Inadequate power supply causing blue screen crashes?

[Grom]

I suspect that my low wattage power supply is causing blue screens, looking for confirmation or other solutions as im not looking forward to buying a new case/fan

Specs below:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1 gig Corsair DDR2
GeForce 7800 GS
1 DvD-ROM
Sound Blaster Audigy

The problem, im running an older 250 watt power supply.. pretty sad? Perhaps. The 12v rail is listed at 13A. Im not exactly power supply savvy, though I suspect this is the problem. Is there another explanation? Could a lack of power cause a blue screen?

 

[chunkymonster]

I suspect that my low wattage power supply is causing blue screens, looking for confirmation or other solutions as im not looking forward to buying a new case/fan

Specs below:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1 gig Corsair DDR2
GeForce 7800 GS
1 DvD-ROM
Sound Blaster Audigy

The problem, im running an older 250 watt power supply.. pretty sad? Perhaps. The 12v rail is listed at 13A. Im not exactly power supply savvy, though I suspect this is the problem. Is there another explanation? Could a lack of power cause a blue screen?

Yes, the psu could be and most likely is causing your BSOD's and any spontaneous reboots you may have experienced. Given it's 250w and you've got a 7800gs, I'd be surprised if you could play any games. Check out this link to a psu estimator to figure out what size wattage you should have and then visit Newegg and treat yourself to a new psu.

Good luck!

 

[linux_0]

I suspect that my low wattage power supply is causing blue screens, looking for confirmation or other solutions as im not looking forward to buying a new case/fan

Specs below:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1 gig Corsair DDR2
GeForce 7800 GS
1 DvD-ROM
Sound Blaster Audigy

The problem, im running an older 250 watt power supply.. pretty sad? Perhaps. The 12v rail is listed at 13A. Im not exactly power supply savvy, though I suspect this is the problem. Is there another explanation? Could a lack of power cause a blue screen?

250W for that system is definitely inadequate. To be honest it's amazing it hasn't caught fire.

Please do yourself a favor and get one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103929

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931


I strongly recommend Antec, Silverstone, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, OCZ.

Fortron Source / FSP Group PSUs are usually decent too but Antec would be my first choice.

Good luck

 

[jap0nes]

may be your power supply... if you suspect it, try to run your machine with the bare minimum components...

1 stick of ram
take sound card and dvd drive out
try to get a pci video card if you can

do that before a ton of dumbasses start to post blaming your psu. although it seems clear your psu is not enough, i noticed people here just blame PSU's before advising for any kind of test or diagnostic

 

[weskurtz81]

If that PSU is efficient.... it could run that system. Your system probably only draws about 115-130watts from the wall playing games, and multiply that by 75-80% and you get what your system uses. Not that I wouldn't recommend a better psu. But 250 should still be enough for that setup.... I have a kill-a-watt and the Winchester 3500 with a X1300 pro, one optical drive and one harddrive draws about 75watts from the wall idle, and draw 130-140 watts under FULL load, that is stressing the video card and cpu to max. Games don't do that. You can add maybe another 10 watts for continuous HD activity and optical drive activity if you want. But that isn't real world. Sounds like you may have an old PSU, so it could be the culprit. $50-$65 would give you a good psu to replace that one. On a side not, my Opty 165 @ 2.4 GHZ, with 2 7800GTX's overclocked, 5 harddrives, 2 optical drives, draws 200watts at idle, and 330 under a full load(cpu and video) but while playing games it draws about 280-285 watts from the wall. Once again mulitply that by the efficiency of the PSU and you have total system wattage.

 

[Grom]

Thanks for the assitance, I had pretty much made up my mind that it was the power supply causing my problems after doing a little research. Im just looking for confirmation more than anything. On a side note, I can play many games without problem, and only get this problem when I install one too many components it seems, hence why I had decided it was the power supply.

Glad I caught on before it caught fire, heh, 8O

Am I able to simply replace the power supply, or am I going to need a brand new case as well?

Thanks again!

 

[linux_0]

Thanks for the assitance, I had pretty much made up my mind that it was the power supply causing my problems after doing a little research. Im just looking for confirmation more than anything. On a side note, I can play many games without problem, and only get this problem when I install one too many components it seems, hence why I had decided it was the power supply.

Glad I caught on before it caught fire, heh, 8O

Am I able to simply replace the power supply, or am I going to need a brand new case as well?

Thanks again!

As long as you have an ATX case you can pop in an Antec TPII PSU or any other std ATX 2.x PSU.

 

[jaguarskx]

Are you overclocking your system? The 7800GS is most likely overclocked be default (many name brands do this). A stock 3500+ has been measured to consume 50w and the 7800GS (stock speed) should consume about 55w at most.

The DVD drive and your hard drive runs off of both the 5v and 12v rail. How is the power distributed? I don't know, but all the research I've done stated that fact. If I remember correctly, the typical hard drive consumes about 7w when idle and about 16 underload. The faster the drive spins, and the larger the capacity, the more power it will draw. I don't know how much power the typical DVD drive draws when idle.

The motherboard and fans also run off of the 12v rail as well. The typical motherboard can draw anywhere from 15 to 20 watts, and each fan will probably draw about 7 watts.

Given the about I would guess that while playing games your PC will be drawing 138w from the 12v rail. You 250w PSU only provides 156w (12v * 13amps), but unless you know your PSU is made by a premium namebrand then the actual total watts is lower than the rated watts. At best you have 18 watts to spare before maxing out your PSU. At worst you are already maxing it out.

I recommend a Seasonic S12 series PSU. The 330 will be enough for your current system, but they also have the 380, 430, 500, and 600. Prices range between $60 - $170. The 500 and 600 are for Crossfire/SLI systems and are a diffinite overkill for a single video card solution.