On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 08:24:08AM -0400, Matt Price wrote: [...] > - I do have 3 drives plugged in to this system, and 768 Megs of RAM, > but on the other hand it's a 400W power source. Unfortunately the > "mirror test" doesn't work that well for me since I don't know what to > look for! -- but I'd be surprisedi f this is the problem. I suppose > I could unplug one or 2 drives & see ifthat makes a difference? > > Seems to me the next step is to change out the power source -- osund > right to everyone? >
a 400 watt power supply may indeed not be enough. It depends on how that power is divided between the rails. I was looking for a web article on power supplies, but can't find it. You have to read the specs carefully. A 650 watt monster supply might not supply enough wattage at the right places to power your set of peripherals. In fact, I ran into this at CompUSA one day as the little man tried to sell meway more power supply than I needed. Heh. I pointed out that his monster power supply only put X watts on one 12 volt rail but I need 1.5X on that rail to run my disk drives. Then I showed him how it put all its wattage on the other new style 12 volt rail (for SATA disks I think) and explained how I my drives used the other. THen I showed him how a much smaller, but better setup power supply was more than adequate for my needs (with lots of headroom) at half the price :). IOW, research it. You can calculate what your requirements are by rail (3.3, 5 and 12 volt) and then read the specs on the power supplies (open the box if you have to!). Also, be sure to check what temperature the ratings are based on. Some power supplies are tested and rated in a cold box. You will get significantly lower performance in an actual computer. A oh I found this, which gives you an idea, but there's better ones out there http://www.bleedinedge.com/guides/psu_select/psu_select_01.html
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