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Some problems

3

3Bar_Mopar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
Messages
300
OK. These are my components:

Antec 900 case
DVD/RW optical drive
XFX HD4870 graphics card
Seagate 200 GIG IDE hard drive
Seagate 500 GIG IDE Slave drive
8 GIGs of GSkill DDR2 RAM
M3A78-T Asus motherboard
AMD Phenom x3 processor
VX550W Corsair PSU, single 12V rail 41 amps.

My problem is that I got the graphics card yesterday and installed it. The computer wouldn't boot with both HDD's connected, but would boot with only the master. The PSU yesterday was a 550 watt BFG. I went to Fry's and bought the Corsair 550 watt after talking to an employee who seemed to know an inordinate amount about power supplies.
He steered me in the direction of the corsair since it has a single rail and 41 amps to power my graphics card. He seemed to think the Corsair would have no problem with my set-up.
I get home and install the new PSU. Everything is fine with both HDD's connected except that it's slightly sluggish when closing windows. Usually a window will instantly disappear when I close it, now you can see it kind of fades quickly from top to bottom.
I opened the case and unplugged the slave drive again and everything is back up to speed.

So, is my PSU not cutting it, or do I need to get a new drive? If I need a more powerful PSU, what can I get that would be sufficient for around $100 from Newegg?
 
A PSU will not slow down your system. Symptoms of a faulty or insufficient PSU include system instability, random crashes and BSODs, and failure to boot. If you aren't experiencing any of those things, then the PSU is probably not the culprit.

Have you tried running Seagate's disk checking tool to see if the drive is failing? A bad drive can cause some pretty strange issues, and it would seem that the drive is what is causing your problems.
 
Zero82z said:
A PSU will not slow down your system. Symptoms of a faulty or insufficient PSU include system instability, random crashes and BSODs, and failure to boot. If you aren't experiencing any of those things, then the PSU is probably not the culprit.

Have you tried running Seagate's disk checking tool to see if the drive is failing? A bad drive can cause some pretty strange issues, and it would seem that the drive is what is causing your problems.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. When I still had the BFG PSU installed, the system mostly wouldn't boot and the POST diagnostic screen was slow as heck....it took forever just to load the diag screen. Sometimes it would boot to Windows but would lag horribly. Once I unplugged the slave drive, everything booted normally.
I ran the Seagate tool and it said the drives were fine. I returned the Corsair PSU to Fry's since I found the 650 watt version with 51 volts, single 12V rail PSU on Newegg for the same price, less tax and free shipping. I'm going to try that.
 
3Bar_Mopar said:
Not necessarily true. When I still had the BFG PSU installed, the system mostly wouldn't boot and the POST diagnostic screen was slow as heck....it took forever just to load the diag screen. Sometimes it would boot to Windows but would lag horribly. Once I unplugged the slave drive, everything booted normally. I ran the Seagate tool and it said the drives were fine.
Click to expand...
That still doesn't necessarily imply that the PSU is at fault. The Corsair VX550 is definitely powerful enough to handle your system (I run my system on a less powerful HX520, and my rig probably consumes at least as much power as yours does), and with both PSUs the issues went away when you disconnected the HD, so that really points to the HD as being the problem. But give it a shot with the TX650, and who knows, it might just work.
 
Zero82z said:
That still doesn't necessarily imply that the PSU is at fault. The Corsair VX550 is definitely powerful enough to handle your system (I run my system on a less powerful HX520, and my rig probably consumes at least as much power as yours does), and with both PSUs the issues went away when you disconnected the HD, so that really points to the HD as being the problem. But give it a shot with the TX650, and who knows, it might just work.
Click to expand...

I had another encounter today with weak power. I took the Corsair PSU back and ordered a 700 watt Rosewill single rail PSU with 54 amps for $71 shipped. I stuck my old BFG back in with the slave drive unplugged. All was fine, if not barely sluggish for a couple days. Then, the computer would barely boot again...BIOS screen was slow as balls, etc... I unplugged my optical drive and everything has been fine. I feel like I have been right on the line for power consumption. My Nine Hundred case has 5 fans, the video card that takes 2 PCI-E power connections and has it's own fan set at 75%, the HDD and the processor...I hope this PSU solves the problem.
 
I doubt it, considering that Rosewill PSU is probably quite a bit worse than the Corsair VX550.
 
Zero82z said:
I doubt it, considering that Rosewill PSU is probably quite a bit worse than the Corsair VX550.
Click to expand...

Well, after some informed research before buying, I found out that that particular Rosewill PSU is likely built by the same company that makes some of the Corsair PSU's, Seasonic.
I hope you're wrong though, if so...I will be sending it back as well and getting an Earthwatts or something.
 
Seasonic does not manufacture any PSUs for Rosewill. Neither does CWT, which is the other OEM that Corsair uses.
 
Zero82z is correct. Rosewill and Corsair do not share any ODM's.
 
3Bar_Mopar said:
I had another encounter today with weak power. I took the Corsair PSU back and ordered a 700 watt Rosewill single rail PSU with 54 amps for $71 shipped. I stuck my old BFG back in with the slave drive unplugged. All was fine, if not barely sluggish for a couple days. Then, the computer would barely boot again...BIOS screen was slow as balls, etc... I unplugged my optical drive and everything has been fine. I feel like I have been right on the line for power consumption. My Nine Hundred case has 5 fans, the video card that takes 2 PCI-E power connections and has it's own fan set at 75%, the HDD and the processor...I hope this PSU solves the problem.
Click to expand...

your problem really does not sound power related. for some reason you feel that you are 'on the line' for power consumption however that is simply not the case given your hardware and the power supllies you have tried. you are very much in the comfort zone for both psu's. going from a proven corsair unit to a rosewill psu of questionable quality is very likely a downgrade anyway.

its obvious you got something in your head and no one is going to change your mind.

hard drives use very little power and you were probably not even in a 3d app when you had windows closing slow. you were probaly using less than 200w of power. something else is wrong with your setup, disconnecting hard drives should not have such dramatic results.
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Last edited:
Something else occurred to me. Is your optical drive IDE or SATA? If it's an IDE drive, then it could be a problem with your motherboard's IDE controller, since the issues went away when you disconnected an IDE device.
 
ocellaris said:
your problem really does not sound power related. for some reason you feel that you are 'on the line' for power consumption however that is simply not the case given your hardware and the power supllies you have tried. you are very much in the comfort zone for both psu's. going from a proven corsair unit to a rosewill psu of questionable quality is very likely a downgrade anyway.

its obvious you got something in your head and no one is going to change your mind.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...I don't know then. I installed the new PSU and the system is solid and fast again with all the drives connected. The optical drive is SATA.
Perhaps something in my setup is malfunctioning and being a power hog for some reason. Everything in this computer is brand new, so I don't know.

As far as manufacturer of the PSUs...my mistake.
 
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