[SoupSandwich]

I'm in the process of building a semi-high end computer.

Particularly aimed at gaming/mutli-tasking.

Here's the specs:

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800
2 Gigs DDR400 (PC3200) of Corsair RAM
E-Vga GeForce 7800GTX 256MB
Creative Sound Blaster XF-i Platinum
Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 150Gb HD
Plextor 2MB Buffer DVD+-R/RW (I wanted 8MB Buffer but they didn't have it)

Here's the story:
I originally wanted the Coolermaster CM Stacker 830, but I couldn't find the case anywhere. So I went to Best Buy and bought me an Antec case that included a 350w Power Supply. So after I installed everything, which took me forever, I go to turn on the case and *BOOM!* a loud zap/explosion came from my power supply (PSU) and smoke started coming from it. At this point I was like "Oh no's!" and went to go unplug my computer. Soom my room started smelling like crap.

So right now I have a few questions I hope some soompi geniuses out there can help me answer.

1) Obviously, 350w of a power supply isn't enough to cut it. I want to know how big of a power supply should I get? 500w? 600w? 1000w?

2) T_T Is my motherboard/graphics card/RAM/HD/DVD-Rom/Etc ok? I hope when the psu went out it didn't destroy anything else.

I'm on newegg.com and right now getting ready to order the Silverstone 600w power supply. I just need people's input.

[awdark]

Silverstone... um let me direct you to this forum.. http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=93
the stickies at the top... especially http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1000883 might be useful for you. Sounds like a Silverstone would be a decent brand to buy.

First, let me direct some profanity to you insulting your intelligence and logic... (insert intelligence insulting comments here)

Okay now that we took care of the insults... what were you thinking?
A single AMD core easily pulls 85 watts... dual core thats 170 watts. That 7800 easily eats another 100+ watts. Ram is about 50watts or so. You have the god-like raptors and they are KNOWN to use lots of power... SLI motherboard, so you have a Nforce4SLI mobo.. those typically recomend a nice 24pin 400+ watt PSU... I think if I were to get one I would get a Sparkle, Fortron, or OCZ powerstream 510... If I had an endless budget, PCpower and cooling 510 SLI.

You would easily pull 300 watts from the CPU and video card alone... 350 watt PSUs don't actually output 350 watts at normal temperatures... I think they average 50 watts less. I hope the PSU at least had a 24pin ATX connector... if it did, you get a few bonus logic points if not... more insults... Nforce4 motherboards want ATX 2.0 powersuppilies with 24 pins... Most 350watt ones are ATX 1.1 with 20 pins... Please dont tell me you used the 4pin 12v connector for the extra 4 pins... that makes instant toast.

Possible losses...
Most of the time people seem to loose at most the motherboard and video card. The CPU and ram tend to be saved by the motherboard. So you might be out $400 right now...

gaah I mean you even spent the funds for a Plextor!!! I can only afford Liteons... Okay okay, I have a Pioneer now but thats because I killed so many optical drives... but Plextor?! those drives are in a class of their own... DOUBLE what my Pioneer 109 cost me..

[SoupSandwich]

Haha you know the funny and stupid thing is? I KNEW I didn't have enough power. Haha. But here was my logic... "Alright, I don't have enough power. What's the worst that can happen? It won't start up? It'll take a few tries to start..." I never really thought that the psu would blow up from LACK of power... but.. it did.. so now I definitely feel you when you say I'm an idiot. Haha.

I do have my warrenties and what not. So it's all good. I can always exchange.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/

Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated. After doing that, they calculated I need about 540. So I'm getting a 600 one, I should be pretty well taken care of.

Thanks again.

[CK92842]

I had some extra spending cash a few months ago and purchased the Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT. Then I managed to find this interesting article on Tom's Hardware, I'm just glad that my PSU was listed.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/07/5_p...ment/index.html

[NASRI22]

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800
2 Gigs DDR400 (PC3200) of Corsair RAM
E-Vga GeForce 7800GTX 256MB
Creative Sound Blaster XF-i Platinum
Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 150Gb HD
Plextor 2MB Buffer DVD+-R/RW (I wanted 8MB Buffer but they didn't have it)

wow.. you will need something with at least 35A on the 12v Rail... get soemthing like a Antec Smartpower 2.0 500w.. ti's got 2X 12V Rail lines.. with 19A on each.. so thats 38A... not bad. that will enogh to run your computer.

but if you want to spend more.. i suggest a Enermax Liberty 620W.. with EPS 2.0.. and 3 12v rail lines.. you cant lose! but you gotta spend over $200AU..

or you could spend $1000 on one of those 65A on 3x 12v rail power supplies... it's like 700w or soemthing.. weighs a kilo.. woudlnt want that hanging in your comptuer O.o

[SoupSandwich]

Ahh thanks for the input guys, you've been a great help. This is what I went with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16817163109

Specifications

Model
Brand SILVERSTONE
Model SST-ST60F

SPEC
Type ATX
Maximum Power 600W
Fans 1
PFC Active
Main Connector 20+4-Pin
Dual +12V Yes
SLI Support NVIDIA SLI Certified
Modular Cabling Support Yes
Efficiency 75.80%
Over Voltage Protection YES
Overload Protection YES
Input Voltage 90 - 264V
Input Frequency Range 47 - 63Hz
Output +3.3V@33A, +5V@24A, +12V1@13A, +12V2@18A, +12V3@16A, +12V4@8A, -12V@0.5A, +5VSB@2A
MTBF 100,000 hours at 25°C, full load
Warranty
Manufacturer Warranty Quad +12V rail for superior performance
Modular cables include dual PCI-E
Powerful & quiet running 120mm fan
Industrial class components
Support for ATX 12V 2.01 & EPS 12V

[doom89757]

Y everybody here like to use AMD processors??

