New Power Supply Help?

vertigo

OSNN Senior Addict
Joined
5 Dec 2005
Messages
330
Hello guys,

i suspect my current PSU is dying out, (it seems to take 5 minutes or so to power up after pressing the button, and i'm getting random 1-2 second freezing during regular use, xp pro). my current one is an antec trupower 430w, i don't think it's powerful enough anymore, my current system contains:

Athlon X2 4400+
1GB DDR400 RAM
Geforce 7900GT
Digital TV Tuner card
3 hard drives, 1 x IDE 80GB, 2 x 300GB SATA
2 x BenQ dvd burners

and usually it will also power up my ipod via USB. i am clueless when it comes to PSUs, so i really need your recommendations. maybe 500 watt is strong enough? energy efficiency and reliablility/long lasting are important, and preferably quiet. my limit is around $75 US, maybe a little more if it's more bang for the buck

thanks! :)
 
Delayed power up and 1-2 second freezing are not typical of a power supply problem. BSOD and restarts are usually a power supply.

But... That supply is pretty light for the system you are running. An upgrade would be advisable. 550W Truepower (or enermax) or bigger if you plan on more upgrades (like 8800 video).

Back to the problems. Slow power up could be too much junkware loading at start up or a device is not initializing properly. The TV Tuner is a big contributor to my boot time. Defrag your Boot drive, disable unused/rarely used programs that load at startup, do a spyware scan. Run Bootvis it will tell what is running at startup and how long it is taking.

The 1-2 second freezing happens regularly to a lot of people. If you notice a lot of disk activity when the freeze happens, memory is full and the computer is swaping stuff in memory out to the hard drive pagefile which takes time. Also if you have your HD's set to go to power down they need to spin up before accessed and that takes a couple seconds. So look for disk activity during the freeze.

PS Vanquiched understated the potential resistance to his recommendation... I would not put a $19 PSU in any computer that costs more than $100. And then I'd still be nervous. Aside from frying the computer cheap power supplies do catch fire. I had one once.
 
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Delayed power up and 1-2 second freezing are not typical of a power supply problem. BSOD and restarts are usually a power supply.

But... That supply is pretty light for the system you are running. An upgrade would be advisable. 550W Truepower or bigger if you plan on more upgrades (like 8800 video).

Back to the problems. Slow power up could be too much junkware loading at start up or a device is not initializing properly. The TV Tuner is a big contributor to my boot time. Defrag your Boot drive, disable unused/rarely used programs that load at startup, do a spyware scan. Run Bootvis it will tell what is running at startup and how long it is taking.

The 1-2 second freezing happens regularly to a lot of people. If you notice a lot of disk activity when the freeze happens, memory is full and the computer is swaping stuff in memory out to the hard drive pagefile which takes time. Also if you have your HD's set to go to power down they need to spin up before accessed and that takes a couple seconds. So look for disk activity during the freeze.

PS Vanquiched understated the potential resistance to his recommendation... I would not put a $19 PSU in any computer that costs more than $100. And then I'd still be nervous.
My computer cost over 3000 dollars.
and i was the first to buy it, no reviews...
The power supply is SUPERB, absolutely no problems whatsoever.
Not to mention, my system is better than his, so...
There is no problem.
 
Until it fries, takes the computer with it and maybe $5 -10k in smoke damage to your home.
-How much damage warantee coverage does the PSU manufacturer supply? -Do you even know who and where they are incorporated?

Antec and Enermax have damage coverage in their warantees.

Or lets put it another way. I can load 2 rounds into a revolver, spin the cylinder, stick it to my temple and pull the trigger and odds are pretty good (1 in 3) that I'll live through it. People do this all the time whne drunk or stoned. But is it a good idea?
 
Delayed power up and 1-2 second freezing are not typical of a power supply problem... Slow power up could be too much junkware loading at start up or a device is not initializing properly. The TV Tuner is a big contributor to my boot time. Defrag your Boot drive, disable unused/rarely used programs that load at startup, do a spyware scan. Run Bootvis it will tell what is running at startup and how long it is taking.

sorry i wasn't clear, i meant that when i hit the button to turn on my pc, absolutely nothing happens, as if there's no power. i wait about 5 minutes or so, and suddenly it turns on as if there's no problem!

