Do I need a bigger PSU?

Solar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
228
First and foremost, is the Silverstone Element 500 EF Plus SC enough to power the following:

AMD Opteron 170
2 x 1GB OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel Platinum @ 2.8v
Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS
EVGA GeForce 7900GT KO (500/1500 Factory Overclocked)
SoundBlaster Audigy Xi-Fi Music
VisionTek Theater 550 Tv Tuner card
Pioneer DVR-106D
80GB Western Digital SATA (1.5) HD
320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA HD
80GB Western Digital ATA133 HD
2 Silverstone Case Fans
inside of an SG01-B

I've been using this setup for about two months now and the name of the game has been random crashes. Disabling c'nq has helped a lot, but when I try to run dual instances of SuperPi (one for each core affinity) at stock or overclocked speeds the system will shutdown sometimes, as in completely turn off. And when it does not shut down, it will freeze and squeal, requiring a restart. Before the 500w PS I had a Thermaltake TR2 430w with an A64 4000 (everything else the same). And while the system never shutdown unexpectedly, in this setup, it would freeze occasionally, emitting the high pitch squeal. When using Media Center, and only Media Center, to watch TV the screen would go full screen artifacting between 10-20mins into watching and the only way to fix the problem was down clocking the memory from 750mHz to about 715mHz. I haven't been able to replicate that problem in my current setup because I lost a hard drive that caused a whole host of other problems forcing me to reinstall Windows sans Media Center (for the time being). So here's my question; in the current setup as listed above, is 500w enough to keep this bad boy alive?

I've thought about RMAing the motherboard perhaps a faulty voltage regulator, but I'm reluctant to do so. Also today is the last day of my money back guarantee so a timely response might be helpful. Looking at a few power supply calculators I've used:

Extreme Power Recommends 423w
SnooP's PSU Calculator says 495w for a generic brand

As some of you may know I posted the link to SnooP's PSU calculator.

I tried using Zippy's following the instruction in the sticky as well. However, using Zippy's I ran into a few problems.

First I couldn't find where to set utilization to 90 or 100% and if its in the drop down menus for HDD and Fans then I'm at a loss because I cannot find Seagate's or WD's anywhere in there and I don't know the chipset my HD uses. Arguably I could look up the spec sheets for these. Next even if I know what wattage my 7900GT uses (24w +12v PCI-e, 23 +12v ext. according to Xbit Labs), I don't know where to put that in. Using Zippy's calculator, do i use AGP, or PCI? My motherboard, or chipset, are not listed as well.

I tried calculating my processors amperage but the example in the sticky only confuses me with what's on AMD's website about amperage and Opterons. My processor has an 85watt TDP (according to CoreTemp). Divide that by 12v and I get 7.08. But don't Opteron's need 80 amps?. And why am I dividing by 12v and not it's operating voltage of 1.35v? Doing that division (85w/1.35v) would get me closer to that 80amp specification, 62.9 to be exact. And going straight from their website, 110w / 1.35v = 81.4amps. So what gives? Zippy's may be great, but I can't figure out how to use it to fully calculate my systems potential power usage, looking at the sticky or trying to use the options on the page.

Perhaps I'm confused and perhaps I'm underpowered, but help me out here as I'm at my wits end trying to figure out this machine.
 
Look elsewhere. It's very unlikely that it's not getting enough power. Try popping the cover, since it's an SFF, it could be overheating. Drop the ram voltage down a bit, try memtest86+.

That, and opterons do not need 80 amps. Or anywhere near that.

Your pc is pulling about 300, 350 w from the mains. Not 1kw as some want you to think, like PCP&C or such.
 
temps aren't the issue

Core 30c Idle 55c load
System 27c
nForce 42c
GPU 50c (idle)

The memory usually runs at 2.6v, it's warranted up to 2.8. My PC just froze as I started writing this. The kink in this freeze was that I just brought it out of standby from the night. I'll memtest86 and see what comes up.

You're sure it's not the power supply though?
 
UPDATE:
4 Tests of memtest86+ showed no errors in the memory
I'm currently running Super Pi in safemode, it passed 2 sets of 16m tests
Am I Iooking at a driver conflict in Windows?
 
His PSU is not an issue. It has more than enough for that.

Try a Prime95 on small FFT's.
 
Yeah, it's not the PSU I've been running Memtest and SuperPi. I'm thinking that cool 'n quiet was the problem. Since I've disabled it, the only time it crashed was when I super pi'd my processor at 2.8. Same thing, sudden shut down, but I think this time it's the processor telling me it needs more juice this time. In the sugo, the sort cable edition is key, there really isnt a lot of space to work with. I'd orthos, but santa is delivering my si-128 later today...

Bdq - thanks for being the first on the case to tell me I'm not crazy, it really helped.

It should be noted, again and again, that those PSU calculators' projections are really guidelines and not the rule. I should really buy a kill-a-watt meter.
 
Back
Top