PSU for AMD Thunderbird, NBFan, etc.

[fishmahn]

One of my PCs has an Athlon Thunderbird 1ghz on an Asus A7V133 mobo (KT133A chipset), 512MB PC133 SDRAM (1x256, 2x128), GF2MX400/64MB video, Floppy, CD, CD/RW, Seagate 7200.7 40gb hdd, modem, 10/100 Lan card (Netgear I think), and sound card (Guillemot maxisound something-or-other).

Anyways, the PSU fan hasn't run in a while, so I'm finally getting around to replacing the PSU (no-name 300w that came w/case 3+ yrs ago). Is an equally no-name 250w adequate for the above, or should I get a bit more power? I I have a 250w (startech or something like that - the CompUSA brand) bought from the local CompUSA to test an old CyrixM2/300-based system that had possible PSU problems, so if it's powerful enough, I can just drop it in and be done with it.

Second question. The Northbridge fan has stopped. Is there anything to be concerned about? (link to mobo <A HREF="http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7V133&langs=09#" target="_new">here</A> Currently the case has a loud side panel fan blowing onto the mobo so it's getting good airflow, but I'm going to replace that with a lower-rpm one for noise purposes, and want to know if I should be concerned about the lower airflow.

Third question. May not be proper in this section, but it could be power-related, so here it is. Hard drive is on the Promise ATA controller (so each CD gets its own IDE channel for direct CD-to-CDRW copies), and sometimes when I power the system down, the HDD doesn't spin back up. Eventually, after several tries it will, which to me means either power or bad HDD. Last night it wouldn't at all, I even pulled it out of the case, swapped connectors with the CD's and disconnected the CD's. Gave up and unplugged everything (mobo too), then this AM, plugged it all back in and, although it took 3 tries, booted up fine. Does it sound like power to you? Or should I plan on a new HDD too?

Mike.

 

[folken]

A noname 250watt might work though if it goes it is more than likely taking your whole system with it. Those old tbirds suck a lot o power so it might pop it. I'd say just go out and get urself a nice antec 300watt psu, they are about $30 or so.
As for the hd the first thing to do would be back up all of your stuff to cdroms or at least some other location. It could be a power problem but I think a hd problem is more likely.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[fishmahn]

Thanks for the quick response.

... Those old tbirds suck a lot o power...

That tells me what I needed to know - 300+ watt coming right up.

... but I think a hd problem is more likely...

Hope not, but you're probably right. :frown:

Will not having a Northbridge fan be an issue? Anyone?

Mike.

 

[folken]

It will probably be ok, just take the broken fan off so it can get better air circulation. If you have a slightly larger heatsink that would fit on there I'd put it on. When the fan died on my old a7v133 I just sawed a corner off an old cpu heatsink and glued it on It worked fine and it didn't have a side fan blowing on it.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[fishmahn]

OK, Thanks.

Mike.

 

[Flinx]

If ur running XP somewhere u could see if SMART is reporting HDD problems.

A good utility, for me, if you're running Win XP is:<b> HD TUNE</b> <A HREF="http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwdisktools.html" target="_new">http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwdisktools.html</A>

P.S. Thanks for the Folding and the Contribution To Humanity

The loving are the daring!

 

[jammydodger]

I think when the T'Birds were released AMD recommended a 300w+ power supply. But I could be wrong.

 

[fishmahn]

I'm running 2000 Pro on that machine. I've run the Seagate diagnostics on the drive and it didn't report any problems, but it's been a few months (although the occasional power up problems were happening then too). The system almost never shuts down (only when I'm going away overnight), so the power-up problem doesn't happen often, since it doesn't get shut down much.

Mike.

 

[fishmahn]

Thanks for the info.

I have a 300w Fortron Source psu on the way.

Mike.

 

[jammydodger]

That will be fine for your system.