Is my power supply adequate or should I upgrade?

[muxman]

I have an AMD 64 3500+ 1GB RAM 300GB HDD wireless PCI card and with a PVR-500 running on a 350W power supply.

I'm using BeyondTV and was recording with both tuners while watching another video file. The computer just shut off as if the plug was pulled. No crashed software or anything like that, it just was on one second and off the next. The system is on an APC UPS so it wasn't the current to the computer. I've used this computer for months and it's never had a problem like this, it's the first time it's ever happened.

How much power does the PVR-500 require? Would the 350W be the issue? Is it not enough of a power supply for this computer with this hardware in it? I'm thinking this is possible and I should probably get a 400W-500W power supply.

Or does this sound like something else? Is it something that others have experienced and fixed?

Any thoughts?

[sportz103]

300-400W should be plenty for that system. Keep in mind though that low quality power supplies list wattage as the maximum they CAN deliver, high-end ones list the maximum they can SUSTAIN. Not all wattages are the same.

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
That is a PSU calculator, might help

[Bigbird999]

I wouldn't worry about it unless it keeps happening. Here is a link http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp to a PSU calculator. Google and you will find lots more. Take the results with a grain of salt as most of these calculators are provided by PSU companies that want to sell you a bigger one. . Unless you have a real power hungry video card and lots of drives, 350 W should be fine. Both my BTV machines have sub 400 watt PSUs

If it happens again, check that your cpu fan and case fan is running/not clogged with dust. Overheating can cause sudden shutdowns.

BB

[Fickey]

I had a similar problem, it turned out my bus was overclocked by 10% which was conflicting with AMD's Cool'n'Quiet. Once I backed out the OC in the bios, all was well. Also, I have nothing to back this up other than my own suspicion, but I think I may have caused my system to reboot once or twice by demanding too much simultaneous read/write from my media drive. Finally, you may be able to somewhat recover from similar problems in the future by enabling "restart on power fail" (or similar) in your bios.

[Jakesty]

Eventhough your PSU may have the supposed power for your system, generally it's the quality of the unit which fails under load. For your system, you should have more than enough headroom, but remember these inefficient units run at less than 80%, probably closer to 70% efficiency. 350watts x 70% = 245 watts. Again, should be more than enough, but an off-brand or el-cheapo PSU can't handle loads very well.
When looking for a decent PSU, find one with "Active" power. These are the 80-85% efficient units. They run cooler, use less electricity, generally have better dedicated power to each rail. Antec makes a Trupower Trio 380 which may fit your needs well. I went with the 450 due to the amount of drives, fans, and tuners I wanted.

HTH, Jake

[muxman]

The power supply is the one that came with the computer and is an el cheapo. I just ordered an Ultra 500W PSU and should have it by the weekend. I've been using Ultra for a while and they've always done well for me.

I have the same thing in my server running with 5 HDD's and according to the UPS it's on it only draws about 200W so there's plenty there for this PVR computer.

My plans to upgrade will be another dual tuner card and maybe another HDD sometime in the near future, so 500W should be plenty for that system and then some.