Is 350W enough to power this system....

S

Stugots

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 25, 2004
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As the title says, is the 350W power supply that i currently have running the system enough?

Abit IC7-G
Pentium 4 [email protected] 1.525v
OCZ PC4200 2x512mb 2.8v
Koolance EXOS
2x Hitachi 7200rpm 160gb
Liteon 52x24x52 cdrw
Liteon 16x dvd
Geforce FX 5600 Ultra
2x generic case fans
 
Does it pass Prime95 for hours on end?

Do you experiance any problems?

I had a PSU problem once when i got my 9700 Pro , and got a 500W PSU that wasnt needed, im now back to a quality enermax 350W PSU and all is fine, it depends more on the make than the power.

If you have no problems why change anything?

Rob
 
Well said, yes if you aren't experiencing any problems, no worry. If you do choose to run prime, get a multimeter/voltohmeter and see how the voltages flucutate/drop under load. Report back here with readings before the test and during the test, for +12, 3.3, and 5.
 
depends on the quality of the psu... If it is an antec, prolly. I personally would like to see a touch more power like mebbe 400 watts... but that is just my personal opinion...
if it is a cheapo psu - watch it tight and replace it soon...
 
my antec 350W powers my P4 system perfectly.
and i have 2 harddrives and 2 optical drives.
 
HvyMtl said:
depends on the quality of the psu...
if it is a cheapo psu - watch it tight and replace it soon...
Click to expand...
Some of the best advice i've ever seen in regards to generic psu's
 
its an antec 350W, ill report back with some voltage readings later tonight
 
An Antec 350w is enough for that. My 3200+, 1GB RAM, 2x 7200 RPM hd, 3x optical drives, and Radeon 9800 only suck 230 watts AC, which would be about 175 watts from the PSU after factoring efficiency. My Antec 430 watter laughed at me when I thought it could be stressed by what it powers...
 
1st It aint the watts, its the amps, per rail

2nd then there should be some concern
things you need to weigh

that is the additive maximum draw for every single component
something that will likely never happen

offset against

PSU manufacturers Lie
or at least quite a few do
most PSUs are rated for amps with each rail measured seperately when in fact the 3.3v and the 5v are often shared rails, in addition most PSU are tested at 25C, when your normal operating temperature will be closer to 40C, that can represent a difference in actual output as much as 30% (downward)

my 510W is actually tested at 40C, and is rated for 600Watts at 25C

I'll reinterate this again, its not the watts but how the amps are distributed
and also the quality of the PSU, there are 350s that would probably have no problem, and then there are 350s I wouldnt let within 10 feet of my computer ;)

Choosing the Right Power Supply
Silent PC Review )Power Supply section
(Mike being about the only English site reviewing PSUs the way it should really be done)
 
I power my rig with a Fortron 300 watter, IMO I choose quality over quanitity. It pulls out a total max load of 390watt (tested in several reviews) and it is rated very conservatively, any quality 300 watter Fortron/Sparkle or 350 watt Antec/Enermac should be able to handle anything just fine.
 
Both FSP Group (Fortron) and Antec are "good" manufacturers
and their specs can be trusted
(though again they are likely tested at 25C which is an industry norm)

Fortron consistently tests out over spec suggesting they are conservative
and make very reasonably priced PSUs for the quality

Antec's Truepower line has a Voltage Regulation of 3%
(+5V,+12V outputs return to within 3% in less than 1ms for 20% load change)
and seperate rails for the 3.3v & 5v
whereas the SmartBlue is at 5% (the ATX Standard)
not sure but I think it has shared rails

Another Prime consideration in a power supply, especially one that is pushing a heavy load of HDDs, is that HDDs require upto 5 times their normal amp draw at spinup
(which is why SCSI conjtrollers often have a delayed spinup option for arrays, so they dont all start at once with the rest of the computer)

that coupled with the leading cause of dead RAM (after improper installation - ESD)
is power events, as the FSB becomes faster and faster, the quality of the onboard voltage regulators in conjunction with the PSUs transient response (voltage regulation under a dynamic load, overvoltage\under voltage) become critical in some configurations

its better to be safe on the PSU end, since ive rarely seen anyone test mobo voltage regulation :p

that goes along way towards explaining why person A with PSU X and Mobo D has no issues
while person B with the same PSU and a different mobo develops issues

-------------------------------------------- Cut & Paste from Corruption 101
Power Issues
There are three basic areas of power problems
1.Source Power Brown outs, blackouts, spikes\surges ect.
see > Power Conditioning and DIY UPS @ Dans Data, for the basics
In this category I would also place power issues due to pilot error, hard restarts and shorts, avoid both. Shutdown properly and pay attention when mounting your motherboard and routing power cables.

