how do i know if my psu is not powerfull enough?- my specs are?

Question

i HAD a 400w antec psu,. then got some random oryxx 600w psu . but with the 600w psu i am noticing the led on my fans just seem dimmer? is it worth changing back to my 400w.?

motherboard: full sized aliveXfire-esata2 asrock
2 700rpm sata hdd's
amd athlon 64 4200 DUAL CORE
4 sticks of ram
two dvd drives
4 led 80mm fans
front case lights and lcd display.
2 sound controlled cathodes

i used a psu calculator and it says i only need 300v for all of that??? that cant be right.

7100gs geforce graphics

how do i know if it is not 'fake'

Answer 1

Your processor is either a 65 or 89 watter. Your graphics card draws 20W or less. Your 4 sticks of RAM could be drawing 20-25W, the two HDDs, 25-30W and almost the same for the DVD drives. The 4 fans would draw around 20W. LCD display does NOT draw from PSU. I bet your PC (excluding LCD) will NEVER hit 300W.
Both PSUs should work fine on your PC unless the 600W is a fake (no certifications on the label) with weak +12V rail. Check the +12V rail reading even just in PC Hardware Monitor in BIOS. It should not go down to less than 11.4 volts.

Answer 2

i have a hard time believing that the 400 worked. you didn't say what kind of graphics card you had.my PC came with a 350w. i bought a new graphics card and replaced psu with an antec 500w.worked fine for a week then my whole PC slowed down. well come to find out that 500w doesn't really mean 500w. on the side of psu there is a sticker required by law that says max output 408w.so they lied on the box.i have also learned about 12v rails. evidently you have to much power usage on the 12v rail. mine was 17 on two rails .not enough for my gaming graphics card. if the 400 worked i would put it back in but be weary if you add more stuff to PC.under voltage can ruin the whole thing. i would go with the largest watt you can afford and read the fine print. it should tell you on the box how many 12v rails and how many amps they can carry. the higher the number the better.i don't know what rail the LED's go on... 3,5, or 12 but one of them is not enough for your set up

Answer 3

You would know if your PSU is undersize - either the power supply locks up or your system crashes a lot. Most PSU have inbuilt overheat/overload protection so if they feel stressed they shut down.

Your psu calculator is most likely right, see http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/index.cfm?a=wiki&tag=psu_wattage for some measured draws on systems.

It seems the problem with some PSU is they don't deliver enough 12v, even though they don't exceed maximum watts. But I'd say if your system is stable your PSU is fine. Some BIOS have the smarts to measure voltages and you can set up a monitor program to warn if the supply is outside limits. Check if your system supports this, if so run the program for a week or so and see if it brings up any warnings.

Answer 4

If the LED's on the fans are dimmer than on your Antec, then it leads me to believe that the Oryxx power supply is poorly made and is not regulating the voltage properly.

The only reason the LED would be dimmer, is if the voltage output to it is lower than normal. This happens a lot on cheap power supplies. Sure, they can provide 600 watts of power, but they can't do it at a steady voltage.

Go back to the Antec, the voltage regulation is far superior and your components will last longer.

Answer 5

Unless your power supply was not tweaked at the factory it should be a gracious plenty you have 140 more watts than before. Are you sure the led's are dimmer or you just think so. Never herd of your pwr supply before tho. Is it top end-mid -low end?

Mid -Low end pwr supplies are rated AT NO MORE THAN 70%.

Mid--High end will sometimes be 85%

A 400w is 280w continious.
A 600w is 420w continious.

You should bare that in mind when shopping for a pwr supply.

Answer 6

that could desire to be high-quality... I certainly have used a number of the oryxx psu's (especially the excessive ones, interior the systems i build) and to be honest they're plenty extra effectual than fairly some the dearer ones available...

Answer 7

i am using the same (oryxx) psu, on the following system
AMD 4000+ dual core
3 hard drives
2 optical drives
Geforce 8800GTS gfx (320MB)
2 fans
2 GB Corsair ram..

my system has been running fine for the last 3 months (since i installed the oryxx psu)even when i load it to the max, i expect you might have some other problem thou...

Answer 8

the 600 watt sould be plenty and more then anough to run ur pc specs. im running little bit more then u are on a 350 watt psu