PSU's

[pain_inbutt]

I heard many differant things about PSU's and what to look for especially on the +12 volt side of it. So heres my system and i would like some input as to how big a PSU is needed.

AMD xp 2500+ OCed to 3200+
Abit NF7 mobo
corsair 512 pc 3200
120 gig seagate Barracuda 8MB buffer
cyber 16x dvd rom
cyber 40x/16x/48 cd/rw
3.5 floppy
G force fx 5200 w/ fan video card
2 thermaltake 120mm thunder blade fans
PSU at the present is 400 watt with a 12 volt @ 14 amps.
Is this under powered or what.

[MadPistol]

How is that underpowered? I'm running much higher specs on a 350 watt Antec PSU and I have yet to find fault with it. You may just have a bad PSU, but it's not the amount of power you have running through your system. You're system could run very stable with a good 300 watt PSU.

[pain_inbutt]

Well for one on my motherboard monitor it shows the voltages and the +12 voltage is showing at 11.5 and i have another computer i,ve been messing with trying to overclock a little 850 duron spitfire and have it up to 935 mhz right now and when i try to go higher the bios automaticaly reset back to 850 and was told that my +12 volt 10 amps was not enough for system.

[Magua]

400 should be fine

[RamonGTP]

Although 14a isn't what i'd consider very powerfull on the 12v rail. It should be fine for your system. One box I put together out of spare parts has a pretty weak 350watt raidmax PSU with just 10a on the 12v rail and it does fine with the following:

EPOX 8RDA+
2000+@2400+
512MB Corsair xms PC3200
GF4 Ti4400
Voodoo2 8mb <~~ just decided to toss that in there
modem
scsi card
DVD drive
2 5400rpm HDD
1 7200rpm HDD
1 10k rpm SCSI HDD (I would put this drive in my main rig, but its just a 9 gig drive)

[G]

I agree with RamonGTP. 14A’s on the 12A rail is poor. Antec PSU’s have 24A (or thereabouts) and Enermax even more.

[pain_inbutt]

Well my psu on my amd xp2500+ just went south today i guess that 12 volt rail only showing 11.3 was a sign of weakness of the psu actually the fan went out. The system with the duron in it is a raidmax case with a 350 watt psu like ramon was talking about.

Now any suggestions on a good psu mid priced ? should i go for the 24-28 amp on the 12 volt rail and maybe on the+ 3.3 volt 30 amp or so and the + 5 volt around 40-50 amps. Ive been told to stay away from generics also.

Thanks again to all that replied

[RamonGTP]

You won't need 50 amps on the 5 volt rail. Just get a good quality one by the name brands listed here regularly. Enermax, Antec, Thermaltake, Zalman, Vantec, etc etc.

[pain_inbutt]

What would you think of something like this

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...101-406&depa=0
or this one

http://store.mrtechus.com/60ulapatxcop.html

Thanks again for replies

[Damins]

I have never heard of either of those. You might want to consider a more name brand psu off brands dont allways last very long. Somehting like the links.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-912&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...159-023&depa=0

[RamonGTP]

$18 for a 600watt PSU??? Ummm, no.

A quality 600watt psu will cost over $100. My 550 enermax cost me $140

[Magua]

Stick with Enermax, Antec, Forton, Sparkle, Thermaltake, etc. You shouldn't have a problem.

[pain_inbutt]

Think i got it narrowed down to 4 so far the 2 that Damins listed and then these 2

http://newegg.com/app/viewproductDes...159-025&depa=0

http://newegg.com/app/viewProductDes...153-006&depa=0

[Damins]

I bought 2 of the coolmaxs I have never heard of them but they had good reviews. For the money Im very happy with them. They are a good heavy PSU and the 120mm fan is very quite and does a good job of cooling. The rails are pretty close to antec thats what I used to judge them.

[G]

“$18 for a 600watt PSU???.” You’re having a laugh. My Antec 550W cost me over £120 (that’s UK Sterling) when I bought it last year.

PSU: Antec (go for a minimum of 380W) - $59.50
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=20380

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-907&depa=1

If you go cheap your system may not boot consistently (Good_Signal failure), may burn out (fire risk), cause restart looping, cause hard freezes when burning while using either a CD or DVD rewriter or playing games.

There are so many problems that a low-quality, marginalised, overheating, overstressed PSU can cause it will be difficult to pinpoint the cause and troubleshoot unless you mention the PSU form the start. Then the cause is obvious.

Be smart. The Antec will cost more but will be reliable and will cause you no problems whatsoever.