| DeadParrot2004 |
| (regular) |
| Sat May 10 2008 07:15 PM |
Computer freezes
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Every now and again my PC has taken to freezing.
I have recently installed a secondary hard drive and wondered if this was resulting in the power supply not being able to cope.
I have a 400w power supply running an AMD athlon processor, ati radeon 9200 graphics card, 1 x 80 GB hard drive, 1 x 1TB hard drive, 1 x DVD drive and 1 x DVD writer.
Does anyone know if I am asking too much of the power supply?
Thanks in Advance
DeadParrot
| BurrWalnut |
| (Chippendaler) |
| Sat May 10 2008 07:55 PM |
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Re: Computer freezes
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Quote:
I have recently installed a secondary hard drive and wondered if this was resulting in the power supply not being able to cope.
Ordinarily a 400 Watt supply would be sufficient for your equipment but considering the size of the new drive, I wouldn’t like to say.
You need to monitor what you are doing when it freezes then remove the new drive and run the same programs.
| FilthyRaider |
| (regular) |
| Sat May 10 2008 09:40 PM |
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Re: Computer freezes
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I ran a similar thread recently:
http://www.webuser.co.uk/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/393278/an/0/page/0#393278
I had all sorts of Blue Screen messages and have resorted to removing my newer graphics card and going back to the old one, and dropping the memory back. I still get freezes.
I haven't taken out the additional drive or some of the other items - I need them on!
Have got a bigger power supply on order from eBuyer, but chose the Super Saver option so it will only ship on Monday. Will try to update then and tell you how I got on - I only have a 250W supply at the moment which was fitted by Dell when they put it together.
There are loads of power calculators on the web, but most are 'manual' - they tell you what your bits MIGHT be using and you have to get a calculator out. I've tried this:
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
Pick the LITE (free) version. There is no download. You just enter everything you can (it is fairly comprehensive) and click Calculate.
I get 323 watts on mine, so I figure an upgrade to 500W is needed. Experimentally I have removed the old power supply to get a n idea of what is involved and it isn't too intensive. Make sure your new PSU has enough connectors (more if you want to expand further). There are 20Pin and 24Pin connectors for the motherboard, and you will find that some of the 24Pin are actually 20Pin with and additional 4 sockets that can be detached for a seperate use or will just overhang the connector without any issues. Have a look in your PC if you can.
Hope that is useful to others.
| DeadParrot2004 |
| (regular) |
| Mon May 12 2008 11:50 AM |
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Re: Computer freezes
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Thanks for the help guys.
I have removed the large hard drive for now and will see how that goes.
From the figures given from that calculator the power supply seems to be powerful enough. can the power from the power supply 'fade' over time?
TIA
DP
| FilthyRaider |
| (regular) |
| Mon May 12 2008 01:28 PM |
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Re: Computer freezes
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According the the info with the calculator, it does say that a PSU loses power output over time. There is a percentage bit at the end of the calculator that you adjust depending on age (bit hard to work out, I thought).
| firechild |
| (regular) |
| Wed Jun 25 2008 06:57 PM |
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Re: Computer freezes
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Have you tried to do a defrag? Maybe its just got so bad that its getting confused. A good defrag can help in many situations like this. Was the 1TB drive the one you added? That's quite a drive!