h/ds
2x cd's
5x case fans
1x 80mm Delta
2x psu fans
f/d
usb mouse
usb VFD
3x cathodes
and a gpu cooler

so tis a fair amount.

mackanz

Lord!

Thats a noisy one!

WHat is the board and cpu?

PPC

Its a soyo dragon plus and an XP1900 at 2100 or sometimes 2200.
2x 512Mb ddr ram too
Geforce 3
10Mb PCI Hub
ISDN Card.

Thats all i can think of thats in it

mackanz

Nice setup!

What is the max vcore on that board? 1.80 or?

Have you tried that and see how far you can run your cpu?
My 1600 needs 2.05V to go to XP 2400 speeds (2ghz).

Mac

BabyEater

Thats a good overclock on yer 1900 PPC mine would only get to 2000 on air and 1.74Ghz @ 1.85V on water . Its all me board will allow.Temps were still low at that so if i could up the voltage more i would get more out of it.

PPC

My current setup atm
CPU Info: (1-AMD XP, 1739MHz, 256KB (0% Load) 39°C
Voltages: (Core 0: 1.87V, Core 1: 2.52V, +3.3: 3.37V, +5.00: 4.96V, +12.00: 12.21V, -12.00: -11.54V, -5.00: -5.21V)

I also added a GF4Ti4200 to my system today \o/

Cause of windows crappy protect the hardware failsafe i can only get this stable at that speed.

I can get 1.8 in SuSE no bother.

mackanz

Originally posted by BabyEater
Thats a good overclock on yer 1900 PPC mine would only get to 2000 on air and 1.74Ghz @ 1.85V on water . Its all me board will allow.Temps were still low at that so if i could up the voltage more i would get more out of it.

What board do you have?

If it is a KT266 or KT333 i might know how to voltmod the board like i have. At max onboard volts, my 1600 does around 1800 mhz, but with the voltmod, 1950 is no problem. Thats 550mhz overclock on a €60 cpu.

Mac

Gerry

Originally posted by PPC
My current setup atm
CPU Info: (1-AMD XP, 1739MHz, 256KB (0% Load) 39°C
Voltages: (Core 0: 1.87V, Core 1: 2.52V, +3.3: 3.37V, +5.00: 4.96V, +12.00: 12.21V, -12.00: -11.54V, -5.00: -5.21V)

I also added a GF4Ti4200 to my system today \o/

Cause of windows crappy protect the hardware failsafe i can only get this stable at that speed.

I can get 1.8 in SuSE no bother.

Whats the point in talking about an overclock which isn't stable? No operating will run an overclocked chip stably at a higher speed than any other. Win2k puts the machine through more strain on bootup, which saves you crashing later.

Try a kernel compile in linux at 1.8, and see how far you get.

mackanz

Originally posted by Gerry
No operating will run an overclocked chip stably at a higher speed than any other. Win2k puts the machine through more strain on bootup, which saves you crashing later.

Im sorry, but that is so wrong. You cant really compare win 2 k and XP (not that xp is mentioned) when it comes to overclock. Win2K is far better than xp in that case. My chip does 1950 in 2k but only 1900 in xp. And i know i am not he only one.

Why should we try Linux if we never use it?

BabyEater

Its an Abit KR7A. I know how to volt mod it but i don't want to solder onto the board as i have a shaky hand so i have to go to Dublin to get a clip. Which is too much of a drive for a wee clip.
Is that a newer stepping 1600 Mackanz .

PPC

Yeah mines a Soyo Dragon Plus! KT266a.

Also there was some people on OcUK saying that you can get better oc's in Win2k than XP cause xp has those crappy saftey features.

mackanz

It´s a AGOIA y 02/12, one of 3 very good 1600 steppings.

On Prometeia, ,over 2100 mhz is very common.
The voltmod dont have to be done with soldering on the board, my isn´t. KR7 uses the same chip for modding the voltages as the KX7. I use "Grabbers" instead, very easy to be honest. They are available at Maplins, but the size of theirs is a tad to big, so you might need to file a bit on it to have it fitted well.

Mac

BabyEater

Thats what i was planning to do was get those grabbers but i have to go to dublin to get them

Diabolus

God never knew there was so much in a PSU.
But tell me this. Got a chieftec Matrix tower case from Komplett.ie and set it up. Amd XP 2200 1.5 gig of DDR RAM 80 gig drive cd burner + dvd drive Geforce 4 4400ti. After a while the pc just stoped working.. then i got the chip replaced (as it was broken) and that worked but the connection to the mobo was bogey or something as if i moved the case it turned off for a while.

I think this crappy 360 W psu broke my pc. Am i right?

Also what PSU should i get and from where?
I appreciate your comments.

mackanz

The psu is one of the parts that i would spend more money on.

Think about it: You can spend 3-400 euros on a cpu that probably will be old in 1 year, maybe 1,5 years. A good psu for 100-150 euros will last forever and on both Amd and Intel, unless they change the ATX standard which i highly doubt.

As for which PSU to get? Well, i have always bought Antec, i have 2 of them and they have never let me down yet. One of them, i even turned up the +5V line so much that the overvolting protection kicked in, but that didnt matter. Itdirect has the Antec 412 (400W) and it is known for its good overclocking capabilitys.

Apart from that, well, search for reviews of PSU´s, but dont use Toms Hardware, they are bought by the bigger companys.

Also, Enermax works well, but mostly on Intel setup and i really dont know why, its just is that way. My best bet for a good PSU and availability is Antec 412.