[awdark]

Intel Celeron price for P4 and better performance. Logical buy.

[doom89757]

But AMD tends to heat up rite, & if it over heat the processor sure spoil rite, unless u have a very good cooling system or u put it in the air-con room, but wat if u have to on ur pc for a week??
Can AMD with stand it??

[Dachink]

just get a PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI

[awdark]

But AMD tends to heat up rite, & if it over heat the processor sure spoil rite, unless u have a very good cooling system or u put it in the air-con room, but wat if u have to on ur pc for a week??
Can AMD with stand it??

Um... you must have read about the time where the guy unhooked the heatsink from the motherboard and it melted...

Thats not an issue now, they all have thermal protection and I believe most shut down automatically at 85C.

Heat? Um... Intel Prescott chips (someone correct me if I am wrong) were known as griddles. Many often joked about frying eggs on those CPUs.

My AMD overclocked by 750mhz is at 80f right now. Its as normal as any other CPU out there...

[beaver4ever]

dang..guys....wat u guys made of money? Prolly the type that blow their nose..with money..haha J/k. Just out of curiousity...how much does a system like that cost? Just a rough estimate...would be nice. I want a power computer ..in the future..too..but ..i have no clue on how to build a computer...from start to finish. I've only touched the basic things (ie) ram, Video Cards, Heatsinks,fans. Is there hope for a computer newb like me..to build my own computer? sorry for asking another question in ur topic SOUP.

[NASRI22]

Ahh thanks for the input guys, you've been a great help. This is what I went with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16817163109

Specifications

Model
Brand SILVERSTONE
Model SST-ST60F

SPEC
Type ATX
Maximum Power 600W
Fans 1
PFC Active
Main Connector 20+4-Pin
Dual +12V Yes
SLI Support NVIDIA SLI Certified
Modular Cabling Support Yes
Efficiency 75.80%
Over Voltage Protection YES
Overload Protection YES
Input Voltage 90 - 264V
Input Frequency Range 47 - 63Hz
Output +3.3V@33A, +5V@24A, +12V1@13A, +12V2@18A, +12V3@16A, +12V4@8A, -12V@0.5A, +5VSB@2A
MTBF 100,000 hours at 25°C, full load
Warranty
Manufacturer Warranty Quad +12V rail for superior performance
Modular cables include dual PCI-E
Powerful & quiet running 120mm fan
Industrial class components
Support for ATX 12V 2.01 & EPS 12V

nice! 4 12V rail lines!! =D.. taht will support SLI with 7900GTX anyday.

[n4n45h1]

you might wanna get a larger hd since theres the fujitsu 300gb one that has 10k rpm if u really need speed you could raid it and it should work just fine
also the power supply should be good at anything between 600-1000
above thats just..sorta overdoing it for your computer if u dont have anything other than that

[awdark]

dang..guys....wat u guys made of money? Prolly the type that blow their nose..with money..haha J/k. Just out of curiousity...how much does a system like that cost? Just a rough estimate...would be nice. I want a power computer ..in the future..too..but ..i have no clue on how to build a computer...from start to finish. I've only touched the basic things (ie) ram, Video Cards, Heatsinks,fans. Is there hope for a computer newb like me..to build my own computer? sorry for asking another question in ur topic SOUP.

Rough guestimates.
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Mobo - $160
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800 - $626
2 Gigs DDR400 (PC3200) of Corsair RAM ~ $50/stick probably more for the ram he has.
E-Vga GeForce 7800GTX 256MB - $415
Creative Sound Blaster XF-i Platinum - $180
Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 150Gb HD $280 each
Plextor 2MB Buffer DVD+-R/RW (I wanted 8MB Buffer but they didn't have it) - $100
new PSU $170
-----------------------------------
$2411 before shipping and taxes... not including the case either.

nice! 4 12V rail lines!! =D.. taht will support SLI with 7900GTX anyday.

Godly isn't it?

I want you CPU!!! I dont care if I have a super overclocker I am very suprised you were able to get yourself to push the button under the price/power conditions... My cpu is worth at most $200-270 Opty 146

[NASRI22]

Godly isn't it?

I want you CPU!!! I dont care if I have a super overclocker I am very suprised you were able to get yourself to push the button under the price/power conditions... My cpu is worth at most $200-270 Opty 146

its how you say.. "el_godlike"

opty146?? i was going to buy one.. but i changed to get a 144.. a bit cheaper..
does it overclock well? my mate has his 170 @ 3GHz now.. 10hours prime stable.

[awdark]

146 has a better multi.. has a 10x instead of 9x (144 is 9x right?)

Mine hits 2.75 at I believe .1 volts below normal... I have read that it should be able to hit 3.1 if my motherboard would let me go past the 274 HTT and bump the voltages up .1 or so.

[SoupSandwich]

Yeah it took me a while to bring myself to push check out.

"I dont really need this... Screw it, new toy!!"

[NASRI22]

146 has a better multi.. has a 10x instead of 9x (144 is 9x right?)

Mine hits 2.75 at I believe .1 volts below normal... I have read that it should be able to hit 3.1 if my motherboard would let me go past the 274 HTT and bump the voltages up .1 or so.

wow thats good. not bad price diff though $20 or $30.
cant believe peopel can get 146's to 3.2ghz on water.. =/ . normal athlons dont push that much

[boka]

dam, it almost seems like optys clock > 3 left and right these days. i think one day i'll try and make my 4400 do 2.5 - 2.7 on stock HS & switched fan (i just found out the stock HS is comparable to an xp-90 so i decided not to get better cooling). haven't gotten around to doing much though.

lol how did this thread turn into an oc discussion?