Is 150 watts pushing it?

[sirjahmez]

I have an old Hp Pavilion that is more than 3 years old. It has a celeron 1.2 Ghz, around 2 x 128 MB of ram, a radeon 9250 pci graphic card, a 160 GB harddrive, a dvd burner, and cd drive. Its strictly used to surf the web, and some downloading. No gaming.

I have been using the 150W power supply that originally came with the system with the setup above for 3 years and have had no problems since recently. One day I just powered my computer down for the night and when I tried to turn it back on I got the blue error screen. I can get into the whole selecting which mode of windows to run like safe more or regular, but after I select a mode the blue error screen appears.

I unhooked everything except a harddrive and one stick of ram and i still get the problem. I remember I had a problem like this with an old hard drive of mine. I just got a new one and reinstalled windows and everything was ok.

I went by Compusa yesterday and got their generic 150W psu to see if it was the psu, but I could only get the computer to post with only a stick of ram and the psu connected to the motherboard. I tried also tried hooking up the harddrive, but I got nothing to come up on the screen and all I hear are little popping like sounds. Without the harddrive the computer posts and says no OS was detect.

My question is, is the whole problem likely do to the psu and should I upgrade to a higher wattage one? If so what would be the minimum recommended and also, are there any good micro ATX psu available?

 

[alimoalem]

wow, 150w? and you were able to find a new one at Compusa? i don't know what your budget is but if you're using a 150w generic psu, you can go to fry's and by its cheapest case/psu combo (comes with at least a 350w generic) and they're usually $15-20 for the cheapest case/psu combo.

otherwise, you can get a quality one for $40 (the fortron 400w). the 450w is just $10 more btw

 

[goobernoodles]

150... is that a typo? How much did you pay for a new 150watt psu?? Return it and buy a 300w+ one online.

 

[notanotheracct]

Originally posted by: sirjahmez
and all I hear are little popping like sounds.

where are those sounds coming from? that can't be a good sign...
sounds like it's not the PSU, but a better one would be reccommended regardless. i'd second the 400w forton alimoalem mentioned, should be all you'd ever need for your PC usage. if you really need a micro ATX PSU though, forton also has that covered too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104904

seems alright to me. as for your problem, if you have any way of testing another HD that might help solve your mystery. if you have to get a new HD too, a seagate would be nice if only for the 5 year warranty they carry.

 

[zagood]

[guessing]Sounds like blown caps on the motherboard[/guessing].

-z

 

[0roo0roo]

i can't believe u bought a 150watt psu again lol and the numbers are rather iffy ...generic makers stretch the truth so 150 whatever != 150 generic

 

[sirjahmez]

Originally posted by: zagood
[guessing]Sounds like blown caps on the motherboard[/guessing].

-z

Yeah, but it's kind of weird. If I put in the old psu it doesn't make any noise what so ever. If i stick in the Compusa psu just connected to the mobo it doesn't make any noise. If I connect anything else to the compusa psu it makes the weird noise. Kind of sounds like how some times a cpu makes the random little popping sounds every now and then. Just a little louder.


So I should then go with a 400W to run my 1.2 Celeron computer? Isn't that a little over kill? For years I was running it with the 150W psu that was provided. I thought maybe i would need to go with at least a 250W psu or something.

 

[mechBgon]

To start with, as an HP Pavilion it would use a microATX power supply, is that correct? I'd get a Fortron microATX unit and call it done. There are a couple of 180W ones listed at Newegg in two different shapes: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...ption=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

 

[furballi]

Probably a HDD corruption issue. Try to format the old HDD and clean install Windows. If the HDD will not format, then you may need to swap power supply. Get this $24 HEC 585 power supply. A bigger PSU will not use more electricity. You may need to put the PSU inside the PC since the OEM PSU is quite small.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA22243

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, 150 Watts is a LITTLE low for any rig. If you have only one HD and one CD, 250 Watts may be the bare mininum. I wouldn't go less than 350 watts. Higher if you plan to use it for ARC WELDING when not running the Computer. Good Luck, Jim