Is my powersupply not powerful enough and causing my system to crash?

[Nick_]

These are my specs:

DFI Lan Party NFII Ultra B
- 4 firewire ports
- 8 USB ports
- dual ethernet
AMD Mobile running a 2.6ghz @ 1.8 volts (even at stock speeds it crashes)
1GB of OCZ gold PC3200 running at 3.3 volts
Radeon 9600 Pro 128 meg with a zalman heatsink - AGP
Radeon 7000 64 megs - PCI (for secondary monitor
160GB Seagate Hard drive - IDE
Lite-on DVDRW - IDE
Audigy X-gamer sound card
flash card reader - SD, CF, MMC, etc...
56k modem
floppy drives
2 80mm fans
2 92mm fans


Now, my powersupply is a Zalman 400 watt (ZM400A-APF) http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=3&code=015

the thing that worries me is this, the 12v only has 15 amps is this enough?

through hardware doctor, my +12v status varies between 11.40 and 11.52. Could this be the problem of my crash? I don't have a lot of money, but if I need to, I will have to buy another PSU. I need one that is near silent through.

My system crashes randomly, and I get the BSOD on the monitor that has the AGP card.

Thanks

 

[Ice Czar]

the thing that worries me is this, the 12v only has 15 amps is this enough?

it probably would be if the supply had been rated at the temperature your likely operating at
as it is its of some concern

http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/video/ati-powercons/t6.GIF&1=1
http://takaman.jp/D/?M=PbQJQbdHhSASkhG5DKHET4UcVAXAYbZAZav85HCMZ&english

a realistic worse case senerio (whuch the calculator isnt being an additive of all the maximums)
would be about 10A on the +12V
of course Id deduct a full 1\3rd for the derating curve on that supply putting you right at 10A +12V for a 40C > 50C internal PSU enclosure temperature

I cant say definatively its the PSU especially since you dont hit the worse case draw all that often
(post spinup of the HDD and fans , no optical and CPU\GPUs at 100%)

 

[Nick_]

thank you Ice Czar,

I should have probably mentioned that my computer does have problems starting up. When I start the computer up, I'd say 25% of the time, the computer will start and not even reach the BIOS POST, it will just light up the cdrom drive, flash a few times like it is trying to start but nothing happens (the hard drive doesnt even spin up) Then when I shut it down, and restart it, it generally then boots.

I'll pay $100 for a good PSU if thats a problem, but I don't want to spend $100 just to find out its not the PSU.

I just swapped out the ram, processor and motherboard a few weeks back and the problems still seem to be occuring.

 

[Nick_]

I just noticed the second link and thank you for the help

I have a mobile 2400 running at 2.6ghz so even if I change the takaman.jp link you posted above, that would put me over the 15 amp rating I have - closer to 17amps if I am reading this correctly

 

[Ice Czar]

keep in mind that calculators are additive of all the max draws
the way I came up with that 10A worsecase draw was to knock down the amps for everything that spins to 1\4 of its rating (and removed the optical all together)
when you start up conversely and they need the full amp draw the CPU & GPU dont

as far as derating for temperature its highly variable but for that PSU it was likely rated at 21C as you often see in the Intel Certification documents, whereas say an OCZ or Seasonic would be rated at 40C, to reflect a more realistic operating environment (consider the PSU is likely exhausting the CPU heatsink and the rest of the case before trying to dump its own waste heat into that airstream)

without some background in how the supplies are rated its impossible to employ their spec for a realistic comparision
one of the reasons "brands" hold alot of weight, some manufacturers far more predatory than others