how do you know if your ps isnt enough?

i have two hd coolers (each is one power cable with three tiny fans), 4 standard sized (nothing crazy or overly powerful) case fans, two hard drives, two cd drives,the mb (of course) and CPU fan.

how do you know if you have too much power? my ps is 400w.

the reason i am asking is because my one cd rom drive occasionally wont open. the light doesnt come on or anything. im not sure if this is due to some misconfiguration of the drive, or if i have intermitant power going to it, or what.

also, does the amount of USB things you have plugged in matter?

 

Just because you have a 400watt PSU dont mean its actually running at full speed.And if you have a lot of things pluged into it,you want to look at the amount of AMPS you have on the 12+v Rail...anything below 23A is junk.So take a peek at your PSU and see how many AMPS you have on the 12+v rail..

 

wow. 15a.

 

Most people think when u have a PSU with a lot of watts that its a good thing,BUT the truth is i can have a 300 watt PSU with 25A and it would still be a better PSU then say someone with a 550Watt PSU with 14A. Make Sence? its all about the AMPS,tons of watts are for car stero freaks.

 

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

 

how about this:
http://www.antec.com/specs/Neo480_spe.html

 

or this? its a bit cheaper
http://www.antec.com/specs/NeoHE380_spe.html

 

Its also 100w less, I dont like antec personally, one of my antecs imploded the other one's fans died. Currently using OCZ 600w

 

odd, the antecs seem to get GREAT ratings.

 

The PSU you want is based on the mobo you have as well as your peripherals. If your mobo does NOT drive the CPU off the +12V rail, then the PSU you have may be just fine as it likely has a nice and sturdy +5V rail. If your mobo does use the P4-12V connector to drive the CPU from the +12V rail, then you may want a PSU with 20A or more on the +12.
. Are you having any signs of instability or random reboots? If not, then your PSU may be just fine. Try changing the power connector that is on the balky drive to see if that solves the problem. The cheap contacts they use in the connectors these days, it's a wonder anything works at all...

.bh.