hi silent fans,
so my first foray into the silent world has been met with moderate success. i've been running this rig for about 1 year now and as i've added a couple components, i've noticed a problem with random reboots. first it started off while playing graphic intensive games and when i recently added a dvd burner, it now happens when i try to rip or burn. here's the machine:
athlon xp 2700+ SLK-800
asus a7n8x deluxe
nexus 3000 PS
gf Ti 4400
2x512 Corsair PC3200
1xIBM 180GXP (180 GB)
1xMaxtor 30 GB drive
1xToshiba DVD reader
1xLite-On DVD+/-R/RW
+ on board sound, the usual complement of Panaflo case fans, 5 usb devices. Is the 300W PS enough to handle this? From what I read in this forum, it should be good. Ideas?
Thanks for your help.
the little engine that couldn't?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee, Devonavar
Re: the little engine that couldn't?
It sounds to me like the PSU is the most likely culprit, assuming nothing else has changed in your config except these new components. But in order to try to diagnose the problem properly, I'll need more info--for example, what are these "couple new components" that you added before these random reboots started happening?
Maybe you just need more power. My old PIII Gateway system had a 300W power supply, and would randomly reboot every once in a while; this problem got worse when trying to burn a DVD. My system had 2 hard drives--an 80G Maxtor and a 100G Western Digital, and a Lite-On DVD burner.
It was very frustrating for me to not be able to figure out what caused the random reboots. I had moved the system from the original Gateway case with 250W power supply into a case with a 300W power supply...and it still would randomly reboot. It was also feeding a whiny CPU fan and a whiny Radeon 7200 GPU fan.
Since then, I've gone to a strict policy of only one hard drive per computer. The old Gateway case and motherboard with just one 100G Western Digital is rock solid--no random reboots. The new HTPC has just one 100G Western Digital and the DVD burner--no random reboots.
My power consumption has also been helped by losing fans, I guess. The old PIII has lost its whiny CPU fan. The Radeon 7200 has lost its whiny CPU fan. I've never used case fans; my designs so far rely entirely on just the PSU fan.
OTOH, I had for a long time been running a P4Celeron 2.5Ghz as my HTPC, with stock fanned CPU cooler and two hard drives (an 8Gig Seagate and 100Gig Western Digital). I never had any random reboots with that system--but it was powered by a 350W Fortron PSU.
If you don't want to split your hardware into two systems, I'd recommend upgrading the PSU to something more powerful.
It was very frustrating for me to not be able to figure out what caused the random reboots. I had moved the system from the original Gateway case with 250W power supply into a case with a 300W power supply...and it still would randomly reboot. It was also feeding a whiny CPU fan and a whiny Radeon 7200 GPU fan.
Since then, I've gone to a strict policy of only one hard drive per computer. The old Gateway case and motherboard with just one 100G Western Digital is rock solid--no random reboots. The new HTPC has just one 100G Western Digital and the DVD burner--no random reboots.
My power consumption has also been helped by losing fans, I guess. The old PIII has lost its whiny CPU fan. The Radeon 7200 has lost its whiny CPU fan. I've never used case fans; my designs so far rely entirely on just the PSU fan.
OTOH, I had for a long time been running a P4Celeron 2.5Ghz as my HTPC, with stock fanned CPU cooler and two hard drives (an 8Gig Seagate and 100Gig Western Digital). I never had any random reboots with that system--but it was powered by a 350W Fortron PSU.
If you don't want to split your hardware into two systems, I'd recommend upgrading the PSU to something more powerful.
I'm not sure more power is necessarily the answer.
Let's figure out your max draw:
(2) HD's @ 12w/each = 24w
Ti4400 = 40w (from here)
xp 2700+ = 68.3w (from here)
Burner = 10w (assumed)
dvd = 5w (assumed)
misc fans = 10w
Total = 157w + 10 for memory, northbridge, etc = 167w
Assuming your PSU is 65% efficient, then it can supply 300w*0.65=195w. Now, I guessed on the burner/dvd drives but I have to imagine I'm on the high side with each. This is also assuming that everything in your system is running full bore at the same time.
FWIW, hereis my system -- happily chugging along on a 300w seasonic (I've bolded the major draw items):
Papst 4412F/2GL rear @ 1200rpm (my fan journey, here)
Asus P4T533-c w/ P4 3.06 GHz
Thermalright SP94 w/ Papst 8412N/2GL @ 1450rpm
ATI AIW 8500 w/ Zalman ZM-NB32J heatsink
SB Audigy2 ZS soundcard
Promise Fastrak100 TX4
(4) 120GB Seagate 7200.7 as (2) RAID 0
TDK DVD burner
Floppy
Using a WattsUp? (similar to the Kill-a-watt), I've never seen my system draw more than 220 off the wall -- with a 75% efficiency PSU, that is 165w in the box.
Now, this isn't to say that your PSU isn't flakey -- maybe it can't deliver the power needed. But, a more powerful PSU (ie., 400w) isn't necessarily the answer.
Dave
PS Thisshould be req'd reading if you're going to upgrade your PSU.
