Hi All -
So I've been out of touch with newer hardware lately, and my dad bought some components for me to build for him while I'm home over the weekend. I told him an Antec 350W PSU would be enough, but I'm thinking now that I'm wrong. Can I get some feedback on this before I tell him to go buy a bigger PSU?
The system specs are:
Epox 9NDA3 nForce 3 Ultra
A64 3000+
ATI AIW9700 Pro 128MB
2x Kingston 512MB
2x 160GB Seagate PATA HDDs
2x optical drives
Antec case with Antec 350W PSU
With nothing but the mobo plugged in and no video card or peripherials plugged in, it looks like the system starts to boot fine. Plug the video card into the AGP slot (with it's external power NOT plugged in), the system hangs with code 26 on the little Epox display, which, according to the manual, means 'reserved' (reeeeeeeal usefull code, eh?). Plug the power connector of the vid card in, hit the power button, and all the fans spin up for a second and then everything goes dark and stops (the code light on the mobo goes out too).
So is 350 not enough? I'm about 2-3 years behind on the new technology (my fastest system is an AXP 2000), but it seems a little odd that a 350W PSU won't even power up a CPU and vid card! Any ideas? Would a bigger PSU power this thing up? And how big? With 350W being taxed right now, and yet 4 drives to plug in, maybe up towards 500W?
UPDATE: I tried the system in an identical antec case/psu, and the same results happened. I'll try swapping the mobo next.
UPDATE 2: I've also tried another mobo with the exact same results. I've pretty much got 2x of everything laying around (building 2 systems), and the results are still the same. Any idea what could be causing this, since the consensus seems to be that 350W is enough. Sure seems like not enough power the way things spin up and stop. Is there anything special you have to do with external connecter vid cards?
Thanks in advance,
John
So I've been out of touch with newer hardware lately, and my dad bought some components for me to build for him while I'm home over the weekend. I told him an Antec 350W PSU would be enough, but I'm thinking now that I'm wrong. Can I get some feedback on this before I tell him to go buy a bigger PSU?
The system specs are:
Epox 9NDA3 nForce 3 Ultra
A64 3000+
ATI AIW9700 Pro 128MB
2x Kingston 512MB
2x 160GB Seagate PATA HDDs
2x optical drives
Antec case with Antec 350W PSU
With nothing but the mobo plugged in and no video card or peripherials plugged in, it looks like the system starts to boot fine. Plug the video card into the AGP slot (with it's external power NOT plugged in), the system hangs with code 26 on the little Epox display, which, according to the manual, means 'reserved' (reeeeeeeal usefull code, eh?). Plug the power connector of the vid card in, hit the power button, and all the fans spin up for a second and then everything goes dark and stops (the code light on the mobo goes out too).
So is 350 not enough? I'm about 2-3 years behind on the new technology (my fastest system is an AXP 2000), but it seems a little odd that a 350W PSU won't even power up a CPU and vid card! Any ideas? Would a bigger PSU power this thing up? And how big? With 350W being taxed right now, and yet 4 drives to plug in, maybe up towards 500W?
UPDATE: I tried the system in an identical antec case/psu, and the same results happened. I'll try swapping the mobo next.
UPDATE 2: I've also tried another mobo with the exact same results. I've pretty much got 2x of everything laying around (building 2 systems), and the results are still the same. Any idea what could be causing this, since the consensus seems to be that 350W is enough. Sure seems like not enough power the way things spin up and stop. Is there anything special you have to do with external connecter vid cards?
Thanks in advance,
John