PC Peripherals Budget SMPS suggestion

O

ontherocks

Disciple
Specifications

Processor - AMD AM2 Athlon 64 x2

Motherboard - Foxconn MPC61SM-AM

Memory - 4GB DDR2

External Graphics - ATI Radeon HD5450

Hard Disks - 1. Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB (WD6400AAKS), 2. Hitachi Deskstar 250GB (T7K250), 3. Samsung 80GB (SP0842N)

Optical Drive - Sony DVD+RW (DW-Q30A)

Budget - Rs.2000

Thanks
 
ggt said:
I think an FSP saga II 350W @1.5k should suffice. :)
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Thanks for the suggestion.

ATI mentions in the Radeon HD5450 system requirements, to use a PSU 400Watts or greater. Should it be fine if I use FSP saga II 350W?
 
The Max power draw for the HD 5450 as listed on GPUReview is 20W : ATi Radeon HD 5450 Video Card - Reviews, Specifications, and Pictures - GPUReview.com

The rest of your rig will have a peak of ~150W. So technically you should be ok even with a 250W PSU.

I assume ATI mentions 400W as a safe reference, since they assume the rest of your system (CPU, motherboard, hard drives) might be power hungry; or they're taking into account generic power supplies, which in the real world deliver far less than their 400W spec.

---

As bottle says, mention a budget, since usually for a few hundred bucks extra you can step up to something a bit better and more future proof should you plan to upgrade to more power hungry components.
 
Crazy_Eddy said:
The Max power draw for the HD 5450 as listed on GPUReview is 20W : ATi Radeon HD 5450 Video Card - Reviews, Specifications, and Pictures - GPUReview.com

The rest of your rig will have a peak of ~150W. So technically you should be ok even with a 250W PSU.
Click to expand...

The system is basically an ACER Aspire T180. It came with a stock FSP ATX-250PA (250 W) PSU. This is what I have currently.

Everything used to run fine earlier. But the moment I plug in Radeon HD5450 and boot the machine, the DVD drive goes in a loop, making clicking noises, as if trying to read a CD/DVD, even though there is no optical media in it (exactly the way what happens when an optical drive keeps trying to read a damaged CD/DVD). This loop carries on for two minutes after which the system boots to Windows. I replaced it with another working DVD drive and the same thing happened.

I took out the Radeon HD5450 and everything ran fine as before. Hence I have come to believe that the stock 250 Watts PSU is not able to supply enough power to the system with Radeon HD5450 plugged in.

Budget - Rs.2000
 
Thats odd. Could be an ageing power supply.

Just to rule out anything else, try unplugging 2 hard drives and leaving just the OS drive. That should free up some power for the GPU.
 
The problem that you have mentioned looks more like a motherboard problem to me... Well i would advise you to reset the bios and after resetting the bios change the 1st boot priority from CD Rom to HDD... Doing this i think may solve you problem...
 
Hades. said:
The problem that you have mentioned looks more like a motherboard problem to me... Well i would advise you to reset the bios and after resetting the bios change the 1st boot priority from CD Rom to HDD... Doing this i think may solve you problem...
Click to expand...
That was the first thing I tried. Strangely, it doesn't matter on the boot priority. Even if hard disk is set as 1st priority, it still seems to go in loops to search for a CD/DVD while booting.
The only thing that rectifies the problem is if I remove ATI Radeon HD5450. :(
 
try using it without your DVD rw.

its should be most probably the SMPS not providing enough power supply.

or may be the the data cable for your writer.
 
The SMPS is not providing enough power to the system. The FSP SMPS which comes with your system may be having an efficiency of around 70% (I have seen an FSP SMPS in one of my friend's system ). At 70% it can provide only 175watts.

So you should go for any of the above mentioned SMPS ( Gigabyte/FSP/Corsair). ALL these are rated at 80% and above efficiency.

The Latest version of Corsair CX430 is 80Plus certified.( Builder Series )
 
Crazy_Eddy said:
Thats odd. Could be an ageing power supply.

Just to rule out anything else, try unplugging 2 hard drives and leaving just the OS drive. That should free up some power for the GPU.
Click to expand...

I counted the number of tries the DVD undertakes to search for a optical media when the computer boots with no media in it.
When it goes in a loop, number of tries = 8
When it behaves normally, number of tries = 2

Following are the results of some experimentation

1. Removed all hard disks except the one with OS - DVD drive goes in loop
2. Replaced DVD drive with another working DVD drive - new DVD drive goes in loop
3. Both the above steps together - DVD drive goes in loop
4. Put back all hard disks and older DVD drive, removed Radeon HD5450 - DVD works fine as it should

Culprit is Radeon HD5450 confirmed. Though it typically consumes 19.1Watts power, not sure why 250Watts PSU is not enough for the system even considering 70% efficiency.
Or may be its not be a problem with PSU at all. May be a system with Radeon HD5450 behaves this way? Any ideas?
 
Does the system work fine once it goes through these cycles and enters Windows? Is the system itself restarting, or only the dvd drive?

@tumula: Efficiency isn't calculated that way. A 250W PSU will still deliver its rated 250W (ideally), irrespective of efficiency.

Efficiency just refers to how much power is drawn from the A/C socket to generate that 250W.

An 80% efficient PSU draws 250 x (100/80) = 312.5W

A 70% efficient PSU draws 250 x (100/70) = ~357W.
 
Crazy_Eddy said:
Does the system work fine once it goes through these cycles and enters Windows? Is the system itself restarting, or only the dvd drive?
Click to expand...
Yes, once it boots into Windows after the cycles (whether 8 or 2), everything runs fine after that.

There three things that I am concerned about

1. Waiting for a longer time to boot is very irritating.
2. The extra unnecessary loops that the DVD drive goes into, may reduce its life or damage it.
3. Even if everything works fine (or seems to work fine) after booting into Windows, if the SMPS is incapable/faulty the lifetime of components may reduce or get damaged.
 
you system might be exceeding the total amp that the psu can deliver on its 12v rails. once you exceed that specification, you will get problems in hardware.

can you post here a pic of the psu wattage breakdown that is normally printed on a psu? Looks like this



Uploaded with ImageShack.us
 
6pack have a look at this:-

muzux2 said:
There is a general misconception regarding the graphic cards have its own amperage rating given by manufacturer and accordingly needs a PSU that can handle the card. There is no such thing, what the manufacturers want to convey is that your system (prolly a PSU) should be capable of delivering 25A to be on safe safe. In other words, 25A is an amperage meant for whole system and not for a single card. let me clear here

TDP of HD6850 is 125W, use P=VA

125 = 12*A

A = ~ 10.5

The card will utilize only ~ 10.5A on 100% load (say with Furmark). It has been seen that, gaming stresses the card up to 80%. So, your card will utilize only ~ 8.4A from CX400 while gaming.

I'd say CX400 will surely handle your system with ease. :)
Click to expand...
originally posted by muzux
 
6pack said:
can you post here a pic of the psu wattage breakdown that is normally printed on a psu? L
Click to expand...
Here it is

b5054l.jpg
 
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