I'll try to make this as concise as possible, because I know people kind enough to stop in and read tech support threads don't like wading through a 10-page story of everything that's gone wrong (though I may not be able to avoid it). So, here it is.
Past few months one of my hard drives has been clicking, audiably sounding like it was powering down, then immediately spinning back up as if it was just turned on. I blamed the drive itself, and soon enough it had to be RMA'd because it died. New drive came back, same thing! Fast forward about a week, I got a DVD-RW drive and added it to my system - and now that hard drive refused to turn on at all. Moreover, while the lights on the DVD-RW drive indicated it was on, pressing the eject button would do nothing - when I forced the drive open (paperclip hole) and stuck a disc in, it tried to spin up, but couldn't read.
Curious, I unplugged several devices from my system - the DVD and CD-RW drives (yes, I had two other optical drives still in the rig), along with two intake fans, just to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the hard drive was no longer having issues, and the DVD-RW drive would do everything just fine.
Is my lackluster power supply the problem? It is by no means a brand name...it's a 500W POWMAX (Leadman). I realize this isn't a high-end PSU, but this wasn't intended to be a high-end rig...even though it eventually evolved that way. The lines didn't seem to be too bad, they were usually in the +/-5% range, but I don't know what other culprits to blame here.
Finally, in case it's deemed that I should really get a new power supply...how much to go for? I found a wattage estimator on some site that deemed my system components required at least 375W, but obviously I'd rather not lowball this. Currently this rig has...
AMD 2700+ Tbred
2x 512MB RAM
ATI 9800 Pro
SCSI Card w/ 15k RPM SCSI drive
2 IDE hard drives (soon to be SATA)
TV Tuner
DVD, CD-RW, DVD-RW drives
4 80mm fans
Graphic Equalizer (5.25" bay)
I realize the rig is rather bloated, but I'd like to keep everything here as-is. I'm a lazy SOB, and having 3 optical drives means fewer CD swaps. Is a quality, brand-name 450/470W enough? Or should I go for something like the Antec 550W to cover my hide?
Thanks for any and all suggestions here...I'd like to plug everything back in soon!
Past few months one of my hard drives has been clicking, audiably sounding like it was powering down, then immediately spinning back up as if it was just turned on. I blamed the drive itself, and soon enough it had to be RMA'd because it died. New drive came back, same thing! Fast forward about a week, I got a DVD-RW drive and added it to my system - and now that hard drive refused to turn on at all. Moreover, while the lights on the DVD-RW drive indicated it was on, pressing the eject button would do nothing - when I forced the drive open (paperclip hole) and stuck a disc in, it tried to spin up, but couldn't read.
Curious, I unplugged several devices from my system - the DVD and CD-RW drives (yes, I had two other optical drives still in the rig), along with two intake fans, just to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the hard drive was no longer having issues, and the DVD-RW drive would do everything just fine.
Is my lackluster power supply the problem? It is by no means a brand name...it's a 500W POWMAX (Leadman). I realize this isn't a high-end PSU, but this wasn't intended to be a high-end rig...even though it eventually evolved that way. The lines didn't seem to be too bad, they were usually in the +/-5% range, but I don't know what other culprits to blame here.
Finally, in case it's deemed that I should really get a new power supply...how much to go for? I found a wattage estimator on some site that deemed my system components required at least 375W, but obviously I'd rather not lowball this. Currently this rig has...
AMD 2700+ Tbred
2x 512MB RAM
ATI 9800 Pro
SCSI Card w/ 15k RPM SCSI drive
2 IDE hard drives (soon to be SATA)
TV Tuner
DVD, CD-RW, DVD-RW drives
4 80mm fans
Graphic Equalizer (5.25" bay)
I realize the rig is rather bloated, but I'd like to keep everything here as-is. I'm a lazy SOB, and having 3 optical drives means fewer CD swaps. Is a quality, brand-name 450/470W enough? Or should I go for something like the Antec 550W to cover my hide?
Thanks for any and all suggestions here...I'd like to plug everything back in soon!