Time for new power supply?

[barlav]

I've recently added a Radeon 9700 pro to my system (Was using a gf3 ti200). I've been running with the Antec 300W PS that came with my SX830 case. I also have 2 7200 RPM hard drives, sound card, dvd, cd-rw, nic and a few usb add on cards. Runs ok most of the time but since the adding of the radeon my pc spontaneously rebooted once and another time it locked up completely. Both problems occured when gaming. I'm wondering if it is time to give my PS an upgrade? Or should what I have be adequate? I'm running the latest Catalyst drivers along with Windows XP and DirectX 9. But I suppose issue could be video related too. Thanks for any input

 

[HaroldW]

It could be the power supply (system trying to draw too much power), overheating (CPU or Video Card), or possibly DirectX 9.0 (conflicting with some other program, driver or service.)

 

[zewm]

Bar.. Same thing was happening to me. All my games were freezing or randomly rebooting.
My friends told me it was lack of PS as the ATI Radeon 9500 Pro alone uses 300W. I had a
350W PS and my system obviously couldn't take the stress. Right now I just installed a new
450W PS and it seems to be working fine. Its not dragging as much as it was before. Damn
ATI card SUCKS the juice. Try a 450W+ PS. See if it helps.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: zewm
Bar.. Same thing was happening to me. All my games were freezing or randomly rebooting.
My friends told me it was lack of PS as the ATI Radeon 9500 Pro alone uses 300W. I had a
350W PS and my system obviously couldn't take the stress. Right now I just installed a new
450W PS and it seems to be working fine. Its not dragging as much as it was before. Damn
ATI card SUCKS the juice. Try a 450W+ PS. See if it helps.

I would take the above statement with a grain of salt. Since your computer sounds like it was running fine before adding the 9700 Pro, it is possible that you are suffering from a strained psu. With your system specs in mind. I would think a quality 350w psu (Antec, Enermax, Thermaltake, Vantec, HEC, Allied) should be more than adequate.

 

[Pariah]

Runs ok most of the time but since the adding of the radeon my pc spontaneously rebooted once and another time it locked up completely. Both problems occured when gaming.

2 random crashes don't point towards a PS problem. More likely it's a software problem. Did you completely clean out the NVidia drivers before installing the ATi card?

My friends told me it was lack of PS as the ATI Radeon 9500 Pro alone uses 300W.

Your friend is wrong. It doesn't take anywhere near that much.

I had a
350W PS and my system obviously couldn't take the stress.

That would only be true if you had a very poor quality PS. I'm running a 9700Pro with 4 HD's and other assorted HW on an Antec 330W and all voltage readings are fine.

 

[zewm]

Ok.. Having the 450W PS My comp just reboot AGAIN.
I think its just ATI sucks. I'm gonna go buy a GF 4600 Toomorow.

 

[novice]

Just our of curiousity, what kind of power supplies were your 350 watt and 450 watt? Some of the less expensive power supply units are very optomistically rated. A quality unit rated at 350 watts may very well provide much more stability to your system. I just ordered a 420 watt Enlight unit, that I am hoping will qualify as a quality unit. My 300 watt enlight has performed well so far, so I am hoping it will do the job.

 

[PCMarine]

If you are running Windows 2000 or XP

My Computer > View System Information > Advanced tab > Startup and Recovery (Settings)

Once there, uncheck "Automatically restart" and any other options worth unchecking.