Let's figure out your max draw:
(2) HD's @ 12w/each = 24w
Ti4400 = 40w (from here)
xp 2700+ = 68.3w (from here)
Burner = 10w (assumed)
dvd = 5w (assumed)
misc fans = 10w
Total = 157w + 10 for memory, northbridge, etc = 167w
Assuming your PSU is 65% efficient, then it can supply 300w*0.65=195w. Now, I guessed on the burner/dvd drives but I have to imagine I'm on the high side with each. This is also assuming that everything in your system is running full bore at the same time.
FWIW, hereis my system -- happily chugging along on a 300w seasonic (I've bolded the major draw items):
Papst 4412F/2GL rear @ 1200rpm (my fan journey, here)
Asus P4T533-c w/ P4 3.06 GHz
Thermalright SP94 w/ Papst 8412N/2GL @ 1450rpm
ATI AIW 8500 w/ Zalman ZM-NB32J heatsink
SB Audigy2 ZS soundcard
Promise Fastrak100 TX4
(4) 120GB Seagate 7200.7 as (2) RAID 0
TDK DVD burner
Floppy
Using a WattsUp? (similar to the Kill-a-watt), I've never seen my system draw more than 220 off the wall -- with a 75% efficiency PSU, that is 165w in the box.
Now, this isn't to say that your PSU isn't flakey -- maybe it can't deliver the power needed. But, a more powerful PSU (ie., 400w) isn't necessarily the answer.
Dave
PS Thisshould be req'd reading if you're going to upgrade your PSU.
Thought that efficiency meant how much AC is drawn.dasman wrote: Assuming your PSU is 65% efficient, then it can supply 300w*0.65=195w. Now, I guessed on the burner/dvd drives but I have to imagine I'm on the high side with each. This is also assuming that everything in your system is running full bore at the same time.
ex.
300w/.65=460w
That Nexus should be able to deliver all 300w unless he is overloading one specific rail like for example the 12v(I really don't know which one it would be I'm just throwing out an example.)
Andrew,
You're correct -- my typing got carried away from my brain (I'm involved in another thread dealing with efficiencies and draws measured by a kill-a-watt -- I'm so used to applying the efficiency from that thread that I didn't even think about it here).
synthroid -- your max draw is the same 167w, but instead of supplying 195w you can supply 300w. So you're well under your total wattage draw.
You may want to look at this threadthat's sticky'd to the top of the forum to get an idea as to what people can run on 300 PSU's.
Dave
You're correct -- my typing got carried away from my brain (I'm involved in another thread dealing with efficiencies and draws measured by a kill-a-watt -- I'm so used to applying the efficiency from that thread that I didn't even think about it here).synthroid -- your max draw is the same 167w, but instead of supplying 195w you can supply 300w. So you're well under your total wattage draw.
You may want to look at this threadthat's sticky'd to the top of the forum to get an idea as to what people can run on 300 PSU's.
Dave
the little engine can.
thanks for the feedback.
dave - your analysis is excellent and just what i was looking for - the links outlining your methodology are great. i checked the list of what people were running to confirm that it couldn't theortetically be the psu (of course, that says nothing of my actual unit).
so i became pretty convinced that the ps was not the source of my problem. i then checked the temperature on my cpu and found that it was running 67 deg C on idle! temp would jump to 75 C after 10 minutes of 100% cpu utilization, at which point the computer would reboot.
removing the fan from the slk heatsink, i found a nice think layer of dust covering about 75 percent of the heatsink - yeah, nasty. cleaned it with a brush and the fan as well. the idle temp dropped to 37 deg, stabilizing at 49 C when running 100% CPU for 1 hour. no reboots.
i'm going to add a 9800 pro - the nexus should be able to handle it, accoriding to conservative estimates.
so now the question is: does anyone have any tips on keeping the case dust free?
thanks again for your help.
-synth
dave - your analysis is excellent and just what i was looking for - the links outlining your methodology are great. i checked the list of what people were running to confirm that it couldn't theortetically be the psu (of course, that says nothing of my actual unit).
so i became pretty convinced that the ps was not the source of my problem. i then checked the temperature on my cpu and found that it was running 67 deg C on idle! temp would jump to 75 C after 10 minutes of 100% cpu utilization, at which point the computer would reboot.
removing the fan from the slk heatsink, i found a nice think layer of dust covering about 75 percent of the heatsink - yeah, nasty. cleaned it with a brush and the fan as well. the idle temp dropped to 37 deg, stabilizing at 49 C when running 100% CPU for 1 hour. no reboots.
i'm going to add a 9800 pro - the nexus should be able to handle it, accoriding to conservative estimates.
so now the question is: does anyone have any tips on keeping the case dust free?
thanks again for your help.
-synth
Re: the little engine can.
This would have been my guess...synthroid wrote:removing the fan from the slk heatsink, i found a nice think layer of dust covering about 75 percent of the heatsink - yeah, nasty. cleaned it with a brush and the fan as well. the idle temp dropped to 37 deg, stabilizing at 49 C when running 100% CPU for 1 hour. no reboots.
Cheers,
Jan