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Proper PSU power for file server

A

AARGH!

Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2003
Messages
766
Question is, with my fileserver/2nd desk PC configured as the following:

Abit IC7G-Max3
P4 3.2 Ghz
2 Gig ram (4x512 dimms)
x4 300gig SATA drives
x2 320gig SATA drives
x850XT Radeon AGP
x6 80mm fans
Antec NeoHE 430

Is the 430watts enough, or am I underpowered? This has come into question as one morning I came in and it was powered down. Nothing in the Windows logs, or my UPS monitoring tool. When I booted up it ran for about 15 minutes then hard shutdown. Since then, I've checking connections blew out dust, and has been running fine since saturday morning.

Thinking either too much dust causing a problem, or I'm straining the PSU. I would be grateful for any suggestions or comments in figuring this out.

Thanks,
 
Should be fine, thats only 6 drives.
 
Just make sure it's a quality 430w and you'll be fine.
 
It shut down again on me today. Nothing in Event Viewer or the UPS logs. Last thing in the system logs were unable to sync with time server for XXXXX seconds.

Would the PSU be the obvious culprit, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
 
Does your system pass memtest? It's probably not prime95 stable, if it keeps locking up, but I might run it anyways and see if it fails before the machine dies. Is the machine just freezing in place (with Windows still up on the screen) or is it rebooting or BSODing? What are your crash dump settings?
 
I haven't run memtest since I built it several months ago, and it passed fine. It's not BSOD, it's just powered off. Everything else that is plugged into UPS is up and running.

What/where are the crash/dump settings?

TYIA
 
Winkey+Pause, Advanced tab, "Startup and recovery" settings. But those settings are only relevant, if I understand, if the machine sporadically reboots. Spontaneous powerdown probably points to something else.

Does the UPS log events? Anything interesting in there? Have you been around the machine when it actually goes off, and does anything of interest happen to the power then? Does the UPS keep the machine up if you unplug the UPS from the wall?
 
something you might also consider: if the x850 is agp, replace it with something older that uses less power. you don't need 3d acceleration in a file server, and the x850 will just contribute to the heat and power consumption. the less heat you generate, the fewer fans you'll need to have to keep everything cool. it'd remove some of the load from the PSU.

i've got an AGP ati rage 128 8MB card in my fileserver. it doesn't even need an hsf. i bought it from pcsurplusonline.com for like $8
 
unhappy_mage said:
Winkey+Pause, Advanced tab, "Startup and recovery" settings. But those settings are only relevant, if I understand, if the machine sporadically reboots. Spontaneous powerdown probably points to something else.

Does the UPS log events? Anything interesting in there? Have you been around the machine when it actually goes off, and does anything of interest happen to the power then? Does the UPS keep the machine up if you unplug the UPS from the wall?
Click to expand...

It's APC software, and it logs when it has to intervene either for low power or none. It shows clean. I will see what happens if I disconnect it from the wall and go from there.

Also for other comment, it has the AGP card in it as it sees light duty for gaming at times.

Thanks
 
m0unds said:
something you might also consider: if the x850 is agp, replace it with something older that uses less power. you don't need 3d acceleration in a file server, and the x850 will just contribute to the heat and power consumption. the less heat you generate, the fewer fans you'll need to have to keep everything cool. it'd remove some of the load from the PSU.

i've got an AGP ati rage 128 8MB card in my fileserver. it doesn't even need an hsf. i bought it from pcsurplusonline.com for like $8
Click to expand...

Good advice. Most of the high end servers have Rage IIC's in them. I think most of those are PCI, and can be had dirt cheap, too. I'd disable sound and extraneous ports on the MB, too, since you won't be using those either on a server. The less that's active, the less resources it takes up and the less can go wrong.

You said that it does light gaming, so maybe you need the card in there, but you might want to look into a lower end box to power your drives. A file server doesn't need much in the way of CPU power. Six drives, a Prescott and an X850 is an awful lot to ask of a 430W power supply. I'd consider a decent 550W, just to be on the safe side. Even if it can supply enough power, it's going to get a lot hotter than one that is better able to keep up, and with that many drives, I'd be worried about heat, too. Have you done any temperature monitoring lately? Maybe you have dust that's causing a heat problem, too. That's two things right there that will cause a hard crash with little warning.
 
Caffeinated said:
Good advice. Most of the high end servers have Rage IIC's in them. I think most of those are PCI, and can be had dirt cheap, too. I'd disable sound and extraneous ports on the MB, too, since you won't be using those either on a server. The less that's active, the less resources it takes up and the less can go wrong.

You said that it does light gaming, so maybe you need the card in there, but you might want to look into a lower end box to power your drives. A file server doesn't need much in the way of CPU power. Six drives, a Prescott and an X850 is an awful lot to ask of a 430W power supply. I'd consider a decent 550W, just to be on the safe side. Even if it can supply enough power, it's going to get a lot hotter than one that is better able to keep up, and with that many drives, I'd be worried about heat, too. Have you done any temperature monitoring lately? Maybe you have dust that's causing a heat problem, too. That's two things right there that will cause a hard crash with little warning.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I've got my file server (500 GB of HDD space) running on a P3 800 w/512MB of RAM
 
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