New A64 problems - psu not enough?

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:15 am

Been struggling with my new A64 (3200) and the ASUS K8V mb. After many failed attempts with a new seagate 80 gb ata drive I tried a seagate 120gb ata drive. Things seemed to be fine until I started copying a backup image (2gb) to a network drive and when I came back the pc had rebooted and couldn't find a hd. I went into bios and the hd was missing. Luckily XP came back up after I powered down but it still makes me think something is wrong.

I now wonder about my Antec 330 psu. It's the first time I'm using a 12 volt connector. I only have the 120 gb hd, a sapphire 9600xt, and a dvd burner in the machine. I thought 330w would be plenty but I'm not sure. The only reason I suspect the psu is that when copying a large file again I noticed that things sounded different, almost as if there was some pulsing going on.

Normally I just go with a good name brand psu. I have no clue when it comes to rails and the numbers you guys throw around. I'm also at a loss as to how to test this. On the one hand I need to know now (before I get everything else loaded) but I'd also hate to corrupt the drive (which is what happened with the first drive) and have to re-install XP again. So ...

1) Could this be a psu problem?
2) What is a good psu range for the A64? (didn't see a recommendation at AMD website)
3) How can I test this if it's a psu problem.

FWIW, I'm not doing any o/c junk. I also have an old Enermax 365w psu I can use (but it's loud).

nicov · Post by **nicov** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:35 am

I've had similar problems with an Asus K8V motherboard. The problem first manifested itself by dropped network connections when copying a large amount of data over the network, followed by not finding the hard disk after rebooting. Even rebooting didn't always make the network connection work again. I returned the motherboard and had similar stability problems with the replacement motherboard. I replaced all components (including buying a second A64) but still no reliable operation. I now had enough spare parts to build 2 new PCs!. In the end, I gave up trying to make the Asus motherboard work, bought 2 MSI motherboards instead, and I now have 2 A64 machines that work flawlessly.
I would suspect the Asus motherboard, not the power supply.

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:26 am

Sounds very similar to my experience. I'm really not happy to hear this though (for obvious reasons). ASUS was always viewed as top quality in my mind.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

TD22057 · Post by **TD22057** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:37 am

Well - I had the same type of problems but with an MSI K8T board. I had random crashes and CD-ROM reading errors using an old Enermax 350W PSU. When I switch the PSU to the Nexus 4090, my problems went away. It's only 50W more but it has a lot more current available on the 12V rail.

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 12:11 pm

Well, can anyone suggest a way for me to test my psu? I have MBM but I have no clue what numbers to look at. I can find the reading for 12v but I don't have a feel for what is acceptable and what isn't.

I'm wondering if it's the board or the psu. I think SATA drives require more power and most seem to be using SATA in RAID on this board. I should be fine with even 3 regular IDE HD drives.

lm · Post by lm » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:33 pm

PretzelB wrote:I'm wondering if it's the board or the psu. I think SATA drives require more power and most seem to be using SATA in RAID on this board. I should be fine with even 3 regular IDE HD drives.

SATA or not, hdds take about 10W each.

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:49 pm

lm wrote:
PretzelB wrote:I'm wondering if it's the board or the psu. I think SATA drives require more power and most seem to be using SATA in RAID on this board. I should be fine with even 3 regular IDE HD drives.
SATA or not, hdds take about 10W each.

Good to know. I thought there was a difference. Thanks for clearing it up.

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:20 pm

lm wrote:
PretzelB wrote:I'm wondering if it's the board or the psu. I think SATA drives require more power and most seem to be using SATA in RAID on this board. I should be fine with even 3 regular IDE HD drives.
SATA or not, hdds take about 10W each.

Yes, that's true. But also bear in mind at boot up when the drives first spin up, max load can be as much as 30 Watts per drive to spin the drive up.

Check out the manufacturers specs. Here are the specs for one of the popular samsung spinpoint drives for example, but they're all pretty much the same:

http://www.samsungusa.com/cgi-bin/nabc/ ... ifications

Ned

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:15 pm

There was a thread a short while back with a similar problem. We tentatively concluded that Seagate SATA 120GB drives and Antec PSUs don't get along very well, whatever the power capacity of the PSU.

Could you list the exact model and number of your drives and the exact model of your Antec PSU.

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:27 am

The psu is the Antec True Power 330w. I'll have to get back on the seagate drive(s). They're nothing special just the run of the mill 7200 IDE drives that are on sale a lot lately.

I had another incident where the bios failed to see the drive even after a few reboots. I replaced the IDE cable (second one I've replaced) and haven't seen a problem. I even re-formatted the 80gb seagate and put it back on the ide chain. I've run some hdtach tests and copied some large files around trying to recreate the problem but so far it's stable. I'd like to think it was the ide cable but those things take so much abuse I find it hard to believe I picked TWO bad ones in a row out of my vast collection.

I will get back with more information on the drives later. Is there any other information I should look up? Maybe a reading from MBM?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:37 am

Hello:

I caught this thread just yesterday, and it causes me to realize that the two machines that my clients have (that use the K8V Deluxe), that have had HD problems may not be flukes!

One had both (Samsung SATA) drives in a RAID 1 array fail -- one totally and the other just would not boot. The other machine had a RAID 1 failure, where one of the drives died. AND this second machine has a network/print spooling error when plotting several copies of 24"x36" drawing sheets...I am quite worried now!

Both these were built by a local shop, and it looks like I may be rebuilding one or both with new motherboards. The second is using a not-so-good Antec case and the HD's were running rather hot, as well. The first was in a BQE (because I insisted).

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:45 am

Gahhh. Just when I try to relax I get more bad news.

I do remember reading about problems with SATA and raid with this board over at the old amdmb.com forum. It shouldn't apply to my setup since I'm not on SATA.

Worst part is that I don't know what to do to recreate the problem. With cpu or video issues you can run some tests and figure out when things are fixed. In this case, I have no idea why the drives suddenly disappeared so I can't really move on.

I used to always recommend either ABIT or ASUS to my friends. ABIT keeps putting noisy fans on their boards so I switched to ASUS. Now I wonder if I need to reconsider that.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:46 am

Two days ago I started getting serious VGA problems. The VGA driver would crash and turn to software rendering for apparently no reason. First I suspected inadequate cooling so I turned on the VGA Silencer to high. Still it crashed. So I suspected the modified drivers, uninstalled the FreeFireGL drivers, returned to the Omega drivers, still crashes. Uninstalled those and returned to SP2 Microsoft drivers. Still crashes. In anger, I completely reinstalled Windows. Still crashes.

Then, with premonition I changed the PSU to my beatup Vantec (I had switched to the Acousti modded Antec 380s to use the fan-only outs two days ago) and everything works perfectly.

This setup just does not like Antec PSUs. With the SmartPower 350, the drives would not spin up. With the TruePower 380s, the graphics crashed. I ran the same system with a 300W Fortron with no problems for three weeks.

I'm done with Antec PSUs, I advise you all to check your PSUs first.

Athlon64 3000 w/ Zalman 7000B, 2x512 OCZ ram, 2x120 Seagate Sata hdd, Nec 2510 DVDRW, Radeon 9700 w/ ACVS, 3700AMB case with 2x120 Nexus fans.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:59 pm

Hello:

I have an update on one of the two machines with the Asus K8V Deluxe mobo's: The SATA cables that Asus ships are crap! They fit so loosely, it's a wonder that they work at all...

So, when using the Asus-supplied cables, the computer crashed hard when just sitting there, and then failed to even POST, it now boots and runs and is stable, though it has been just two days -- time will tell if the fix is "permanent".