what can a 420W PS support

[bob]

how much equipment can a 420W ps support?
i've got

cd
video card (fan on it)
7 fans on the case
4 hard drives (2 sata, mirrored)
floppy
front light on the case
side light on the case

it seems something either has a loose wire, or a connection to a
drive is either overloaded or something... b/c if you move a wire or
cable, you can hear a drive click, spin down then up....
so i want to be sure the thing isn't overloaded, then troubleshoot bad
wires

 

[Wilson]

You are more than likely ok. I have everything you have minus 5 fans. It
would help to know the total power of the fans, but I suspect they are small
fans. I bet you are fine with what you got though.

 

[Mistoffolees]

how much equipment can a 420W ps support?
i've got

cd
video card (fan on it)
7 fans on the case
4 hard drives (2 sata, mirrored)
floppy
front light on the case
side light on the case

it seems something either has a loose wire, or a connection to a
drive is either overloaded or something... b/c if you move a wire or
cable, you can hear a drive click, spin down then up....
so i want to be sure the thing isn't overloaded, then troubleshoot bad
wires

Being on the conservative side, I would use a 500-Watt PSU,
due to the 4 HD's. Also assuming an Intel Prescott CPU at
3.2 GHz or faster and 1 GB RAM.

 

[Wilson]

Being on the conservative side, I would use a 500-Watt PSU,
due to the 4 HD's. Also assuming an Intel Prescott CPU at
3.2 GHz or faster and 1 GB RAM.

No doubt you are right, but it sounded to me as though he already had the
PSU.

 

[bob]

Intel 2.8Ghz, 512K processor
1gb ram

case is a Thermaltake 1420, so 420W ps in it...

with my p4c800e deluxe in there, i had problems with drives spinning
up and down, and eventually my sata's blew, simultaneously....

replaced with a p4p800se, and i heard it again... i re-did the wires
so that the drives run directly off the power supply, and the lights
and fans share a source cord...

before i had the lights going one way, and the drives spliced in off
of it with a Y connector...
i'm wondering if the lights are causing an issue for the drives not to
get a good source of power

 

[paul]

It is possible that your PS simply does not provide enough CURRENT.
The wattage rating has less significance, than the output current.

 

[Wilson]

What is your Y connector on now? Are you still using it? Have you tried
everything without the Y connector. I had problems with my Y connector and
stopped using it.

 

[Mistoffolees]

Intel 2.8Ghz, 512K processor
1gb ram

case is a Thermaltake 1420, so 420W ps in it...

with my p4c800e deluxe in there, i had problems with drives spinning
up and down, and eventually my sata's blew, simultaneously....

replaced with a p4p800se, and i heard it again... i re-did the wires
so that the drives run directly off the power supply, and the lights
and fans share a source cord...

before i had the lights going one way, and the drives spliced in off
of it with a Y connector...
i'm wondering if the lights are causing an issue for the drives not to
get a good source of power

I know this Thermaltake case very well as a client wanted a
series built for use with P4C800E's. When shopping for the
PSU's for them, since it was being supplied without it, my
supplier recommended minimum 450 Watts if being used with 2
P-ATA HD but at least 500 Watts if using 4 HD's, and also to
make sure that there are the right number of power connectors
to handle the 7 fans plus the Thermaltake fan control box. (We
chose Antec's with the additional 4-pin Molex connectors just
for fans.) AFAIK, all 5 units are still functioning OK under
24/7 use. Real good-looking, with the blue Thermaltake logo on
the front; we added a blue neon rod to show off the insides
through the side panel window.

 

[bob]

EXACTLY what I did!
I have the blue thermaltake in the front
added a blue CoolerMaster neon rod on the side to show off the case...

originally I had the satas powered direct from the supply
the 2 IDE drives were also powered direct, but I spliced the lights
off of the drives...

Is it better to run the drives all direct to the supply, and then
splice out things like lights and fans from each other?

I've also got a 1400VA ups on the outside of this, a Compaq brand,
picked up from extra stock not used at work... so the supply should
be fairly steady I think...

I'm just thinking there's a loose wire somewhere, spinning the drives
up and down... mainly b/c if you touch a splice before, you'd hear the
drives spin... that's pretty much a no brainer.