What should you look at if you see a psu that you never seen before? Well, theese days with power hungry graphics and soundcard, they steal a lot of 3.3V power from the psu, cpu-voltage draws +5V and the fans, hd´s cd´s etc. draws 12V.

So, a good PSU should have theese specs: At least 370W with the +5V line´s max load: 35 amps or more, -5V at 1 amp or more, +12V at 17 amps or more, -12V at 1 amp or more and the +3.3 volt at 25 amps or more.

Cheers!

Marcus

BabyEater

Is that Antec 412 a True power or a normal one

mackanz

Its the normal one.
The truepowers is a little bit overpriced in my opinion. The normal one holds the lines better as well.

Mac

Gerry

Originally posted by mackanz
Im sorry, but that is so wrong. You cant really compare win 2 k and XP (not that xp is mentioned) when it comes to overclock. Win2K is far better than xp in that case. My chip does 1950 in 2k but only 1900 in xp. And i know i am not he only one.

Why should we try Linux if we never use it?

Think about what you are saying. It makes no sense. An unstable cpu will eventually crash under any operating system. To say that win2k could somehow "smooth over" the problems caused by an unstable cpu is utter tripe. If xp crashes sooner, this is because it must be putting more strain on the cpu under what you would consider to be "no load" conditions.

When you say the chip does more speed in 2k, do you mean that the chip actually makes it to the desktop in both os's, but when you fire up your stress test, it only crashes on xp?

When I was referring to linux, I was talking to ppc who said his chip worked fine in SUSE linux 8.0.

mackanz

What i am saying is that under stress or idle, win 2k is much more stable at high overclock. XP crashes much more easier than 2k, it is as simple as that.

Do you understand now?

Gerry

I think we'll just agree to disagree, on the stability under "full load issue". I'm coming at this from a theoretical viewpoint. I don't have xp here to test this, since xp sucks. From my experience with win98 and win2k, the machine would boot to the desktop at a much higher speed in win98, but when I actually started running programs, the top stable cpu speed was the same in both os's.

Perhaps you should read this article about the intel p3 1.13.

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q3/0008281/index.html

mackanz

Well, if you ask just about any overclocker, and not THG since they are the biggest flaw in the history, looping 3dmark, prime 95, folding...all at the same time. You cant get the pc more loaded or stressed than that. I can do that in 2k at a much higher clock than on xp.

Mac

Gerry

I am an overclocker, and I do know how to stress a pc. However I have not got win xp installed anywhere. I was purely saying that it makes no sense, but hey, maybe xp has some flaw that makes it behave like this. It is very strange though.

WRT THG, well thomas pabst is mainly a **** stirrer, occasionally he is on the ball though. In that article, it ended up that 3 review cpu's were tested by kyle bennet of hardocp and an intel engineer, and some were stable in prime95 testing, but not on linux kernel compiles.

mackanz

Speaking of Kyle.....you haven´t missed the latest have you?

What a story! Takes the best part of 2 hours to go through.

Gerry

I should have pointed out in the previous post that I know kyle is a muppet. Whereas thomas pabst just likes to cause trouble by being as controversial as possible, kyle hasn't much of an idea about hardware, or impartiality. His writing style infuriates me, however as a news site hardocp used to be pretty good. Reviews always laughable though. "We were impressed by the fancy packaging" sums them up.

WRT to recent events, I see someone in the "bunker" changed a benchmark. Hardly surprising, and they never had consistent benchmarks anyway. Anyone who bases a buying decision on a hardocp review needs their head examined.

mackanz

Very true, however i dont think i ever have read a single review from Hard, not that i remember of anyway. The same goes for THG who i really cant say that they know their hardware either.

How´s"Oops, we forgot to use a fan on the radiator" as an excuse for Swiftech stuff getting a bad review? Seen the video on how to build your watercooling? It´s insanely fun but pure dangerous to people that actually do what they are showing on the video. Seen how they apply thermal paste on cpu´s? Jesus!

Mac

Dooom

it says "meant for ATX systems" what's an ATX system? i have an ASUS a7n8x pro with an AMD XP2400+...will it work?

mackanz

Yes, you have the right choice there. In fact, the old system, named AT doesn´t exist or being made anymore, so that leaves ATX the only standard now.

I cant exactly tell you the difference but i know AT where stopped being used on the Pentium or Pentium 2 time. Also, the motherboard that was AT had a different size as well.

You should have ATX.

Mac

Gerry

I think the swiftech cock-up was a disgrace. I think Tom knows his hardware pretty well ( he is aware that he doesn't know everything ), but some of his staff are utter retards. Their arrogance is amazing also.

AT was dropped by intel before they even stopped making the pentium I. However it was prolonged by the fact that the amd k6 worked in pentium boards, and this chip kept on scaling in speed, so newer AT boards came out so people could upgrade to ( for example ) a 550mhz k6-2, without changing their case.

Only a few AT boards came out for the P2/P3. Theres plenty of info about AT and ATX on the web, but the main difference is the layout of the board being changed completely, to facilitate better cpu cooling the cpu socket/slot was moved to the back of the board at the top. This stops pci cards clashing with the heatsink also. The shape changed also so, ATX boards are taller, so won't fit in an AT case, ( though most ATX cases can take AT boards ).

ATX also brought in a new power supply which can be controlled by the computer ( soft power ), and it supplies 3.3v in addition to 12v and 5v to cater for newer, lower voltage components. It was also specified that this psu should be extracting air from the case, not drawing it in.

Jesus, must be a bit bored