Processor Problem

[VictorKaum]

It's not only the power in watts that counts, but more the quality, read stability on the various 12v and 5v leads. Antec has very good reputation and I bet an Antec 350w can easily outperform generic 350w powersupplies.

About the power question, with todays high performance graphic cards a good powersupply is essiantial, those 6800's and X800's are real hungry. For other purposes everything around 350 or 380w is more than enough.

[Tim_axe]

Your issue could be a Power Supply issue, or a processor issue. I don't know how a motherboard boots without a CPU, or what error codes come up. Find a known-good and powerful powersupply and see if it boots. Hopefully it will solve your problem.


Antec is a good brand, but they also have their own generic powersupplies. You are safe if you buy a TruePower or NeoPower, but anything else is just as bad as the generic powersupplies from other companies. Usually the cheap 450watt PSU's all operate with marketing numbers. It will never reach that power output because of how they calculated it. Generally, they keep the PSU at well refergirated temperatures to increase effeciency and power output, and they test rails one at a time until the powersupply blows up. They add the blowing point for each rail up to get their final number. There is no way it has any more power for the other rails when the powersupply decides to crap itself, so the number is all marketing (who has a PSU at 32 degree F?). Generally, running a PSU near its rated output reduces effeciency and causes its insides to get hot and more ineffecient and instable. So a safety space is needed.

If you want to see a factor in China where most PSU's are built - check this link out - http://66.58.10.5/images/psufactory/psu_factory.html


Of course, not everyone really needs a whole truck load of power, and many times the cheap powersupply will make a Celeron system happy. But I wouldn't trust it to my overclocked Dual CPU machine. My power-requirements pretty much begin at 300watts when my computer sits idle (which is rarely does). When it is Folding@Home and playing games, the requirements go insane. My (parent's) electric bills reflect this. At LAN parties, the 20amp circuits start blowing once I boot up. My monitor takes probably 1.5amps from a 120volt circuit (~180watts), and my computer takes about 3.5 amps (~400watts). Which is why I have a Vantec Stealth 520watt PSU, which is a heavy and fairly expensive beast. (I wish I could afford PC Power and Cooling though...)

[The Duck]

Or maybe your mobo supports 1mb cache but maybe 3.0 gigs processor is to much for it, see if your mobo can support that speed...