I guess in conjunction with that, I just wondered if I was
overloading it...

oh I've also got an internal SB Platinum, w/ the front auxiliary
panel... and of course the thermaltake hardcano that came with the
case.

 

[Mistoffolees]

bob wrote:

I'm just thinking there's a loose wire somewhere, spinning the drives
up and down... mainly b/c if you touch a splice before, you'd hear the
drives spin... that's pretty much a no brainer.

Just thinking about this setup, the problem may be with the
Thermaltake Hardcano. It has 4 rheostats to control the fans
and the way Thermaltake has the fan wiring looping around, it
is possible for some interference from a fan controller on a
hard drive. This will also give the same symptoms of a loose
wire. Take a good hard look at the wiring plan and see if it
makes sense; we sort of bypassed Thermaltake's manual on this
setup due to the extra fan power rail from the Antec PSU's.

Additionally, the fan rheostats are a constant power draw and
they will tax the PSU's reserves. It might also be enough to
cause a hard drive to spin down.

HTH and good luck.

 

[seeker]

Being on the conservative side, I would use a 500-Watt PSU,
due to the 4 HD's. Also assuming an Intel Prescott CPU at
3.2 GHz or faster and 1 GB RAM.

==============

Over the past 2 years, I've noticed that most of the standard 4 pin
large AMP-Ty[pe (not actually AMP brand) drive connectors are really
crapy quaility and after say 5+ insertions, the cheap contacts lose
their "sping back"...meaning the connections are poor and subject to
intermittants....

This I've seen with virtually all brand PSU units.... IMHO

 

[Glen]

how much equipment can a 420W ps support?
i've got

cd
video card (fan on it)
7 fans on the case
4 hard drives (2 sata, mirrored)
floppy
front light on the case
side light on the case

it seems something either has a loose wire, or a connection to a
drive is either overloaded or something... b/c if you move a wire or
cable, you can hear a drive click, spin down then up....
so i want to be sure the thing isn't overloaded, then troubleshoot bad
wires

I've got the following running off a 420W OCZ PowerStream
(modified/rebadged Tagan):

Abit IC7-G Max II motherboard
3.0GHz P4 Northwood @ 3.75GHz (250 FSB 1:1)
2 x 1024GB Corsair XL's 2.5-3-3-6
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
4 x 36GB Seagate X15's (15K SCSI)
2 x DVD drives, one reader and one writer
Adaptec 39160 SCSI controller card
Hauppauge PVR-150 MPEG2 encoder card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz audio card
11 fans (assortment of case, drives, cpu, video and chipset)
Floppy drive

The power requirement of this hardware is 320W, just the CPU
and video take over half that total. The PowerStream isn't even
breathing hard and never budges more than .05V on any of its
rails. With your setup 420W should be more than adequate.

 

[bob]

I've looked on newegg and a few other places, but believe it or not,
am having a pain trying to find extension power connectors and Y
connectors..

anyone have a good site?
I'd like to replace some of the Y's (i think i have 1 or 2)
and also just some straight through power cables, for things that
aren't long enouigh, to get them down to reach other devices

 

[Bill]

I've looked on newegg and a few other places, but believe it or not,
am having a pain trying to find extension power connectors and Y
connectors..

anyone have a good site?

<snip>

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=Go&DEPA=0
&type=&description=power+cable&Category=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0
&Go.y=0

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q1E726B4C

Several in there.

Bill

 

[justindavid]

how much equipment can a 420W ps support?
i've got

cd
video card (fan on it)
7 fans on the case
4 hard drives (2 sata, mirrored)
floppy
front light on the case
side light on the case

it seems something either has a loose wire, or a connection to a
drive is either overloaded or something... b/c if you move a wire or
cable, you can hear a drive click, spin down then up....
so i want to be sure the thing isn't overloaded, then troubleshoot bad
wires

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/Power_Supply_Calculator.php?cmd=INTEL

This site will help you calculate the amount of power you need in
order to run your equipment and works for both Intel and AMD cpus

 

[bob]

Wow
awesome tool. exactly what i was looking for...

420WPs, but per that page, I am taking up 332W
so i guess based on that i'm ok