Could a bad/insufficient power supply cause these problems?

[Jumpem]

System is an i7-860, Asus P7P55D Pro, 4GB G.Skill DDR3, HD5870, one optical drive, and three hard drives.

I get occassional crashes to a blank screen (less of these after switching from 8GB to 4GB). I get other errors such as superfetch stopped working, windows update stopped working, host process stopped working, microsoft software protection service stopped working, etc.

Power supply is the same Corsair 520HX I had been using with my previous sytem. It would be quite the coincidence that it went faulty at the same time it moved to my new system. Could it be underpowred?

 

[Elledan]

520 does sound underpowered for the system you describe, yes. I would put in a 750 Watt PSU in it. For my much more lower end system (45 Watt TDP CPU AM3 system with GTX275) I'm already using a 550 Watt PSU and I know I'm somewhat pushing it with the CPU and GPU at full load (80%+).

 

[Jumpem]

520 does sound underpowered for the system you describe, yes. I would put in a 750 Watt PSU in it. For my much more lower end system (45 Watt TDP CPU AM3 system with GTX275) I'm already using a 550 Watt PSU and I know I'm somewhat pushing it with the CPU and GPU at full load (80%+).

Odd that it almost always crashes while at the desktop, not while drawing alot of power gaming.

 

[Elledan]

Odd that it almost always crashes while at the desktop, not while drawing alot of power gaming.

That seems weird yeah. I would try another PSU anyway just to be sure

 

[Zero82z]

520W is plenty for your system and you absolutely do not need to use a more powerful PSU. With that said, it would be worth testing with another PSU to see whether the one you have is faulty.

520 does sound underpowered for the system you describe, yes. I would put in a 750 Watt PSU in it. For my much more lower end system (45 Watt TDP CPU AM3 system with GTX275) I'm already using a 550 Watt PSU and I know I'm somewhat pushing it with the CPU and GPU at full load (80%+).

Pushing 50% load on the PSU, yes. Getting close to the limit of a 550W PSU? Not unless it's a Raidmax.

 

[Elledan]

Pushing 50% load on the PSU, yes. Getting close to the limit of a 550W PSU? Not unless it's a Raidmax.

Well, at full load I'm quite sure I'll surpass 250 Watt with ease 190 Watt for the GPU, 45 Watt CPU, three HDDs for something like 25 Watt or so plus a bunch of case fans. But yeah, 80% was an exaggeration

 

[Zero82z]

The only time a GTX275 might approach 190W of power draw is if it's running Furmark. Typical gaming load is about 140W and F@H will be lower than that.

 

[Elledan]

The only time a GTX275 might approach 190W of power draw is if it's running Furmark. Typical gaming load is about 140W and F@H will be lower than that.

You mean I bought an oversized PSU for my system once again?

 

[Zero82z]

You mean I bought an oversized PSU for my system once again?

No, it's certainly not a bad thing that you gave yourself extra headroom. Although you could easily be running your system off a good 400W PSU with no problems.