Third opinion needed on a situation I have...

[gogogo5]

I really need a third opinion on a situation I have as I keep hearing conflicting views.

Situation:

I have recently purchased the following kit:
Athlon 800 (socket A)
Asus A7V m/b
256MB SDRAM
IBM 75GXP 30GB HDD
Asus V7700 Pure AGP
Internal PCI modem
PCI Network Card (Bay Netgear WOL)
PCI SoundBlaster Live Player 5.1
Pioneer DVD/CD player
Ricoh CD-RW
Floppy disk drive

Conflicting Views I am hearing:

Ok - I have made a mistake in that the case I purchased with this shipped with a 250W PSU which I have learnt is not powerful enough for my kit.

I have been hearing people say that I need to get a more powerful PSU considered the kit I have. Some people say I should have a 300W PSU yet others say a MIN of 350W (400W would be ideal).

So people, what PSU should I get for this kit? Can I get away with a 300W or should be aiming higher?

As I am running my system with a 250W PSU would this explain why my system sometimes completely locks at random with only a hard boot to get out of it (I can't even launch the W2K Task Manager when the system locks up)???

Thanks
-David

[Steve R Jones]

AMD Athlon™ Processor Recommended Power Supplies

To ensure reliable operation of AMD Athlon™ Processor-based systems, an AMD-recommended power supply is required.

Read On (http://www1.amd.com/athlon/power)

[RenaissanceMan]

Wow! nice post Steve.
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[LordLocksley]

When I was having a PSU problem on a similar system, the system would reboot at random. I then replaced the 250watt case with a 300watt case, now all is beautiful. Now the hard lock system has been RUMORED to the GeForce-Athlon-SBlive combo. I have 2 systems in the house with very similar stats that have the "hard lock" probs but they seem to be specific to Star Trek Voyager Elite Force.

All in All try all updated drivers and even some old ones. I seem to have alleviated (for the most part) the hard locks by playing with different driver versions for about 3 weeks.

System 1:
Win98 1st ed.
T-Bird 1.1 ghz
Asus A7V
Antec 300 watt case
Asus V-7700 pure 64 meg
128 meg PC-133
SB Live x-gamer
IBM 30gig deskstar ATA-100
Kenwood True-72x CD-Rom
D-Link 10/100 NIC

System 2:
WinMe
Athlon 800 classic
Asus K7V
Antec 300 watt case
Creative Annihilator 2
128 meg PC-133
SB Live x-gamer
13.6gig WD HD
Kenwood True-52x CD-Rom
D-Link 10/100 NIC

[darrelld]

You put together a sweet system gogo. (green with envy) http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

[Brangwen]

I think LordLocksley is pretty accurate in his assessment. I doubt your problem is purely about power supply, though I'd use a AMD certified psu. You may as well eliminate the psu issue, then address possible component conflicts.

Good luck, and yes, your setup is appealing.

Brangwen http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

[gogogo5]

Interesting comments from all who have posted - thanks.

Could the hard lock-ups I am experiencing be due to faulty hardware e.g. motherboard or memory? Or would faulty hardware just either work or not work.

-gogogo5