2. Under Power: Basically too many components for the power supply,
dont be decieved by wattage figures, its the amount of amps per rail that is really important.
See > Choosing the right Power Supply &
takaman's Power Supply Calculator rev0.61x
to determine the amps you need per rail

3. Voltage Stability Pretty much the all the following
[H]ardcore PSU info (Charts)
http://terasan.okiraku-pc.net/dengen/tester/index.html
http://terasan.okiraku-pc.net/dengen/tester2/index.html
(note the PC Power & Cooling, Antec, Ablecom, and Zippy)

In Japanese :p
But the graphs speak volumes
and the PSU are identified in English]



Continuous Power vs. Peak Power at Spin-Up
12V power profile (current vs. time) of an IDE/ATA hard disk at startup. You can see that the peak power draw is over quadruple
the steady-state operating requirement. The graph appears "noisy"
due to frequent oscillations in current requirements
Click to expand...

Peak vs. Continuous Power
Despite this extra capacity, it is still a good idea to not load up your system to the very limit of your power supply's stated power capacity. It is also wise, if possible to employ features that delay the startup of some disk drive motors when the PC is first turned on, so the +12 voltage is not overloaded by everything drawing maximum current at the same time.
Click to expand...
refering to the links above again
http://terasan.okiraku-pc.net/dengen/tester/index.html

note the consistent voltage instability at startup and shortly thereafter in those graphs

Winbond Launches New Bus Termination Regulator April 4th 2003

"Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading supplier of semiconductor solutions, today launched the W83310S, a new DDR SDRAM bus termination regulator. The solution, new to Winbond's ACPI product family, is aimed at desktop PC and embedded system applications with DDR SDRAM requirements.

Computer systems architectures continue to evolve and are becoming more complex; CPU and memory speeds continue to increase ever more rapidly with every technology turn. More and more high current/low voltage power sources are required for PC systems. This is particularly true for high-speed components such as CPU, memory, and system chipsets. The performance of these components is highly dependent upon stable power. Therefore, motherboard designers require accurate, stable, low-ripple and robust power solutions for these components.

Many system designs use discrete components to implement bus termination functions. This approach creates several problems including poorer quality load regulation; higher voltage-ripple, increased usage of board space and inconsistent designs when different discrete components are used."

and just to reinterate this point one more time
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1774&p=8
"the majority of damaged RAM returned to memory manufacturers is destoryed by fluctuations in the voltage."

the transient response is the critical measure, unfortunately its not a metric that is commonly supplied with the PSU specs
(this seems to be slowly changing, as some manufacturers are supplying the transient response now)

Transient Response: As shown in the diagram here, a switching power supply uses a closed feedback loop to allow measurements of the output of the supply to control the way the supply is operating. This is analogous to how a thermometer and thermostat work together to control the temperature of a house. As mentioned in the description of load regulation above, the output voltage of a signal varies as the load on it varies. In particular, when the load is drastically changed--either increased or decreased a great deal, suddenly--the voltage level may shift drastically. Such a sudden change is called a transient. If one of the voltages is under heavy load from several demanding components and suddenly all but one stops drawing current, the voltage to the remaining current may temporarily surge. This is called a voltage overshoot.

Transient response measures how quickly and effectively the power supply can adjust to these sudden changes. Here's an actual transient response specification that we can work together to decode: "+5V,+12V outputs return to within 5% in less than 1ms for 20% load change." What this means is the following: "for either the +5 V or +12 V outputs, if the output is at a certain level (call it V1) and the current load on that signal either increases or decreases by up to 20%, the voltage on that output will return to a value within 5% of V1 within 1 millisecond". Obviously, faster responses closer to the original voltage are best."
 
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