Estimate power demand

[aster]

I am considering installing a fourth hard drive to my system but I am concerned as to whether I have enough power. How can I estimate to load to determine if I will need to upgrade my power supply?

My system consists of:
Antec 350W True Power PSU
Athlon XP 2000+ CPU
Abit kg-7 mobo
(2) 60gb IBM HD in RAID 1
(1) 120b WD HD
(1) 120gb WD HD (planned to add)
Geforce 3 Card
Light-on DVD burner
DVD player
3 Case Fans
Lots of external USB devices

Thanks for the help
-Aster

 

[Mr5oh]

There are several calculators on the web for this, some in another post said there is one here on Toms. (Sorry I don't have a link handy :frown: )

Truthfully though, I think you will be fine. You PSU has 16 amps on the 12+ line, which is really healthy. For example my 480 watt generic unit has 18 amps on the 12+ line, and I run a 2800+ XP, GeForce 6800, 2 HDs, 2 CDR/DVD, 2x512 RAM, all my PCI slots are filled, and both the CPU and Videocard is overclocked, I don't have any problems (Did I mention 8 case fans, and that is not counting the CPU, NB, PSU, GPU fans, oh and two HD coolers).

I don't have four hard drives, but my video card will obvisuly consume more power than two extra hard drives.

You should be fine, I wouldn't worry about it. Amp ratings are more important than watts, your PSU has plenty of power, even if its watts rating seems a little low.

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>

 

[aster]

thanks Mr5oh.