Power supply usage

[dddave]

We are building a new server at work for testing and the boss wants to know if the power suppply is enough for what we have. Here are the specs
Abit PV3133 board
P3 600
512 Ram
Adaptec SCSI card
3COM Nic
ATI Xpert98
4 IBM IBM ULTRASTAR LVD(Low Voltage)drives
and 4 Hot swap removable rackks with fans(Im not sure of voltage for this
and 2 case fans, floppy and CD drive

The case has a 300 Watt power supply
Do you guys think this needds to be boosted to 400 or more?

At one time I had 5 hard drives and 2 cd drives all IDE in my 300 watt box with adverse problems

[arthur888]

This configuration is eating quite a lot of power. Upgrading to at least 400W seems to be necessary. Maybe it will boot with a 300W supply but I think you'll get a lot of instability problems because the voltages will drop too low. Use a system monitoring program to the if the 12v, 5v and 3.3v voltages remain within a 10% margin. Hope this helps.
Arthur

[Psycho Logical]

No sense trying to economize in a business environment.

I'd get the biggest PS Enermax makes. Or a server case that takes redundant or swappable PS's.

Four drives starting up at the same time is quite a load.
HD's draw much more current starting cold than they do running.

Also may want to consider a UPS with that setup.


[This message has been edited by Psycho Logical (edited 07-13-2001).]

[Ed_S]

Got to agree, get a bigger / better PS for this.

Since this is business usage, I'd contact P.C. Power & cooling (http://www.pcpowercooling.com/home.htm) & get their recommendation.
Won't be cheap, but they've got the best reputation I've seen.

[dddave]

I went ahead and ordered a 400 watt power supply for the case today. I feel like it was the best idea I needed some others advice to prove to my boss. Thanks Guys