sound like a power supply problem?

[walterblackberry]

first off, here are the specs of my pc:

AMD Athlon 2800+
512mb DDR-SDRAM
80gb Seagate 7200rpm hd
40x DVD-ROM
48x CD-RW
3.5" floppy drive
256mb Radeon 9550 gfx
250watt generic power supply

the problem I am now encountering is my pc will only turn on when the 2 optical drives and the floppy drive are disconnected from the power supply, but this setup has been working fine like this for over 6 months. the most likely problem is the power supply but im just wondering if anyone else has any theories before i go drop $50 on a more powerful power supply.

 

[folken]

Would you be able to borrow a psu from another machine just as a quick test?
What if you plug power into the drives but unplug the ribbons? If it boots that would point to failure elsewhere.
If possible test out those optical drives and/or floppy drive in another machine to make sure they still work. I've seen many old 250watt (especially deer) psus fry hardware.

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[walterblackberry]

The only extra psu's i have are all less than 250w which I think would be not safe to power my machine with. I found a generic 480w psu on pricewatch for $12 I think I'm going to buy just to test and if the psu was indeed the problem I'll spend the money and buy a decent psu to power the system long term.

 

[folken]

A generic 480 could put out less power than your 250. It all goes by brand now. Fortronsource (sparkle), antec, enermax, thermaltake are a few well known brands. You can get some of their PSUs for a reasonable price so I'd just go for one of them. It sure won't hurt your machine to get a better psu so just get a good new one now.

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