wont boot with 4 PCI cards

[gEd]

Another tip: If you do decide to get a new PSU, don;t buy an unbranded PSU off ebay, especially the gold ones. You can get them for £16 but ask yourself how can they can make a well designed, good quality PSU for this money and still make a profit?

A dodgy PSU will take your pc out with it when it goes bang. Also they can be very noisy.

Take a look at these and see if there is one in your price bracket

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlis...y=priceAsc

[fuzzweed]

ok, good point (not that I was really going to go for a £16 jobby) How do I determine my minimum power requirements? I'm guessing with three hdds, three tuners and an xp3200 (plus obviously mobo, graphics, fans, cd etc.) that I need 400W+, maybe even 500W????

[gEd]

http://www.journeysystems.com/power_supp...ulator.php

In my main rig I have an XP-M 2500 clocked to 2.3 @ 1.66V, an 6800 Ultra (which has 2 x power connectors), 3 x HD 1 x DVD-RW and 4 fans. This is powered by an Enermax 350W PSU.

400W will be plently.

[herbs]

Do yourself a favour and buy a seasonic S12 380/430 watt it will do all you need and quietly.

[fuzzweed]

thanks - the s12 looks fairly affordable too.
Just to educate myself a bit further, as this seems to be a goldmine of PSU info, what voltages should I see in the hardware monitor for the 3, 5 and 12v rails in a good system? should they be spot on or what tollerence can they be under or over by?

[herbs]

You should have a tolerance of -/+ 5% on the rails. see http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=79305

[fuzzweed]

just as I thought I'd solved the problem, I tried sticking a linux live disc in (with all 4 pci cards). This boots up fine. Is windows more power hungry than linux????

[Graham]

Have you tried booting from the Windows XP CD and doing a Repair?

I found this via Google:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

I can't vouch for the content but it sounds about right.

Good luck

[bgowland]

In defence of one cheapo PSU...

I had to replace my original PSU about a year ago and bought an Ebuyer Extra Value 500W PSU - it was £12.99 and has been powering my rig since then. It's not particularly quiet though but that isn't too important in my situation.

Cheers,
Brian

[HtV]

just as I thought I'd solved the problem, I tried sticking a linux live disc in (with all 4 pci cards). This boots up fine. Is windows more power hungry than linux????

My 2cts: The linux-bootcd probably might not be using the harddisks.