Is "O.K" a word or an abbreviation

[papasmurf]

just recently my computer stoped working for no apparent cause, I had an amd xp 1800 overclocked to 1.7ghz on an epox 8k3a motherboard with a current bios, 3 hard drives (all 6 gigs 🙁 and slow) and a 256mb stick of pc 3200 ddr ram or ddr 400, with a geforce 3 ti 200 with 128mb of ram (overclocked to 255core 215ram witch is a bit faster than a ti500) and of it was powered by a generic 300 watt pos power supply. I took it all apart painstakingly testing the parts on another motherboard with a dinky 100 watt power supply, so far, although I do not trust everything to work with this power supply, all three hard drives are ruined and so is the epox 8k3a mobo. I just bought that!!!!!! and $100 is not what I spend for a few weeks worth of working, the thing made no noise when it died and I tested the power supply and found it ruined, was this a power surge?

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[Toejam31]

Generic power supplies have a tendency to surge when they fail, which may fry other components. Also, a cheaply made power supply may not supply enough power to all the components, especially during the boot, which gradually damages them as they are power starved. This normally causes odd behavior in a system, primarily with the AGP port and 3.3v video cards, which share the power with the +5v rail.

If you are going to overclock, Papa, make sure that you have a really good cooling solution, and a PSU that can handle the power requirements of your system with some redundancy. A good, heavy-duty PSU should run at no more than 70% at full load, and with an AMD system, it's best for it to have dual-fans for additional cooling.

I'd say that a combination of an inadequate PSU and the overclocking caused your problem. Most of the time, for an overclocked system to be stable, the voltages have to be increased on certain components (as I am sure you are aware), and that probably cause the PSU to fail even faster.

I wouldn't have run that system on anything less than 430W, and if overclocking, a 550W. Check out Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, Sparkle, and Leadman for good PSU's. I'd suggest you avoid the standard OEM Antec PSU's for overclocking, and the higher wattage PSU's from the same company have a higher RMA rate than the older 300W models ... which is inadequate for your purposes, at any rate.

With the mobo and the hard drives ruined, check all other devices for damage before using them, especially the memory and the video card.

Sorry this happened to you ... I know how it feels.

Toejam31

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
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<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>

 

[papasmurf]

hehe The new power suply was in the mail too, enermax 460watt with adjustable fan speed and all, I thought that the system could hold out until.. but the damned thing didn't now I have mounted that P.O.S. Power Supply on my fence and am shooting at it as revenge, I love paintball... any way the rest of the parts work perfectly, including my beloved pioneer 106s2 slot drive and I just finished overclocking my geforce 3 ti 200 128mb DDR gold edition from chaintec (long name but it ownz) from 175mhz core / 400mhz ram to 265mhz core / 505 ram! that is faster than a ti 500, plus it has twice the ram and costs almost half as much! now I wait, for the RMA info and warrenty information from my motherboard, I'd almost rather buy a new one than try to claim my warranty it's like pulling teeth trying to get a replacement

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[JDlaconic]

Just remember ... 'L-I-T-H-I-U-M'

BTW ... I am a stupid valley girl. When you stated 1.7ghz, 256mb - you were kidding about the '6' gigs, right?

 

[papasmurf]

lol, I wish I was kidding about that. besides I happen to like valley girls

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