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| Thread ID: 41450 | 2004-01-11 12:11:00 | Upgrading and Power supply | confus (5100) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 206809 | 2004-01-11 12:11:00 | I am a newbie when it comes to upgrading hardware and since getting my computer have added a pci card ( a TV tuner/video capture card), never touched the power supply and replaced my one 30 gig hard drive that came with the computer with two 120gig Seagate hard drives (not all at the same time) and with two hard drives running things are not stable, I am at the moment not running my second hard drive (which I purchased because my older hard drive failed) because when it was connected things weren’t that great and the bios wouldn’t already recognise the hard drive correctly (sometimes just a letter is wrong and sometimes the drive name (hard drive version or whatever) is basically random characters and such), I’m not completely sure if it’s the hard drive or the power supply which is 235watt atx Umm I’m hoping someone with more experience can shed some light on this problem - thanks |
confus (5100) | ||
| 206810 | 2004-01-11 12:27:00 | If your BIOS is detecting it wrongly, my thoughts would be that there's issues on the Master/Slave side of things, that its fighting your other HDD or CD-Rom for Master/Slave. Try setting each to use Master or Slave and not Cable-Select. Also I'd make sure its specified in the BIOS rather than Auto-detect each boot.... Hope this helps Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 206811 | 2004-01-12 02:00:00 | The hard drive is set up as slave and the last few times I have plugged it in it has worked but for the most part its been left unplugged until I know the same problem won't happen again and wreck it, I ran some seagate diagonistic programs and they said the HD itself is fine why do I think it may be the power supply? having too hard drives seems to cause problems and out of everything the power supply is the unknown factor unfortunatly I can't find much on the web and similar threads to this haven't given me much info either way can my 235w power supply support two hard drives (when only one was installed originally) without any problems? |
confus (5100) | ||
| 206812 | 2004-01-12 02:37:00 | not all power supplies are made equal. A cheap PSU labelled 235w wont be as good as an expensive PSU labelled 235w.. or in brand terms: A Hyena 250w PSU wont be as good as a Topower/Fortron/Sparkle/Enermax/Antec/Zalman (I could go on) 250w PSU... What brand is your PSU? If it's a decent one it shouldnt have too much problem.. consider that SFF computers can run 2 hard drives and an optical drive as well as all the other gear with only a 200w SFF PSU. However if it is a bollocks PSU, then that could most likely be your problem. |
whetu (237) | ||
| 206813 | 2004-01-12 16:51:00 | Have you set up your two drives as master and slave. The one with your OS on it must be master. The other must have the jumpers set as slave. If you do this they should work. At this time I wouldn't worry about the psu. If it works with one drive it should work with two. (not guaranteed though). Jack |
JJJJJ (528) | ||
| 206814 | 2004-01-12 21:43:00 | IMHO unless using a premium PSU as detailed by Whetu, you are pushing your luck with 235 watts. Even if it can cope with basic running power demands, two hard drives pull a load of power and when you add a CD or CD-RW, some video load and CPU demands go up, peak loads may cause intermittent glitches. Quality power supplies are cheap and are a good investment in stability and reliability. 350-375 watts would be better and could cope with further upgrading and increased loads. Cheers Billy 8-{) If the CPU is the boiler-room, the PSU is the stoker |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 206815 | 2004-01-12 22:53:00 | You can calculate your PSU requirement at this URL. www.jscustompcs.com I upgraded my PSU during NY and factored in that I might upgrade my Video card and add a DVD writer soon so got a 400W leadtek PSU from DSE. |
nzStan (440) | ||
| 206816 | 2004-01-13 01:38:00 | dont you mean leadman? not wanting to alarm you but leadman dont have the best of reputations... I had one and it started off fine, but eventually got noisy, a few of the capacitors inside it burst or leaked causing a horrid high pitched whine whenever I started my computer (this whine lasted about 5 minutes until everything warmed up, but it wasnt too much of a hassle as I'm the kind of guy who runs 24/7) and eventually it imploded at attempted to take my motherboard with it... I do have images of the burnination if you'd like to see them... I'm not the only one to have trouble with leadman PSU's but I thought it relevant to bring to your attention.. a friendly forewarning if you will... You may have a good run with your leadman, but it's doubtful and you should be wary. |
whetu (237) | ||
| 206817 | 2004-01-13 01:52:00 | nzStan I tried that site and it said "Your Recommended Minimum Power Supply is 298 Watts!!*" My power supply is a Hyena LC-235atx and well I am thinking of getting a new power supply as talking to other people they say it could be the problem and well my question is what is a good yet cheap power supply? And by cheap I guess I mean as cheap as possible but something I can rely on to not have the same problems with I looked at the dse.co.nz site and I couldn’t really understand all the tech stats of the hard drives, how do I determine what power supply will go in my computer in terms of physical size (if they aren’t all the same size) and in terms of power or whatever or can I pretty much just put anything in? Thanks for your help so far |
confus (5100) | ||
| 206818 | 2004-01-13 02:02:00 | > I tried that site and it said "Your Recommended Minimum > Power Supply is 298 Watts!!*" I rest my case. Take the quality brand names provided by whetu and go search on Pricespy for the best deals. DSE are ok but their prices are not often competitive for serious computer hardware. Cheers Billy 8-{) |
Billy T (70) | ||
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