Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

I can't believe it! Paul missed a workout! Wow!

What Graphics cards do you have. I'm sure

you've looked into the increased voltage to have enough airflow and enough watts that your power supply can handle it?

We'll find out if my power supply can handle it! :-)

The cards are 2xGeForce 6600GT PCI-E 128MB SLI. My power supply is 450W. I'm also running 4x1gb RAM, 2x250gb SATA drives, 1xDVD RW, and an AMD 3800 X2 CPU. My case has pretty good airflow, with a side fan and a rear fan (and a fair bit of empty space left). Plus the new GPU has a custom heat sink. I'm more worried about power supply than heat, but so far so good on the power.

If it's not enough juice, do you think the PS will just quit on me, or is it more of a slow death? Any warning signs I should look for? Like my motherboard exploding?

I think when PS lacks power the whole system just won't power up. I've never seen anything worse in my experience, but I am not a professional sysadmin in charge of a lot of hardware. And I try not to do hardware magic if I can avoid it.

Yeah, fortunately desktop hardware these days is usually plug 'n' play. I panicked a little last night because I thought I blew the power supply (little green light went out and PS was making weird noise), but it turns out that the motherboard somehow got unplugged from the PS.

What brand of power supply is it? Antec Smart Power supplies are one of the best, and if you do end up having to go with a new one I would go with this model. They are a little more expensive, but if you have high priced components inside your system it doesn't make sense to purchase just anything off the self. I bet you do have a good power supply based on your hardware list.

Usually each PCI slot where you have graphic cards, sound etc will take up about 10 to 15 watts or less. Monitors usually take up between 35 to even 80 watts if your using an old CRT monitor.

Here's a good site to calculation your wattage for your computer (below). If you ever have any hardware questions feel free to contact me. Your running advice has always helped me and I can always help in this way.

http://www.journeysystems.com/?powercalc

Keep an eye out for any type of strange behavior. I've seen bad/overdrawn PS cause spontaneous reboots, BSODs, HDD data/partition loss and similar "weird" behavior; usually, because you're running right on the ragged edge of the PS capabilities.

Some motherboards come equipped with some kind of health app that'll allow you to watch the PS voltages over time....they can be useful in detecting PS issues as often the voltages will fluctuate quite a bit. I've got an Asus MB that has such an app....don't know about other MBs.

I'm with wheakory on the PS thing. Cheap 450w PS aren't worth what a quality 350w PS is, as they often aren't reliable enough to produce steady voltages over time.

Thanks for the tips. It's an ASUS board, so I'll check if it has a monitoring application. Indeed, my PS is a cheapo, but it's performed perfectly for over two years now.

Kory, thanks for the calculator link. It looks like I'm in the clear, at least on paper (requiring about 350W). New PS is probably next on my list regardless.

I've got an older Asus MB, but the utility was called "Asus Probe", and I got it from their website if memory serves:

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Yes, I believe I have ASUS Probe. I'll take a look. Thanks.

What version of windows are you using?

ASUS, is a brand of motherboards that are very well constructed and reliable. It should have a probe with it to monitor your system. I would also check to see if your Bios needs to be updated too for the motherboard.

Your welcome.

Dale - how much voltage fluctuation is considered "quite a bit"? I do have ASUS probe, and everything looks pretty steady. The probe will supposedly alert me if any of the voltages get past a threshold 10% +/- normal values.

You guys are getting of topic - HELLO "FASTRUNNINGBLOG!!!"

Michelle- when are we ever on topic for long?

Paul - I saw a computer where the 12v line was running between 10.8 and 11.2....that's my quite a bit reference. Mine are never off more than .1 from the reference voltage. I don't know of a set threshold...I think it depends on your specific components and how reliant they are on steady power.

I'd stick with the default +/- 10% values built into the probe unless you start seeing other problems. From what you said, it doesn't sound like you're near the max wattage on your PS, so in all likelihood you're good to go.

MichelleL - This *is* on topic. If we don't get Paul's computer up and running again, he's could possibly miss more runs. We can't stand idly by and let that happen, can we???

Dale - thanks again. Looks like it's all pretty tight (11.8-11.9 for 12V, even tighter for the others) no matter what I do (turn on external drives, plug in my Garmin, etc.).

Since I'm injured and can't run, this is about as "on-topic" as I can get. Gotta waste time somehow. If not by running, then by working too much during the day and then tinkering with computers when I get home.

I understand. 10% off the 12v line is probably too much....I'd start getting concerned if it got down to 11.5, but to my layman's ears, it sounds like yours is good.

Now if only we could make working on computers aerobic......oh wait!

http://www.squidoo.com/walkingwhileworking

Are you getting a new car?

Jon - Huh?

Actually, this is a very useful thread! In fact, I think I'm going to print it out and read it if I ever have difficulty sleeping. Nothing puts me into alpha mode as quickly as reading computerese.

Dale, is right your PC will start to behave strange if power supply wattage limit is close. Sudden reboots are a real sign that the power supply may have issues. Your disk drive receiving errors on startup that it can't find the "primary controller" is one I've seen that can deal with power supply issues, but not all the time.

I don't know, that's what James said.

http://monaflash.fastrunningblog.com/blog-Early-morning-run-up-300-North-in-AF-nb/02-08-2008.html