The 1-2 second freezing happens regularly to a lot of people. If you notice a lot of disk activity when the freeze happens, memory is full and the computer is swaping stuff in memory out to the hard drive pagefile which takes time. Also if you have your HD's set to go to power down they need to spin up before accessed and that takes a couple seconds. So look for disk activity during the freeze

it happens when doing even small tasks like browsing the net and playing music. when playing music the audio repeats itself. after about a year of using this PC (and no recent hardware changes) it had never done anything like this, completely stable. not a software problem either. i think the two problems are related, but i have been wrong in the past, in any case the PSU is definitely faulty

I would not put a $19 PSU in any computer that costs more than $100. And then I'd still be nervous. Aside from frying the computer cheap power supplies do catch fire. I had one once.

i'm reluctant to spend on a cheap PSU, i have gone through too many in the past by buying the budget ones. in my experience they get noisy and unreliable in a few months :(

thanks for the suggestions guys, really appreciated, keep 'em coming :)
 
I would not use a cheap no name brand either , have to say go with the known brand names...
 
Until it fries, takes the computer with it and maybe $5 -10k in smoke damage to your home.
-How much damage warantee coverage does the PSU manufacturer supply? -Do you even know who and where they are incorporated?

Antec and Enermax have damage coverage in their warantees.

Or lets put it another way. I can load 2 rounds into a revolver, spin the cylinder, stick it to my temple and pull the trigger and odds are pretty good (1 in 3) that I'll live through it. People do this all the time whne drunk or stoned. But is it a good idea?
Wow, you really are retarded...
Dont bother to look at the reviews, or listen to the person who has it, keep going on talking about what you think, no matter how stupid it is.......

I wouldn't normally use a no name brand either, but it works GREAT for me, not noisy, not smelly, simply power.
 
Let's not do any name calling or attacking other people's views guys. Keep it clean and on point.
 
On point. Newegg lists 3 reviews for the product.
1 fried
1 didn't fry
1 assumed additional not fried, (assuming the OSNN poster is not the positive on newegg).

That gives you a one in three chance of catastrophic failure. (2 bullets out of 6 in PSU russian roulette.) Not grounds to recommend a product.

On point. 30 years Engineering experience designing power supplies.
The unit selling price is composed of engineering labor, manufacturing labor, material costs and overhead. Labor and overhead is fixed since everybody manufactures in 3rd world countries that pay in dollars per month not dollars per hour. That leaves material cost as a way to get price down.
You leave out the overvoltage and over current protection parts, use smaller, poorer grade magnetic cores that run hotter, use lower current and voltage rated switching transistors with higher on state losses, use the cheapest fan you can find. You skip quality control inspections and burn in testing before shipping. You buy your parts on the grey market which often is selling reject parts instead of certified parts. You do not do a full bake to cure the winding impregnations on the magnetics. Then you cut your profit margin to the minimum which means you can not afford to honor warantees or pay for collateral damage.

Think about the $20 price on newegg. Neweggs profit, shipping costs from Asia to the USA leaves the manufacturers sell price at about $10 to cover material, labor, profit and overhead. Can't be done with any kind of reliability.

Can you get one that works ok? Sure, but is it prudent to risk a $1000-3000 computer on it?
 
On point. Newegg lists 3 reviews for the product.
1 fried
1 didn't fry
1 assumed additional not fried, (assuming the OSNN poster is not the positive on newegg).

That gives you a one in three chance of catastrophic failure. (2 bullets out of 6 in PSU russian roulette.) Not grounds to recommend a product.

On point. 30 years Engineering experience designing power supplies.
The unit selling price is composed of engineering labor, manufacturing labor, material costs and overhead. Labor and overhead is fixed since everybody manufactures in 3rd world countries that pay in dollars per month not dollars per hour. That leaves material cost as a way to get price down.
You leave out the overvoltage and over current protection parts, use smaller, poorer grade magnetic cores that run hotter, use lower current and voltage rated switching transistors with higher on state losses, use the cheapest fan you can find. You skip quality control inspections and burn in testing before shipping. You buy your parts on the grey market which often is selling reject parts instead of certified parts. You do not do a full bake to cure the winding impregnations on the magnetics. Then you cut your profit margin to the minimum which means you can not afford to honor warantees or pay for collateral damage.

Think about the $20 price on newegg. Neweggs profit, shipping costs from Asia to the USA leaves the manufacturers sell price at about $10 to cover material, labor, profit and overhead. Can't be done with any kind of reliability.

Can you get one that works ok? Sure, but is it prudent to risk a $1000-3000 computer on it?
3 reviews?
There are about 180 reviews...
 
I've been very happy with 3 Rosewill 350 watt power supplies that I bought 2 years ago for cheap machine builds. Truth be told, a cheap power supply COULD get you thru, but I still know that I'd feel safer with the 3 Antecs I have running in my main machines.
 

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