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PSU Recommendation

O

obscurity78

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2009
Messages
214
Having random lockups on my i7 920 folding machine and I'm starting to think my PSU is not enough to keep up. Opinions?

I currently have a 650W Antec.

Here is what I'm running....

i7 920 @ 3.6ghz
Corsair H50
4x 640gb HDDs in RAID5
2x 750gb HDDs in RAID0
Nvidia 9800GT
LSI MegaRaid 8308elp
8 cooling fans (3x120mm, 4x80mm, 1x30mm)

Is 650W enough for all of this? This machine folds 24/7 as well as normal duty (some gaming, internet browsing, etc). Should I step it up to 850W? I've been folding non-stop on this setup for over a year now.. is it time to replace the PSU?
 
If you have already been going a year then there is definitely no reason to upgrade. You won't be pulling more than 400W-450W with that setup anyways. Your PSU is probably also running in the optimal efficiency curve as well.

What is making you think your PSU isn't keeping up anymore? Whinning fan? Random BSOD?

If it ain't broke don't fix it.
 
It is broke though.. random unexplained lockups every couple of days. Lost a couple bigadv wu recently because of it, and my RAID5 array incurred some damage as well.. had to rebuild it.

Issues started after adding the 2 750GB drives.. maybe I need to spread the load out over the 12V rails.. I currently have all 6 HDDs attached to a single cable...?
 
I think you should be fine. My server is a similar set up with 8 drives, LSI 9240, and a 930 @ 3.8 @1.35V but no 9800GT(100W full load FWIW) and it pulls <400W from the wall then folding.
 
As others have said you shouldn't be overstressing that psu but it could be dying, you could grab one of the Antec Neo 620C's for 35 bucks AR to prove this out. My second bet would be the motherboard as judging by the low overclock I'm assuming you have a C2 920? If this is the case then your motherboard would like be a few years old as well and could have failing caps or a cooked chipset. Buying the PSU will take one of the variables out of the equation and give you a nice spare as well.
 
PSU, Mobo, and CPU were all purchased 11/22/2008

I'm going to try and narrow down the culprit. Going to put 3 drives on one 12v rail, the other 3 drives on a separate rail, and then try swapping in a known working video card if that doesn't correct it.
 
Agreed with Schro: test it with memtest86, free!

if memtest isnt showing anything i'd be worried about mobo next
 
Spreading the HDD load out certainly won't hurt but I'd agree with other advice you've gotten here - your PSU should be more than sufficient. Try the memtest and maybe check all connections and reseat all cards. I've had an intermittent problem that I traced to a vidcard coming just a little loose in the slot after moving a machine to another room.
 
DF454 said:
As others have said I would do some more testing.
If you do need to replace 650, I would move to a 750 or 850, because of the 6 HDs and 8 fans you have.
Click to expand...

The amount of power pulled by modern day hard drives is negligible (and fans too). Most I've seen recently pull .5A @ 5v plus .5A @ 12v or about 8.5w per drive (I'm also guessing this is the spin up power draw, which would only happen at boot time). High power fans will pull .1v @ 12v tops, with slower fans pulling less, which comes out to less than 1w each. Total load between his drives and fans should be about 50w, which isn't enough to justify adding hundreds of watts of power to his supply.
 
One thing I have learned over the years is do not skimp on a good power supply.
I have never lost hardware because I had to big of a P/S.

And the 750W I linked to is the same one in your sig, and you have less hardware listed than the OP. :D :eek:
 
Ok so tried a bunch of stuff... nothing helped. Lowered my overclock back to stock voltages, etc and now I'm rock stable. Guess it's time to re-evaluate my overclock and get it stable again. :rolleyes:
 
I've got 100k points on it being the mobo degrading, likely due to caps. Any takers?
 
jebo_4jc said:
I'm in. 100k says It's not the mobo
Click to expand...

Hmm, do you want to pick a failure mode to bet on or are you going to make me play 'mobo vs world' odds?

Obscurity, please don't take this as making light of your troubles, rather I want to see it resolved an am making it interesting at the same time.:D
 
Hey I just accepted the deal that was on the table :)

You'll probably get one or two bigadv units out of me, so you'll probably get about 150k from me. So I'm giving you 3 to 2. How does that sound? :)
 
jebo_4jc said:
Hey I just accepted the deal that was on the table :)

You'll probably get one or two bigadv units out of me, so you'll probably get about 150k from me. So I'm giving you 3 to 2. How does that sound? :)
Click to expand...

Alright, I'm in. If you win you're getting two WU's from a Windows based 2600k system, so ~125k.

Now Obscurity, lets get this thing working!
 
Obscurity what motherboard you running? and what are your over clock settings? also what temps do you have while folding. what cpu stepping do you have? 200X18
 
Last edited:
It's all in my sig

Asus P6T Deluxe, i7 920 @3.6Ghz, Corsair H50, 6GB G.Skill DDR3 @1480Mhz, Nvidia 9800GT, 650W PSU
180 BCLK x20, 1.225v VCORE, 1.5v DRAM, 1.275v VTT, 1.1v IOH, 1.8v PLL

Processor is a C0 stepping.

System has been stable for over a year @3.6ghz (Aug '10 til now) folding bigadv 24/7 - Temps range from 70-75C at full load.

Recently added a couple new drives and a raid card and the trouble started.

I'm running default settings now (2.6ghz) and standard smp seems to be stable. Haven't had much time to try overclocking it again but I will in the next few days.
 
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VSrRl3Kt5dztTa3QrDf2xA?feat=directlink
%25255BH%25255DFolding.jpg
 
I vote mobo, RAM, or driver and finally maybe old GPU. Had problems with an older folding rig before and ended up being a combination of failing mobo and one bad RAM stick (damn you to hell crutial ballistix)
I also thought it was my OCZ 700 PSU, but I can safely say it was not the PSU as it is still running my gf's new desktop.
 
You could always try bumping the vcore and vtt a little with all other settings the same. If it is the caps on the board again this would make it stable for the time being.
 
Blast from the past... it was a dead/dying PSU.

I replaced it and it has been running fine ever since. :cool:
 
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