PSU too small....

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Treachery380, Mar 31, 2006.

  1. Treachery380

    Treachery380 Private E-2

    I've been having problems with my computer for a while. I tried to do many things to troubleshoot the problems, but I never could figure out what it was. I have one question and I'd like the answer. I don't need any questions. I ran a wattage calculator and I end up at the least around 40 or 50 watts too short. That's if I strip my system down too. If I have all of my devices attached I run around 120 watts behind. I'm buying a new 500 watt PSU, but I'd like to know what kinds of thinks I should have expected to see with a psu that's too "small". Thanks
     
  2. InYearsToCome

    InYearsToCome MajorGeek

    if your power supply doesnt have enough wattage there are various problems you will see.

    mostly, you'll encounter spontaneous reboots, mostly when accessing a drive or first starting the computer, since spinning up hard drives takes a lot of power. You'll also see lots of recurring disk errors, even if you fix them with scandisk.

    to be on the safe side, make sure you get a well known good PSU, from either Antec, OCZ, Fortron, PC Power & Cooling, Thermaltake.. and maybe a few others I am forgetting.
     
  3. Rikky

    Rikky Wile E. Coyote - One of a kind

    Excessive heat generated from the rear of the case,sometimes accompanied with the smell of hot electronics 'hard to describe' or a burning smell in more extreme cases,if you put your hand on the top rear of the case it should feel warm,not hot :)

    Paint blisters and a red glow are also sure signs its under powered :D

    EDIT second IYTC point on the quality psu
     
  4. Treachery380

    Treachery380 Private E-2

    My computer is pretty unstable. It reboots somtimes for no reason. I get disk errors, even after I've run checkdisk and other programs. My computer can't run many programs at the same time. It will exit out of highly graphical games, or reboot. It has an old 230watt. It needs at about a 300watt.
     
  5. InYearsToCome

    InYearsToCome MajorGeek


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